Mari "Mawee" K.'s Profile

BELIEVE THE HYPE.

The food was SO extraordinary, SO delicious, I can not believe those chefs can do such things to ordinary ingredients.

We came to FL, with the DH already rating it at a measly "3 stars":
-1 star for the impossible online reservations and the crazy 30 minute ordeal of 4-telephones-calling-at-once to get through to Reservations;
-1 star for the "men must wear jackets" requirement (he hates dressing up)

But when we arrived, everything changed.
The DH absolutely cannot stand oysters. He thinks they taste like boogers (clearly I did not ask why he knows what boogers taste like), and yet he took the plunge, and ate it. It was so good, he licked his bowl clean!

I cannot say enough about everything on their menu. There is always at least one dish that I dislike on tasting menus. Not here. I absolutely loved EVERYTHING. Even the extra $100 you have to spend for the beef is worth it. SO SO good.

The servers here were SO awesome. So sweet and personable; definitely not what I expected from French Laundry. We ended up chatting with our table manager and our server about the most random things. They told us that Keller had actually been there that morning, but wasn't sure if he was still around, but if he was, they'd try to get him to sign a cookbook that we were going to buy. And they followed through! Signed cookbook on the spot!! I couldn't be happier =)

Other nice touches:
- we had personalized menus, congratulating us on our 1st anniversary
- all the servers, even the hostess that we did not see when we entered the restaurant, wished us a happy anniversary on our way out (how did she know who we were?)

Finally:
My DH shocked me by telling me at the end of the night, "I have a man-crush on Thomas Keller." Awwwww~

3.5 Stars.

Came here for our anniversary weekend. They knew about it since I mentioned it when I made reservations. We were offered free cocktails to celebrate, which was very nice.

Other reviewers are correct when they say that the courses are a hit or miss. I loved the lobster salad, but was less than impressed by the main dishes I chose- salmon, and then the rib eye.

I did not like how the tables were arranged. We got sat at the table right in front of the glass window overlooking their patio. We had dinner reservations at 7pm as the sun was starting to set, and there was a huge glare coming through the window, and they did not have blinds. The poor DH was squinting the whole time we were there!

It was only okay.
Came here for Valentine's Day, so we paid the 200% premium to come here.

The service was great; good attention to detail, very cheerful server, but the food was mediocre. This should be evidenced by the fact that it's only been a few months, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I even ate there.

The only 2 things I remember are:
- we sat by a window, and there was bird poo on the outside. Not something I want glaring at me from the corner of my eye when I'm trying to eat.
- super close to parking (Sutter-Stockton), so it was a breeze getting to the restaurant in my super high 5" stilettos :)

I only get the Niman Ranch beef salad here. It's really the only thing that's good on the menu. Everything else is bland (porridge) and overpriced (pork bun, spring rolls, etc).

I had a pretty bad experience here last year where the quality of the food plummetted. It was really really bad... the beef was more than 80% fat, and had less than 3 slices; the taro chips were soggy, and the salad tasted old. I promptly wrote them an e-mail of disappointment, and they fully refunded me my money, and it looks like they've been doing more quality checks now.

I really do not understand the appeal and the high praise.
I got the recommended spicy turkey (which was not spicy btw)... it was decent, but not something that Quiznos right next door couldn't make. The price was a great welcome ($4.50) in the FiDi, and for that reason alone, I may return.

UPDATE:

make sure you check your credit card statement!!
I saw that the W had charged me $77 a few days after my stay. I inquired about this, and was told that it was for TWO days worth of parking. I only parked there one night.

It was eventually cleared up with their Finance dept, but it took 3 phone calls and week's worth of waiting around.

Loved it.
We were shocked at how affordable this place was, for such great fresh seafood!

I am very picky about seafood, but not by choice. My stomach cannot handle any seafood unless it's super super super fresh. I can't even go to 99% of sushi restaurants because of this... and I LOVE sushi!! =*(

We had the 9 course, and every single dish was perfection. I could see all the Japanese influences Cimarusti infused into his dishes (which is obvious since he has been training in Japan quite often this days). I am in love with his dashi foam!! Oh, and HELL to the YEAH on him getting his kanpachi from Kagoshima (my hometown). Woot! The man clearly knows his fish!!

One small thing I was disappointed about was the service. No doubt they had excellent service, but it was still not on par with other restaurants of this caliber. For example, when my husband was making his cheese selections, another server came over and started discussing another customer's request right in front of us. Was it that urgent that you could not wait 2 minutes to ask? Can you please do this later? I was a bit annoyed to say the least.

Overall, great experience, and a restaurant I'm more likely to frequent if I'm ever in the area.

3.5 Stars.

I was sorely disappointed, actually.
With all the reviews here and the insanely difficult reservation process, I really expected more.

The food itself was good... but nothing spectacular. I don't know how else to explain it, except that it is a good restaurant, but far from being a great fine dining experience (despite the $500 tab). The food is pretty standard- risotto, salad, filet, seared fish... all done very well, don't get me wrong... but nothing extraordinarily creative, kwim? I also noticed that a lot of the dishes contained similar ingredients (ie, butternut squash).

We got the 5 course, and the lobster over the potato puree was the best. I was impressed with the portions of lobster. However, I did not like the salmon dish. Even the server said that it's usually a hit or miss with customers. If it's a "miss" with a lot of customers, why do you even serve it? They did however try to make it up to me by offering an intermezzo sorbet, which was nice.

I felt like the dining room was very chaotic. Servers were running around, bumping into each other. However, in their defense, they did have excellent service, and our water glasses were never left empty because someone would always come around to refill them.

Two more things I was disappointed with: the ambiance (small rooms with tables very close together= very loud!) and the food made my husband sick afterwards (and it wasn't the overeating).

Food was good. You can read about it in other entries.

I wanted to say a few things that other reviewers didn't touch on yet.

1. They have nice stools next to each table for the ladies to place their handbags.

2. They offer black napkins for you to place on your lap if they notice you are wearing dark clothing (to avoid nasty white lint from white napkins).

Nice attention to detail that really counts.

Very good tasting menu. There wasn't one thing I didn't love.. except the Chicken/Egg dish... which to me was just scrambled egg topped with furikake sitting on dashi/udon soup. I suppose something about that is novel for non-asians?

I really do like how their wine pairings were from around the WORLD... not just from France or Napa. I was especially impressed that one of them was Japanese sake. Otherwise, nothing much I can say about the food that others haven't said before

I did encounter a reservation problem though. I made reservations for dinner about a month in advance through opentable. Everything seemed ok, the receptionist called 2 days before the day of to confirm, and left a VM ("calling to confirm 8/13 reserv at 6pm"). The following day she calls to confirm my "9:30pm" reservation on 8/13! What the hell?

I had to forward her my opentable reservation confirmation that stated 6pm, and she was still trying to get me to eat in the lounge area because the space in the dining room was unavailable. Yeah right. I even have the VM from her a day ago confirming the correct time! And she's trying to blame me for their screw up? F that. I told her NO, I am sitting in the dining room. I guess they had to scramble to figure something out, and in the end, they offered me a spot in the dining room at 6:30. I was very annoyed, to say the least. A restaurant of this caliber should not be making simple reservation mistakes.

Ultimately they sat us at 6pm even though we agreed to a 6:30pm slot (note: nobody was there! I don't even know why it was a problem to get our original 6pm reservation back), and they gave us the roomiest 2-person table in the dining room (corner spot). Plus, the food was exemplary, so the 5 stars, despite a slight slip up initially.