MIchelle L.
Yelp
Without a doubt, the restaurant is in a beautiful building and location. The views are stunning.
The food, however, and the service is something else. I've never experienced such slow service, ever. The night we went there for dinner, before an APT play, really didn't have that many people. During the latter part of our meal, I almost felt like I needed to get up and clear off our own table to get the meal going and the check eventually coming. I have a feeling our waitress had really no idea about fine dining. We got the bread before our waters. We asked her if we had time for desert, and she said we did - that is, if you can eat desert and drink coffee in five minutes and still be able to enjoy it - then yes, we had time.
Onto the food. Why, oh, why, oh, why does there have to be Food Fight running it? I fail to understand or believe that more local people can't run this place, and actually know how to prepare more tasty meals from locally sourced foods. Couldn't a culinary school run it, like the coffeehouse in Lakeside Fibers does? How about some of those students going to school over there at Taliesin? Any of them interested in learning the hospitality business? The food, and especially foods prepared by any Food Fight establishment, always tastes the same. The potatoes I had with my meal tasted like the potatoes they serve for breakfast - that same ready-made taste. My pork chop was supposed to come with au jus and wild mushrooms. I absolutely love mushrooms. The dictionary defines au jus as "served in the natural juices that flow from the meat as it cooks." I explained to our server that I have a wheat allergy (ie. I have celiac sprue) when I ordered my meal. She later came back to say that the pork chops are served with a gravy that has flour in it, so I will be getting my chops bare. I was stunned. Um, au jus is not gravy. I was a little concerned. My plate arrived, with the bare pork chops, the potatoes as promised, and a heaping pile of broccoli and cawliflower to replace the expected wild mushrooms and au jus - which was nice of them to do that, however, alas, no mushrooms. I was disappointed. I had to put butter on my pork chops - they were so over-cooked and dry, and there were no mushrooms to savor. How hard can it be to just cook up a little mushrooms? Or how hard can it be to make the real au jus - all it takes is a little splash of wine? It must be very hard, and makes me think everything is pre-cooked, and they're just reheating up in the back a la microwave.
It was a very disappointing meal. The setting sun made up for a little bit of it, but my taste buds were not pleased.