The new Dennis Foy Cafe Loret in Red Bank

I’d consider a conflict between editorial & advertising.

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This was discussed in another thread just yesterday. No one has the balls to write a negative review anymore. At least not anyone with sponsors. Damn shame.

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I completely agree with your guess. Spot on and I had a similar conversation with my husband after we went here.

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The give away; “A crab dish did not disappoint.” if they called it the “Tian of Crab” it would have been a dead give away. The fact she tries to gloss over one of the signature dishes of the place is the give away to me. Curiously though as I went to the web site to see the crab dishes name, the primary pic is a pan with 4 scallops in it, yet as the author reports there are only 3 to an order.

"What is it about restaurants like this that bring out the absolute worst in people? That make us demanding and incensed?"

I don’t understand this comment by the author. If I’m paying north of $50pp for a meal (obviously without booze) and the menu only has 5 entree’s and; ," though the waitress stumbled over which items they were out of and which they weren’t." I would be pretty pissed as well.

The purpose of a limited menu is to have fresh made to order meals, you shouldn’t be out of so many things that the waitress stumbles over what they do or don’t have. Honestly after reading this review which is 5-6mos after my only experience here (assuming it is here) just pisses me off. lol The place should be improving and hitting its stride, not still stumbling over words or anything else.

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See my pics of our meal in August above and it clearly shows four scallops on the plate, so you got me.

I too was hoping that they would’ve improved by now.

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We went a couple of months ago and there were 3 scallops with a healthy dollop of caviar on each. I found that to be excessive and made the whole thing to salty.

Also, our waitress did exactly this too. She read/recited a number of specials. Then retracted at least half of them and at least 2 were on the printed menu. It was super confusing.

We likely won’t go back. For that price point, I would much rather go to Heirloom Kitchen!

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was really excited to try this place- as RB could really use a nice high end spot to set the bar- we have a cpl spots already- but more would really be appreciated to provide a kick in the a$$ to a cpl spots coasting…however this spot may be the biggest disappointment in the last few years here from what I’m seeing people post…

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We walked out disappointed for sure. It really missed the mark for us but tries…

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See now reading all of this I’m done with the place!! As my review said I wasn’t in a rush go go back, but why the hell should I if they still don’t have their sh*t together. Honestly problems like this at a restaurant of this caliber is just inexcusable after this amount of time being opened.

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I really wanted to like it. The art is lovely and it is nice space but $34 for 3 scallops is offensive.

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I know I’m not a regular here but ti chime in… we broke one of the original messages for this restaurant. Our first visit in August was really good. When we went back a couple of months later on a Saturday night it was nothing short of a disaster. We waited 25 minutes after being seated for menus… the crab tian was just ok. Dinner, when it finally came out was not hot and really had no flavor. We chalked it up to a bad night until the server came over and asked how everything was. I guess don’t ask if you don’t know. We told her the food was just fair if it came out lukewarm. Out of the kitchen came Dennis Foy who basically yelled at us and said nobody in all of his years of cooking said his food wasn’t very good. We were in shock. We asked for a check and were told that since we “hated” everything there would be no check. We never once said the word hate. But we left a very generous tip and left. Needless to say, we would never go back there.

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@sockster, Curious as to why you didn’t send back the food that wasn’t hot. It’s what we do when faced with that situation.

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Unfortunately like cafe loret majority of restaurants in ten mile radius of red bank are overpriced. Places like cafe loret r a joke! Consistency of food and service r a must to b considered a 4/5 star restaurant!

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To be honest, we were pretty fed up by the time our food came out. It just wasn’t worth it.

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I guess I can understand that. Probably just as well. Considering how Foy acted when he heard about your criticism, if you’d sent the food back, he might have come storming out of the kitchen right then and there to berate you.

I was excited when this place opened and put it on my “go to” list. But despite your initial positive review, I put off going because of the problems detailed in ensuing reviews here. At this point, given that they’ve become totally negative, it’s off the list.

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After our initial really good experience, we waited a while until his limited menu changed before going back. Unfortunately our experience was poor. We’ve been loving Heirloom Kitchen lately tho…Chefs David and Rob are putting out some amazing food!

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that’s really terrible way for a pro like him to act. Wonder if pressure of it seemingly not going so hot here is getting to him?

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Since you brought it up, my reading between the lines is this;

Scallops 4 - 3 (price remains the same)
I have yet to see a full house, (in my passing) or based on my one trip there
Multiple items 86’d - on multiple occasions

Are all signs of a restaurant in trouble.

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if that’s the case it’s a shame- I had really high hopes for this spot- and it would prob scare away higher end spots form trying here. I don’t know if he just misfired here or if its that location. The one place (Cafe Siclica or something??) had a good run there then it’s been crap ever since- thought this would put that curse away. Seems like Semolina ended up being a lot of the things we thought this spot would be.

if we see Robert Irvine there we know it’s a no go.
Reminds me of when Cake Boss aka Buddy, had a knockoff show where he “rescued” bakeries in trouble…answer as always more Italian pastry and coffee…yet now his spot here closed along with a good chunk of his empire…apparently people can tell when crumb cake is made a week prior in a factory vs the real deal…

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