There were 8 in our party. We all got there earlier than our reservation so we sat at the bar and ordered cocktails. Our host asked the lady that sat us if they could take us earlier and they could not accommodate us. What was disturbing about that was there were hardly any people at the restaurant on this particular Sunday evening at around 7:00 p.m. When we finally got to our table, we noticed an abundance of servers eagerly waiting to do their job.
I was given the honor of ordering the wine; I ordered a nice bottle of Far Niente Cabernet which was excellent. For my appetizer, I ordered the oysters which were tasteless considering there were condiments on top of them. My son had the smoked salmon on a potato scallion pancake with chive crème-fraiche. That was very good.
Someone had the truffle macaroni and cheese and he was not impressed. They had some specials that evening and my son and I ordered the same dish; chicken with lobster. When his order came, it looked slightly different from mine....his lobster was MIA (missing in action). We called the waiter and he first insisted that my son ordered the chicken from the menu and not the special. Then all of a sudden he (the waiter) had a change of heart, as if to say: " O.K. I guess the customer is sometimes right." He offered to bring him a side of the lobster. The dish was not terrible but surely one would expect it to taste better than something you would get at a Coco's.
One of us was a vegetarian and had the ravioli. She later confessed that it was not good. We later wanted another bottle of wine and it took some time for us to flag someone.... it looked like they were all confused. Another entrée was the duck with lentils; that was edible. The rest of the party ate their food but no one really commented on the food as we were all busy catching up and after cocktails and 2 bottles of wine split among 5 people, we were what you would call a lively bunch.
Dessert was not any better. They all looked good but nothing excited any of us. Someone ordered a pistachio ice cream and it took a while for her to get it. I have to reiterate that it was not a busy evening even towards our dessert. Another observation was as soon as the waiters set the food on our table, they seemed to vanish like they were in a hurry to watch a game. Was there a game that evening?
It was not until 2 days after our dinner that I asked everyone what they thought of the food and the majority of our party (7 out of 8) did not like the food.
This was not The Belvedere we used to love. We could always count on very good food and excellent service. Gone are those days.
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