And both used to be so wonderful,,,so sad...San Francisco has so little allure for me these days.

Interesting! We've eaten there a total of four times over the past four years in Minnesota, Florida, and British Columbia and haven't noticed that. Was this in one location that you experienced this or an overall perception?

With one exception: Chez Panisse in Berkeley.

For my wife and myself the biggest disappointment with regard to highly regarded restaurant was:

Restaurant Bernard Loiseau in Seaulieu, he was supposed to be one of the top chefs in France after Ducasse together with Blanc, haeberlin and Boyer. It has of course 3 stars in the Guide Michelin, but the food encountered was maximum 1 star, menu choice was uninspiring at best and the service - well no comment.

In the meantime as most of you know certainly I think last year bernard Loiseau committed suicide because there were downgrading his restaurant in particular in the Gault Millau, well I though the downgrading was well deserved.


On the American Continent, my biggest disappointment was Charlie Trotters in Chicago, which is supposed to be one of the best on the continent, but which in our opinion didn't live to the hype, in particular with regard to service and food, they really feel they are the greatest in the world, but hey they aren't and I will not even comment about the prices

I have eaten at a few Nando's in the UK and Canada and although there is no table ordering system, I have found the service to be quick after you order and the food to be very good, especially the wide variety of sauces that they offer for the chicken dinners

Concur...I was even a tourist when I went there and wasn't impressed. And to think a Chinese native took us there.

Picasso at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is widely heralded as the best restaurant in the city. IMHO it is highly over-rated. The food was just a bit better than average; prices were stratospheric and portions very small. Very pretty setting, however and the service is good.

^^^

That's so unfortunate. I used to eat at Postrio quite often in the early 90's when I had a project in Berkeley and used to stay upstairs at the Kimpton Prescott. Postrio did the room service which was always very good, and they did a good breakfast. It's a shame if it's gone down hill over the last ten years since my last visit, but I'm not surprised now that Wolfgang Puck is selling canned soup...

For my parents it must be Tetsuya's in Sydney (set menu US$130 excluding drinks). They were very disappointed after all the rave reviews. They felt the food was no more than 'ok', and the desserts were very poor.

I would make my exception Chez Georges in Paris - a lovely little bistro. And we were very disappointed with Chez Panisse last year - very haughty service and the food was fine, but not wonderful.

My wife and I enjoy Commander's Palace and try to eat there at least every other time we visit New Orleans. We find the food well prepared and the service outstanding. My wife enjoys Chardonny and I enjoy Merlot and we have had no compliants as to the way the wine has been served. We have commented many times regarding the service, they don't interrupt time and time again with questions, would you like this, how is that. It just seems as if they appear when needed taking care water, drinks, etc.

Maybe it was a bad night.

Lucky you!

My sweetie and I went to Tetsuya's a couple years back and
found some of the best food and certainly the best restaurant
experience of the young millennium. Beat the socks off Grange
(which had taken a dive, it appeared to me) and at least as
good as TFL, in the big-ticket department. Okay, the desserts
aren't the over-the-top fancy things, but who needs anything
like that after such a meal? I thanked the gastronomic deities
that I wasn't expected to plow through acres of sweetness
after the truffled spatchcock.

As far as Chez goes, I've always liked Chez Henri (Cambridge, US),
Auberge Chez Francois (Great Falls, US), Chez Maitre Paul
(Paris, FR), and Chez Bruce (Wandsworth, UK). There would
be others, but I can't think at the moment.

is this the Emerils at CityWalk? We were staying at Royal Coconut Palms (or whatever that hotel is in the Universal complex) for an IT convention, four of us were starving... walking around, looking for somewhere to eat, someone picks Emeril's, so we go in to see if they have a table. Not terribly busy, but the "hostess" looked at us as if we had dog pooh on our faces. "You mean you DON'T have a reservation??" she asked stupidly, as we had just asked if they had a table for four. "Well, we usually don't take walk-ins, I will have to check..." she said sneeringly as we looked at her in confusion, wondering why a restaurant would turn down four hungry people when no one was waiting around for a table at 9ish on a Tuesday night, and there were many many tables free. Finally she came back and attempted to seat us at a really crap table by the server station, at which I balked - she got even more foul-tempered when I asked if we could have a nicer table we had walked by. She begrudgingly seated us there, and said - I loved this - "in the future, you might want to think about making reservations if you want to eat at an Emeril's restaurant, ok?" to which a particularly witty member of our group replied, "oh thank you for the tip, but I don't think we'll be dining in another Emeril's again, dearie."

Every single one of our four different entrees was the same shade of brown. Some were runnier than others. We even asked the waiter how he could tell them apart. He said a lot of people asked him that. They even tasted brown.

We decided not to return. Ever. Avoid, please.