Nice reviews all, MisterBill. Thank you.
Really enjoying your reviews! We have not been to Cafe of Love in a long time. There was something about it we just didnāt care for - in those days they had a buffet in the middle where you went to get your bread and cheese. It was weird. The food was good but the wait staff was pushy toward the higher priced items and we just didnāt find it a comfortable place. I know, Iām really fussy!!
You donāt sound fussy to me, Gwenn. You sound like me.
1 Like
HA! BTW - we had dinner last night at the Horse and Hound Inn (not worth a trip by a longshot) but they had a sidecar on their cocktail menu.Thought of you!
Thanks, Gwenn!
Hope NoMa makes a decent one tonight. Their food looks interesting (Iām guessing expensive), though.
Enjoy yours tomorrow, hope it donāt snow!
Sadly, I had to cancel. Between the reports of snow and having to buy a new fridge, and job hunting I could not justify, even for a BIG birthday, spending that money on dinner. 121 tonight. Enjoy your evening!
Understandable.
You too.
Thanks! I miss that buffet. I asked for more bread, dip and pickled radishes (I love those) the other night and did not get them, even though the waiter said he would bring them. It also took forever to get our check, during which time he took other peopleās orders. I usually tip generously for HVRW but did not in this case.
Went to American Bounty for dinner tonight. As I mentioned in my first review when we ate there last week for lunch, Iād read reviews on Opentable talking about small portions but had not experienced that. Well, we did tonight. My son and I had the foie gras appetizer ($3 surcharge). Very tasty, coated with cocoa. At least one review had talked about a single piece the size of a marble. It wasnāt that bad, we had two pieces the size of quarters or maybe half dollars. Foie is rich, so it was sufficient, although if I were paying $15 for it I might be upset. My wife had the wild mushroom veloute (soup) and it was excellent, nice presentation with a potato foam in the bowl and then they pour in the soup and it sort of blew up like a mushroom cloud. My daughter had the spiced beet salad and said it was good, but it was small, not very many beets. For entrees, my son and I had the duck breast and the portion was a half breast, cut in half. The preparation was nice, with a few pieces of beets and green peppercorns, and I couldnāt complain about it as part of a $30 3 course meal, but if Iād paid $31 for it (the menu price, and I was told by the instructor that the portions were the normal sizes) I would have been upset. Other portions were similarly small, although she also told me that my wifeās lobster consisted of a full lobster ($6 surcharge and it didnāt look like a full lobster). Desserts were as good as last week (same menu and portion sizes since itās a single instructor), but oddly they gave us a plate of 3 petit fours tonight while last week there was a full plate of cookies, including some with fresh strawberry, blackberry and kiwi.
I had a long discussion with the instructor, who said that she had not seen the Opentable reviews but was going to look at them. She told me that the chef/instructors are different for lunch and dinner and they make their own menus (and that even the day and evening classes working at the restaurant have different curriculum). The lunch instructor has been there for a long time and is of the old ābig portionsā school. The evening instructor is fairly new and is more new school, the kind where your portions are small and you read reviews about needing to go get a burger after dinner (my words, not hers). She also said that he uses the highest quality ingredients, while the lunch guy may not be using the same duck breast (as an example). I will say that the evening presentations were nicer (although the baby vegetables on my wifeās short rib at lunch were beautiful). As I said, I was OK with the small portions given the pricing, and was not hungry when I left, but itās the first time all week that we didnāt leave with leftovers for lunch.
I would certainly not go back for dinner at regular price with that size portions. Iād definitely go back for lunch. It seems very odd that a restaurant can have different personalities for lunch and dinner and it really doesnāt do them any good to have it like that. But I guess thatās how the CIA works, and itās unlikely to change.
The good news is that the snow looks like it wonāt be very bad tomorrow so we should be able to get to Restaurant X to close out restaurant week.
Yes, actually, that is one of the things that annoyed us there. Once they were done with us, they were done and the check was the longest wait we had!
Enjoy it - I have a soft spot for that place ever since it was Bully Boy!
Boy, do I love the brunch at Restaurant X.
X20ās aināt bad, but Restaurant X is outstanding.
1 Like
L[quote=āprimosprimos, post:51, topic:3596ā]
X20ās aināt bad, but Restaurant X is outstanding.
[/quote]
Last time we had brunch at X, many items came out lukewarm, which was disappointing since we seemed to be at the start of the distribution. I had read reviews on Opentable saying the same thing and thought people were being unreasonable, but sadly they were right.
However, weāve almost never had a bad dinner there (we did have one a long time ago when they put us in the ākidsā room near a large noisy party), and have a waiter who we really like and always ask for.
Personally, Freelance Cafe is my favorite of his restaurants these days, but they donāt do the same sort of brunch and the no-reservations thing is a pain.
Just for context, weāre talking about Cafe of Love here. I havenāt usually had that problem when weāve had the woman server. But I had a young guy this time and while he was friendly enough, the service was inattentive, and it really bothered me to see him taking orders from other tables while I was waiting to get my check and then again waiting to get my credit card back (especially after not getting the extra radishes and bread).
Ohhh, sorry to hear that. I have to admit, it was a loooong time ago that I did their brunch.
I hate when places fall down on quality.
I really need to go back to Freelance. We tend to go in the Spring when the weather is nice for standing in line!
Yep, Cafe of Love. As I said, the place never excited me and we have not been back in years. But we did have the check issue.
Somebody somewhere should do a review on bad service in Upper Westchester and in Lower Westchester. You can use the worst restaurant in the world as a barometer, i.e., Gina Marie (now closed, Happy Dance) in Eastchester.
Just what ARE the limits diners will put up with before they complain/walk out/never come back, et cetera?
