Ronald K.
Yelp
Well, to quote one of our dinner companions, "Playing French music and serving courses slowly does not make a French Bistro". Neither do price pretensions of fine dining. With nearly all main courses in the high $40s to $65 range, separate appetizer and soup/salad courses priced to match, and our server's, "Our menu changes daily" (presumably to ensure unique quality and freshness) we had high hopes for an excellent meal and service with our visiting French friends. Mais non!
Service was decent, American friendly but abysmally slow. We waited a full hour after our appetizer and salad courses for our main course, with nary a word nor glance from our server, until we finally, hungrily asked for an explanation, to be told, "Sorry, there was a kitchen drop". What, our meals? A fainting chef? A small sinkhole? No further explanation, estimate, nor even an offer of a compensatory glass of wine or amuse-bouche was provided. And that, particularly given the prices and pretensions, is simply unacceptable. But, worse was yet to come.
Our main courses were seared scallops, a vegetarian, baked stuffed Phyllo dough dish and a sort of seafood stew, featuring "fresh"monkfish, along with shellfish (2 clams, 2 mussels, 2 small scallops) and potatoes in a Dijon Soubise sauce.
The stuffed phyllo was quite good, with nice flavors and textures of squash, cheese and herbs. The scallops were seared properly and decent, but not beyond that. Their sauce tried, but was overly salty. Their accompanying "seasonal" vegetables were limp and indecipherable. The "changing menu" touted Monkfish stew, however, would likely have been snubbed even by our ever hungry Chocolate Lab. Its seafood was over-cooked, especially the monkfish, which somehow managed to be tasteless, rubbery and mushy at the same time. It was clearly old and had the texture of shredded cardboard and rubber bands. Perhaps to disguise all that, the sauce was harshly pungent and unbearably salty. We are talking salty as if perhaps the top fell off the shaker.
Overall? Dashed expectations, and an annoying and very disappointing evening out. When asked the usual "how was everything?" We were candid, reasonable, and truthful. Apologies were made but with no real explanations. The $55 monkfish disaster was, as it should have been, removed from the bill. We declined desert as we were unwilling to wait another hour for what may well have been something we wished we had never ordered.
This unfortunate experience occurred on a Friday evening. Even so, other than folks having drinks in the bar area, it was not busy and there were many empty tables. We now understand why. We have no plans to return anytime soon.