Mon T.
Yelp
Food: 5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4/5
It's a new era for Le Crocodile, Chef Rob Feenie took over from renowned retired Chef Michel Jacob. It was their grand opening yesterday, and I was surprised I could book a table for two at 7:30pm with ease on OpenTable.
We arrived and were greeted promptly by very friendly front of house. They apologized and said our table was not quite ready, as the customers are just finishing up their dessert. I recognize with grand opening they must be busy, so I said no problem we can wait. 30 minutes later, we're still waiting. I followed up with front of house, she said they already spoke to the customers 5 times and offered to move them to the bar. But they said no and wouldn't budge. I understand there's nothing much they can do at that point, but it's ridiculously unreasonable of that party to hog the table for 4 hours! My patience was running thin and getting hungry, so we moved to the bar. They offered us complimentary sparkling wine. We sat at the bar and started ordering food - bread, hamachi, lobster bisque as appys, duck breast & veal medallion for entrees. At that point, I was so hungry I wouldn't mind eating my entire meal at the bar. As the server put the plates and cutlery down, a table is finally ready for us at 8:15pm.
Thankfully food came relatively fast. Bread, hamachi and lobster bisque arrived in a timely fashion. Hamachi dish is beautifully executed. Fresh, you can taste the umami of white soy, citrusy from the yuzu, nectarine and grape, as well as a hint of heat from the jalapeño. It was wonderful. The lobster bisque is so creamy, silky and rich, burst with flavors. Definitely a classic!
The entrées came shortly after. The duck breast were cooked to medium rare, juicy and flavorful. The sinful decadent foie gras melted in my mouth, alongside the sweet vegetable, ginger carrot puree and sweet soy, it was simply heavenly. My hubs ordered the veal medallion with morel mushrooms, it's tender, well-seasoned and cooked to perfection. Every bite was amazing.
After the entrees, I was debating whether we should get the chocolate tart or apple tart, since is for my husband's birthday and he's a chocolate guy, we went with the chocolate tart. I guess to make it up for our 45 minute wait despite having a reso, they kindly gave us both the apple tart and chocolate tart. The chocolate tart was too rich and heavy for me, but my hubs enjoyed it immensely. I on the other hand really enjoyed the apple tart, as it's on the lighter side and the brown sugar cardamom ice cream really complemented well with the tart.
So as you can see, taste-wise every dish was perfect. I don't know if it's coincidental that most food that we ordered, aside from the hamachi, everything looks very brown. So when I'm taking pictures of the food and presentation-wise, I think they can do better.
Service-wise, there're several kinks they need to iron out. When we put in the food order at the bar already and finally got seated at the table, that was not communicated to our server. So our server gave us the menu as he would to all other guests, and tried to explain the menu to us. I had to interrupt him and told him food order was placed already.
Also it was the front of house who felt very apologetic about our long wait, and said she would send management over to talk to us. When a manager came, he phrased it as 'my staff said you'd like to speak to me'. Well... I didn't, it was prompted by the staff herself, so starting a conversation in that way was sort of odd.
Also, I'm surprised our server didn't ask us how do we like the food after our first couple bite of each dish. It wasn't asked until we finished our entire meal. Was it because the kitchen was so confident in their quality and taste, that they instruct their servers not to ask? I don't know, I just have never experienced that before.
Lastly, I noted it was a birthday celebration in my reso. Like any other restaurants, I thought they would have a candle or chocolate sauce written happy birthday on it, or maybe server saying happy birthday or have a bday card for the guest. But nope, none of that either. It's not a big deal to me personally, but if a regular chain restaurant like Cactus and The Keg would do that, it makes you wonder why a high end restaurant would neglect little things like that. After all, devils are in the details.
With the long wait, I sort of guessed they would offer to compensate by taking care of the sparkling wine and desserts. But to our surprise, they took care of the appetizers too. I'm not here for free meals, but I appreciate their apology and gestures.
For the food, I'd go back in a heartbeat. But for services and logistics, I'd probably wait for awhile for them to smoothen out the kinks before I visit again.