Some to avoid: Yellowfin in Edgewater, Maryland. Poor waitstaff, deteriorating interior. The seafood was good but my wife and I paid close to $100 without alcohol. Just don't go there. The waterfront location does not help.

Hundred Acres in New York, New York. I didn't really understand what the restaurant was about, since there was American and European blends of cuisine, but they did say they were gourmet fine dining, and many of the dishes there were pathetic (from a can). I almost never ask for food to be comped, but I came pretty close. The place is also far too crowded to be fire code safe.

Disappointing: Din Tai Fung in Taipei, Taiwan. The Los Angeles branch is fantastic but I found the flagship restaurant of this renowned franchise very poor in quality control. They pride on attention to detail but parts of my xiaolongbao were barely just warm, noodles undercooked. This, on a Tuesday night where it was just barely busy. I commented about this to the concierge at the hotel where I was staying at, they said back, "We get that a lot."

Worst Chain: I'll second Macaroni Grill. Besides their appetizers, everything is just soaked in sauces, and salty to the point you are just chugging water hours after the meal.

I couldn't agree more....spent almost $500USD for four for lunch for nothing special and the food was mediocre at best!

Les Halles Miami. Incredibly rude service and terrible food. A few years back it was excellent. Now it's truly horrible experience.

I was seriously underwhelmed by their location in Markham, ON just outside Toronto. Pretty much everything we ordered was a giant overbaked carbohydrate bomb - not at all what we expected. I'd rather find some semi-unknown Taiwanese style hole-in-the-wall spot in LA than line up at DTF again.

GRAND WOK, MGM GRAND, LAS VEGAS

For such a decent location this really is a miserable dining experience.
Rude staff and bog-standard greasy Chinese food where we played find-the-protein in most of the dishes we ordered despite paying the inevitably high prices.
Avoid at all costs.

Arcadia, San Jose
 

Arcadia is located in the Marriott in downtown San Jose. It is a Michael Mina restaurant. As we have eaten in several Michael Mina restaurants - Aqua and Michael Mina in SF, Michael Mina in LAS - and always had excellent/outstanding meals, this seemed like a logical choice, since we had tickets to a show at the Performing Arts Center right across the street.

Forget it. While there was nothing really wrong, the whole meal was totally ordinary, from salads to entrees to desserts. With several excellent restaurants in downtown SJ, there is just no reason to pay Michael Mina prices for standard food.

Jimmy's Kitchen in HK is very good.

The Colony in the Hyatt, Waikiki. Completely uninspired, badly cooked, and simply not fresh food. How can you not have fresh pineapple in Hawaii? I should have gone to Ruth Chris.

When I was in Hawaii 14 years ago and longing for a fresh pineapple, I was informed that most pineapple production has shifted overseas to places such as the Philippines and that, for the most part, pineapples are not grown in Hawaii any more.

Really? Actually, strange as it may seem, I believe China is the biggest producer of pineapples in the world. However, most of the pineapples eaten in the U.S. (including Hawaii) are indeed grown in Hawaii.

I do not know for sure.

I am simply relating what was told to me at a former pineapple plantation by a guide while on its tour.

Not to dispute what you were told, but the Dole Plantation is not a former pineapple plantation.

Good luck finding a Hawaiian pineapple on the mainland. We were told that the import costs are too high, so everything I find here is from Costa Rica.

Haha... the restaurant on Kiz Kulesi is 100% tourist trap... :) I feel bad for you...

When driving around southern Maine, there are plenty of billboards advertising double lobster dinners at very attractive prices. Avoid them, regardless of how cheap.

I think it's a mixed bag - some of the good places advertise, but it's best to do homework in advance and select a lobster spot based on Yelp (or similar). We had incredible lobster rolls at 'Reds' and great lobster dinners at a dockside shack near Portland (whose name I can't recall).

Agreed. Considering the US as a whole, I suspect that Hawaii ranks several rungs down the list as the source of "store bought" pineapple.

Mexico would be first in this part of the US, Costa Rica ranking high, and places like Ecuador on the list.

Mesh at The Crown Casino in Melbourne. The most incredibly mediocre buffet I've ever had at a casino setting but the worst part was seeing the metal frozen yogurt dispenser at the dessert area. Not what you expect when paying 40 Australian dollars per person for.

The Old Spaghetti Factory in Phoenix, AZ. It's the place I left my smallest ever tip.

I'd been twice for lunch and each time had been ok at best with poor service and mediocre food. About 18 months ago I went with my then girlfriend (this may be why she left me) and the experience was terrible.

The waiter took a long time to serve us.
He forgot drink orders
When my food arrived it was cold. Not just cool but absolutely cold
My girlfriend's order was wrong
We had to ask for silverware
Every time he came over he stared down my girlfriend's shirt
The aforementioned food was terrible
When the bill finally came he threw it on the table and walked away and didn't leave me with a pen to sign it with.

The check was $24.31...I left $25.

That's about $25 more than I would have left (and would have called for the manager long before the check "arrived").

I don't understand most of my fellow countrymen, and their unwillingness to "create a scene" in the face of bad food and bad service. Management certainly doesn't want the other diners to see and hear the plaintive wails of a really dissatisfied customer standing up for his principles that bad food, bad service or a combo thereof is essentially a violation of the "contract of carriage"..

Will a manager call the police? I actually had one once start to do so, then at the encouragement of some of the staff, desist. Obviously, threatened with arrest, I guess I would have paid, but surely would have made a scene.

I rarely attempt it, a dozen or so times in memory, but only that once did I ever face the threat of a legal challenge. Why are a people quick to take back clothing, return gift items, and claim refunds buffaloed similar tactics in the face of an unsatisfactory dinner. It's far better thing to alert management than to simply "cut" your tip. After 5 years of writing resturant reviews for a "medium circulation" newspaper (back in the early 80s) anda fair amount of domestic and foreign travel, I'm appalled at what we "Merkins" routinely put up with, not only abroad but at home, and often in "upscale" restaurants.

Wirelessly posted (Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

Cabaña Las Lilas in EZE.

I think somebody had a grudge against somebody there. :)

Wirelessly posted (Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

Huh...?! :mad:

Care to explain what you mean...?!!!??

Olive garbage Route 17 north Upper saddle river New Jersey. I ate there once it wasn't my favorite restaurant. I would suggest aldos and giannas

defnatley not olive garden , the restaurant seemed small it just isn't me.

Chez Bruce in London is one of the finest in the UK.

I agree, that one is fantastic !

Three restaurants i won't go back to;

Fat Duck - Bray, outside London

Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London (His restaurant in Paris at the Plaza Athene being sublime - mind he was in the kitchen both times i've been there)

The Cliff in Barbados was terrible, the service being slightly worse than the food.

Agreed. ^^^

Fully agree with Gaucho100K. There´re so many better, less touristic, and way down less expensive parrilas in BA.

Good guide to BAires restaurants ( in Spanish ): http://www.guiaoleo.com.ar/

Cabaña Las Lilas is rated 17/30 on food, 13/30 on service, 17/30 on ambiance and very good on the wine list

La Maison Blanche, Paris. This restaurant has mediocre food, is pretentious and for the money (or for less) there are so many nicer places to eat in Paris.

This restaurant is also used as a nightclub under the name "White Room" so it is very snobby and the food seems like an afterthought.

Todd English P.U.B., Crystals, Las Vegas

The MOST salty food I have ever encountered and just pure poor execution from food to service. Will not return, ever.

Jasmine, Bellagio, Las Vegas

The MOST expensively poor Cantonese cooking I have encountered (my local food court chinese, Manchu Wok, make better) with horrible service. My hosts were wanting to order more bottles of wine but no one was around to take their order. Will not go back.


Border Grill, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

Just really disappointing food at highly inflated prices (par for the course on the Strip) and terrible service again. Waiter never informed us that one of our drinks was not refillable but kept offering refills as if it were. Also not returning.

Another fine Chez: Chez Shea in the Public Market in Seattle.

On the negative side, it's not worth the pixels to beat up on most chain restaurants (as some do, hilariously, here... what do you expect for $3 at Wendy's?) but I'll say I really dislike Legal's. Poor service and cacophonous surroundings overshadow the fish whether it's good or not.

I'm not much for Peter Luger's either and its storied grumpy waiters disinterested in your preferences. And come on, it's the 21st century, take a damn credit card.

Todd English Anything is pretty dubious but not
necessarily to avoid at all costs.

Ed Debevics in Chicago.

I had heard about this from my brother and sister in law and thought it would be fun to visit and be made fun of, but we quickly realized that this is more for kids than anything else.

The food was fine, a bit over priced for what it was, but at least the portions were good.

agree
 

We enjoyed the fountains and the art. Food was OK. But, the wine service was terrible. We ordered A Duckhorn Sauv Blanc and it came ice cold. We were told that all the whites were that cold because that was the way Americans like them. The sommelier tried his best to find something less cold and eventually found something. We were surprised, but impressed that the sommelier actually knew what he was doing. He was just catering to the crowd.

No names but a rule of thumb:

AVOID: Local restaurant serving local cuisine without any local patrons.

NEVER BEEN WRONG: Lineups of locals.

Pino's Pizza, Boston. Completely overrated.

Taken by friends on our last visit to Italy, I would have been shocked had I not been fore-warned. Pretentious, over-priced and with food that would have to rise in quality to exceed mediocre to the level of modest. The best approach would have been to have taken a photo out in front, as with revisiting the "Kit Kat Klub" in Barcelona after being away for 4+ decades. It was probably worse than I remembered it to be.

Has my memory gone astray, or was (1963) and is there a "Harry's" in Florence? Pink tablecloths and napkins, lunch also served at the bar, a "hangout" for well-heeled expatriates (but you didn't have to be that well heeled to live well in Italy in 1963).

"Most of the (fresh) pineapple eaten in the US" (but I can't include Hawaii) is grown in Central America. A fair amount of canned pineapple may originate in Asia.