Justin C.
Yelp
I'll keep saying it, yelp needs half star options. This is a great example of a need for a 3.5.
First off, this place is beautiful. Right on campus, the building, everything, absolutely beautiful.
Food:
-butcher board - consisted of duck pastrami which was fine, it was almost overcured/cooked; terrine which needed something; duck and chicken liver mouse which was fine; seasonal jam which was good. this was just a meh dish
-bread - pretty good, butter was fine, the presentation of the grocery store oil was odd though, surprised they do not use better quality oil.
-Lamb - pretty decent, cooked correctly, nice presentation, flavor was good, the pickled seasonal vegetables were a joke though, there were only three extremely small pickled pieces
-Hanger steak - cooked well, could use a PINCH more salt/pepper, potatos were good, the local mushrooms were quite good
-Duck - again, cooked well, seasoned well, overall, pretty good
Service:
Okay, this is where things got, weird. Hostess, nice, friendly, did their job. We sat for about 10 minutes and then menus and water was brought to us. We were informed by Dale (who was amazing) that our waiter was extremely backed up, and he would be helping out just a bit although he does more back stuff, no big deal. Dale put on a great face, answered any question there was (only two), and came to check on us. After we placed out order after looking over the menu for a few minutes, Dale took our order. 3 minutes later, our supposed main waiter came over to apologize, told us he was backed up/overwhelmed, and hope Dale was doing everything he could. Ok, not end of the world. Where things got weird was hearing our main server (I wrote this on the feedback form, and will leave his name out of it here) is that he told the table next to us he had just got out of the bathroom (seriously, not one eating wants to hear that), he also admitted to another table he was out of his element, and not doing a good job tonight. Dude, sometimes less is more, and this is def a time to keep quiet. He checked on us once, where Dale was over to us more often than not. Now, being students, these kids are learning, I get it, but he is not built for customer facing work...
I'm glad I came, not rushing back, but def worth the experience.