Chez Panisse Cafe

12/08/09

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but...

by Lochardil at Citysearch

can't believe why people fall for this place, I left here feeling completely conned.

I have two theories:

One is the old "King New Clothes" theory that no one wants to be called out as an ignoramus and everyone is pretending that the real basic food they charge a fortune for here, is actually gourmet.

The other (and please don't be offended, American friends) is that 90% of of the people that eat here have never been to France or eaten in a real French restaurant, so think this is worth all this the money to eat in a "French Restaurant".

Believe me everyone, and I speak as a European guy who has family in Paris who is often in France, this has as much in common with even an average Paris restaurant as the imitation Paris in Las Vegas has with the real Paris.

Whoever runs this place seems to think that if you give a restaurant a French name, have some waiters with European accents, make your guests wait forever between courses (in genuine French restaurants you never have to wait this long) that equals a French restaurant, and this allows them to mark up their really poor food by huge amounts. Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you are not fooling me.

The service was slow as a glacier, we arrived bang on time for our 6pm table, but it was not ready, so were told we had to wait in the bar. The staff then forgot about us, so at around 6.15 we had to ask them what was going on and were told our table was ready.

After about a ten minute wait, they brought olives, after about another ten minutes they brought bread. It took around another 30 minutes for a really basic starter to arrive. Then unbelievably around an hour for the main course.

Now here was where the biggest disappointment was. Before the main course arrived I was still slightly buying the line that if you wait a long time you get something special. Boy was I wrong! I'm a vegetarian, and was promised a "vegetarian dish". What I got was exactly the same as what my wife got, but minus the chicken and plus more chickpeas. It was actually some vegetables, chickpeas in warm water! I could have done better myself! It was at that point that I wished we had just gone to the really excellent Claremont Diner and paid $20 for their great food.

Towards the end of the evening I was beginning to laugh out loud at the nerve of the people that run this place to perpetrate such a huge con. Our final bill was over $180! For this we got the pleasure of spending around 2 hours waiting around for food and when it came it was chickpeas in warm water!

Now I know there are those of you out there thinking now that I am just a poor ignoramus who does not appreciate good food and the French ambiance. Let me say again I know France, have been there many times, had many great meals there.

I left the restaurant singing The "Who"s "Won't get fooled again" under my breath. Need I say more?

• Pros: Nice atmosphere
• Cons: Exactly, this place is a huge con

03/23/09

Sans Panisse

by choukung at Citysearch

I would hazard a guess that it has been a while since Alice visited her restaurant. If she came, I doubt she would recognize some things. First of all, the maitre'de was officious, making us go upstairs because our table wasn't ready, even though upstairs was overflowing. (By the way, only one bathroom for all those people is a little strange, no?). He wasn't there when we left, for good or ill, so we learned how to use the revolving coat hanger system, which was pretty cool (why it got 3 stars instead of 2).

Although the leek salad was very tasty, the ravioli in a weak soup was similar to a common wanton without soup. Very strange. The pork was not too bad, but certainly nothing to write home (or anywhere else) about. The service was also common, making it obvious why they force a 17% gratuity on all the checks--one gets the feeling that we were not the first to question what kind of tip we would have to give them.

Interestingly, one of the servers spoke with a heavy European accent--until, that is, he started talking with one of his bros from a nearby town, when suddenly the accent vanished.

It seems some regulars get good treatment, but we will not be among them...

I recommend Alice come visit her restaurant, in disguise, to get a real view. Then again, maybe she would not need a disguise.

• Pros: Salads
• Cons: Everything else

02/02/09

Still good; some choices unsuccessful

by ccknippart at Citysearch

Aperiti:, because we don't drink, they poured us a Navarro Vineyards Gewurztraminer grape juice, a pleasant surprise, if dubious for a recovering alcoholic, which one of us was.

The service was not slow as some have complained, though at times it obtrusive.

The caviar and smoked fish (steelhead in both cases, we guessed) with the watercress salad all tasted quite fresh. The buckwheat blinis--why does Chez Panisse always have buckwheat something on every menu and has had that for decades--were soggy; but still went with the caviar. And there was creme fraiche ( not mentioned.)

This was a decent crab cake, but it broke up too easily. The braised Belgian endives with Meyer lemon--they called it Meyer lemon ?salsa,? an odd use of words-- had an acrid taste; an unusual but not happy choice.

The duck breast slices came with a tiny, loose patch of risotto--again with Meyer lemon, and too lemony. . The duck breast slices with a light "reduction sauce," a sort of nouvelle cuisine effect, were not miraculous, but freshness without interference.

The desert was conventional, but delicious, delicate yet rich. The vanilla-walnut ice cream came with the "chocolate fondant," which one of my companions said was the wrong word. The young girl who made up the deserts said "fondant" was used on this menu just to mean warm cake.

There was some spice with the cake and ice cream, like cardamom, that was lovely, just a dash, a surprise. And then, afterward, candies: a chewy caramel, and??Meyer lemon thumb prints.? But this time, the Meyer lemon read only as lemon, and was not acrid or invasive.

I found the waiter?s insistence on our touring the kitchen made me feel treated like a tourist.

Alice Waters has been a great spokesperson for slow food and fresh food, but she steals all the credit for things she did not invent, and that includes Chez Paniesse itself, of whichw she has never been the principal chef.