Mandy N.
Yelp
Where do I even begin?
I've heard good things about Chris's and we've lived here almost 3 years and are PCSing next month. It was our anniversary so we made a reservation which, surprisingly, was super easy to get... now I understand why.
We rolled in at 5pm, just as the doors were opening. The inside is cool, very dark and intimate. Rich colored woods, oriental rugs, a wine cabinet, etc. We stood in the entranceway for maybe 5 minutes before the hostess even bothered to look at us. She was an elderly lady and, honestly, just looked at us like we were bugs. My husband went over to tell her we had a reservation and she shut him down. She told him to 'take a seat' and that she would be with us in a few minutes. However, an elderly gentleman came in behind us and she greeted him exuberantly and told him his table was ready for him. I get that we are younger and heavily tattooed, but we even looked up the fucking dress code for this restaurant and were super polite. The hostess didn't say anything to us until another server came over and was like, do you guys have a reservation? Then went and told her about it.
So, off to a rocky start. No matter, our server was fantastic. Her name was Jennifer and she was so friendly and helpful. She brought us drink menus right away. My husband ordered their seasonal version of the old fashioned and I got a glass of wine. The weird part about this 'upscale' restaurant is that they bring you a blob of cheese wiz and individually wrapped crackers as your bread basket. It was actually kinda disgusting, but also reminded me of a childhood snack. Absolutely not what I would serve at the oldest steakhouse in town, but to each their own.
Anyway, our drinks were good, so we ordered food. I chose the fried flounder, twice baked potato, and salad with Italian dressing. My husband got a NY strip, potato soup, and a baked sweet potato. We started with the stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer.
Our server brought out the mushrooms, followed shortly by our soup and salad. The mushrooms were very bland. Everything was the same, mushy texture. You couldn't taste the crab. I think they put bell pepper in their stuffing? And topped it with cheddar cheese. Now, I'm not expert, but I've never received these two items in my stuff mushrooms before.
The salad was basically bagged iceberg lettuce, three cherry tomatoes, giant slices of cucumber, and a bunch of cheese on top. Oh yeah, one slice of French bread, with what tasted like garlic salt, was sitting on top. The Italian dressing was nothing to write home about. My husband's soup, however was not bad.
Then came our entrées. My flounder seemed greasy and had the skin left on one side. Is that normal? Fancy? I've never had a piece of friend flounder with skin on one side before. Maybe some other kind of fish, but definitely not flounder. My potato looked like it had been sitting and had this sort of skin over top of it as well.
My husband's steak was actually cooked to his liking, but, the piece he let me try, I had to politely spit in my napkin. It was so fatty that it was like chewing steak flavored gum. They also slapped two giant onion rings on top. I tried on because he doesn't like onions. They didn't taste like anything. His potato was supposed to come with butter and spices, but was totally underseasoned. The best part about our meal was the actual bread basket. It had two warm rolls inside and I'm guessing they were baked somewhere else!
The manager came by and asked if everything was good. He could tell we weren't ecstatic and asked if there was anything he could do to help, but I honestly don't know what he could have done, so we said no.
After choking down such a sub-par meal, our waitress asked if we had room for dessert. We actually told her we weren't super thrilled with our food and she promised dessert would be better. We ended up getting a slice of lemon cake. She didn't lie, it was pretty good. Also something that I can see being bought frozen, thawed, and served. I seriously doubt, by the selection anyway, that they have an actual pastry chef who made all their desserts that day.
All in all, we were pretty disappointed. I gave 2 stars, 1 being purely for our waitress' spirit. We won't be back. Save yourself the trip.