Michelle V.
Yelp
Three Stars, only because the waiter was really nice and took the coffee he forgot and the disgusting salad off my tab.
The issue: Been here more than a few times. Usually I rave about the food. But it's been a while and yesterday I brought in a few family members who hadn't been here yet.
I ordered the Cesar Salad.
The cheff either doesn't know how to make Cesar salad dressing or a salad, or both.
First of all the romaine lettuce was in long pieces on my plate, not cut up. Just kind of thrown on my plate. (I used to live in Tijuana, that's how that did it at Sanborn's. I hated that. It was like, "Oh, you just put the stock on my plate and now I have to do all the work?) That I could have overlooked, but to be honest, serving long pieces of romaine lettuce that haven't been cut up does not look elegant, instead it comes across as laziness. If I'm going to take my family out to a restaurant rather than staying home and cooking for myself, I at least want something as simple as lettuce cut up and washed for goodness sakes.
The precise issue was the dressing. Here it was PURE mayonnaise. I usually like mayonnaise, but this was disgusting. I don't know if they were trying to improvise or what, but it was mixed with a little bit of seasoning and just slopped onto my food.
Then when I explained to the waiter when he brought me the bill what the issue was, he started having a whole conversation about how American Cesar dressing has too many anchovies in it and how they do it in Tijuana is better. I didn't ask for his opinion on how he thinks Caesar's salad dressing was supposed to taste. And his opinion nor the chef's opinion should affect how the food is prepared either.
If they ran out, why not just say, "We don't have the Caesar right now my apologies."
I don't know why they thought they could pass off mayonnaise with a little bit of seasoning in it as Caesar salad dressing, but there's a specific recipe you're supposed to stick to, and that wasn't it. When you're a chain restaurant, don't mess with the recipe. I was queasy all afternoon.
The waiter disappeared and figure about us for a long while. At the end of the meal, he was very polite, apologetic and introduced himself and asked me my name and attempted to shake my hand. (I figured he asked my name just in case I went ahead and posted this complaint.)
Even so, I still need to say something, because if they're preparing it wrong - there's a chance they're taking too much free will with other dishes as well. Whether it be improvising and/or simply not following the recipe, other people are going to have a problem with it too.
Everyone else had a nice meal, but I doubt I'll be back in the near future.