My friends and family have a saying now, called "Getting Emeriled" for when a restaurant is high priced and expectations fail to be met so severely.

About 12 years ago NOLA in New Orleans was interesting, funky, and tasty. Last two trips have been a nightmare. Food partially frozen, stuff that doesn't belong together on a plate and nobody holding anything together service wise. The namesake restuarant in the Warehouse District was incredibly overpriced and much worse than many other restaurants within a 3 mile area.

You can also "Get Emiriled" in Tokyo at Restaurant Chen in the Cerulean Tower Hotel (still my favorite Western style hotel in Japan). Chef Chen is the Chinese Iron Chef and this is a Szechuan restauarant. A meal is about US$85-100 per person, portions are miniscule, VERY oily, and just don't taste that good.

Fook Lam Moon HKG. This used to be one of the great seafood restaurants in HKG. Last year when we were there, we found the prices to be wildly inflated, the food was mediocre, at best ,and the service was abominable. Perhaps that is why the restaurant was nearly empty at the height of the dinner hour.

Here Here!!! Also, Delmonico's in NOLA (owned by Emeril) has the same reputation in my family. Three different dinners, 50 guests total, and none of them special -- but all overpriced. I will say however that the service was excellent, and we still meet there occasionally for drinks, but not to eat.

OK - I have chime in with another over-rated NOLA restaurant - Commander's Palace. Went there for dinner and was extremely disappointed. Amateur service, average food, poor wine service (I was brought my glass of red wine, luke warm, in a glass that is meant for dessert wine, filled to the brim). They tried a lot of smoke and mirrors to make up for their short comings - calling us maam and sir a lot, having four servers show up at once with food that gets poured onto your plate tableside, but then no servers come by for almost an hour to check how we are doing. This restaurant may be a 'tradition' - but there is much better food and service to be had elsewhere in NOLA.

FWIW-

It have seen the quality at all of the "Emeril" restaurnts go down hill in recent years. I would recommend them to no one....

First of all, thanks to Canarsie for starting this thread. Fortunately it seems that good restaurants far outnumber bad ones!

- Novomestsky pivovar ( www.npivovar.cz ) in PRG sounds like a very good micro-brewery and boasts a number of local awards but when I visited (was on CSA's recommended list ) both food and service were significantly below average...Not downright nasty, but not satisfactory either.


- Las Iguanas in Leicester (England) is another restaurant I would hesitate to visit again. Their interpretation of Mexican cuisine is less accurate/original than what found in ready Mexican meals that can be bought from any supermarket. Really tacky food, average service passable if you are extremely hungry (not very likely as there are about 5 other restaurants/pubs within 100m from it). Above average prices.

- A nationwide UK chain called "Nando's" offering various chicken dishes and certain Portuguese specialities. Setting and pricing resemble a normal mid-range restaurant, but there is no table-ordering system and cutlery is self-service too. The majority of employees will be "new to the job" (I've visited their restaurants three times, so it can't be a matter of luck) and will know nothing about the limited wine list.

My nominations for San Francisco:

1. First Crush in Union Square. Nothing particularly bad about the food (and the wine list is just great). However, the service on my three visits ranged from just OK to extremely bad. The wait staff was very slow (my date and I finally left after 45-minutes without menus). Also - any restaurant that makes you wait more than a few minutes beyond your reservation time will always be at the top of my 'avoid' list. I think they did this thinking we were tourists who would never be back.

2. Market Bar in the Ferry Building. Nothing special for a pretty high price.

I have some more, this time in London (no surprises here!!):

Itsu in Wardour Street: They claim to serve "Japanese" food, e.g. "sushi" on kaiten-style conveyor belts. The food is passable at best, most certainly NOT authentically (for London) Japanese, and not really sushi either. However, if you are after conviviality and don't care about food then this may be the place. If you want Japanese or even Japanesey food, this is not the place. I should note I am of Japanese heritage so I tend to judge Japanese food in a somewhat harsher light.

ToTo's off Walton Street in Knightsbridge: Way over-priced Italian food (a theme of Italian restaurants in London it seems) of average quality. I felt that I could make what I ate better myself. Portions were of average size but the dining room is a spectacular setting, only, if, one can get seated there. We were relegated to the entry way of the restaurant. I would recommend Scalini (nearby in Walton Street) or Locanda Locatelli (Portman Square in the Hyatt Regency Churchill) as better places for italian food.

I am sure I can think of more in London...... will post them as I remember them.....

Any place in Waikiki that has a second dinner 50% off coupon.
Food will be very very average as will the service.

I am surprised you had a bad experience at Legal....their food and service are usually top notch (the pecan crusted snapper is like eating sweet heaven). Maybe the airport location is the problem for them.

Woo Lae Oak near Crystal City is an excellent choice for Korean - I hope you enjoyed it. On busy nights, it's like half the Korean diplomatic mission is there eating.

I disagree. I thought Nick's Fishmarket and Matteo's were wonderful. The ambiance, the service and the quality of the food were quite nice for the price. Especially the Osso Bucco at Matteo's.

Macaroni Grill
Terrible food. It seems to me they measure salt by cup.

Amen!

My partner & I whilst on our annual Walt Disney World Vacation went to Emeril's Orlando. We chose the menu degustation. The food was so tasteless, parts even unappetizing that we actually left in the middle of the meal, after paying an outrageous sum, of course. That was a first for us!

Any place with the word "Chez" in the title!

Two well known restaurants in San Francisco were serious disappointments - Postrio and Masa's. When you pay the kind of money you do in those places, especially Masa's, you expect everything to be superb. Nothing was bad at either place, but more than half of what we ordered in both places was just OK at best.