Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, January 11 2006 @ 02:24 PM CST
November 22, 2005
Solomon Melesse
The American Restaurant
200 E. 25th Street, Suite 400
Kansas City, MO 64108
Mr. Melesse:
My husband and I celebrated our first anniversary at your restaurantlast night and we were hoping to make it an annual tradition, butafter the experience we had, we’ve changed our mind. However,I thought you would like to know about the things we experienced.
I made the reservation with Hillary and told her that it was our firstanniversary. We specifically made it for a weeknight since wethought we would received better service. And, Hillary told me thatonly two other couples had made reservations by the time I called somy husband and I had high hopes for an exquisite dining experience.
Here’sthe chronology of what we experienced on November 21 starting at 7PM:
Our valet parking experience was good, but when we got to the restaurant,we saw a coat check room (unattended) and couldn’t figure outhow to get into it. The hostess finally saw us and told us to leavethe coat on the chair and she would get it. We were then seated.
The water lady (who also ended up serving the bread and clearing thedishes) needs to speak up and enunciate. She said something whilepouring our water and I had to ask her what it was. All she had saidwas that our server would be along shortly. When she served me thebread later on, I had to ask her to repeat what she said. I haveexcellent hearing (as does my husband), but we could not understandher mumbled statements.
The wine list was presented to my husband and he chose a bottle of wine. The sommelier proceeded to say that she was in training while struggling with the broken cork (although she had been there a yearand a half per what she said later on). The broken cork was a turnoff and the wine was bitter. I’ve seen broken, disintegratedcorks at other restaurants and the sommelier immediately replaces thebottle before even serving it to the guest. However, my husband wasasked to taste the wine and then sent it back. The waitress told himlater that she tasted the wine and she also thought it was bitter. He ordered another bottle of wine and it was fine. But, the wholecork incident was a bit unsettling since I’ve had otherrestaurants immediately bring out a new bottle when that happens.
We were then handed our dinner menus and they said “HappyAnniversary David and Linda”. We don’t know who David and Linda are, but those are not our names. We weren’t sure wewere supposed to order from the items on David and Linda’smenu, but our waitress assured us it was the same menu that everyoneelse got and she did apologize profusely for the mix up. Hmmmm…
My husband is on a very low carb diet and told the waitress this and she did an excellent job of steering him to the right choices and even had the chef prepare his scallops without the breading and the escobar without the breading (and they were both delicious). However, she gave him the amuse-bouche of Camembert and the gingerbread with the fig feeling. He ate the Camembert but not the gingerbread. She even came back later and said “I should have just given you the cheese”. Her effort was there, but her execution was sub-par at times.
Ourfirst courses came and my husband ate his scallops faster than I atemy soup. While my hand was still on a piece of bread mopping up thesoup in my bowl (I realize this is bad manners, but the soup wasexcellent and I wanted to eat it all), the water lady/bread lady/dishclearer lady started to take my bowl away while mumbling something. I turned around and looked at her and asked her what she said and shethen asked me if I was done. While my hand was still in my bowl, Isaid “no” and continued to eat the rest of my soup for afew more minutes. I was astounded that while I was actively eating,she thought I was done!
Dinnerwas served and when my sweet potato puree side dish was brought out,the server noted that she forgot the serving spoon. About 10 minuteslater, we waved down another server and requested a spoon and alsoexplained that we were not pleased with the service we werereceiving. An older woman visited our table and asked how thingswere and after explaining some of these things to her, she apologizedand offered a complimentary dessert.
The dessert menu was presented and nothing really appealed to me (and ofcourse my husband wasn’t going to order anything due to his lowcarb diet) but I did see ice cream and I asked the server for theflavors that they had. She said that she had coconut ice cream andsince I saw that one of the desserts came with pineapple sorbet, Iasked if I could have a scoop of pineapple sorbet and a scoop ofcoconut ice cream. She then brought out two scoops of coconut icecream and a scoop of banana sorbet and explained that there was nopineapple sorbet event though it was on the menu. I detest bananas(and this brown puree was very unpleasant to look at) and after onebite of the gummy coconut ice cream, I was done.
Also, our server knew that I did not drink or like alcohol of any kind(which was one reason why many of the desserts didn’t appeal tome) and that I would only be drinking water with my meal. However,my water glass was empty for significant periods of time on threeoccasions. Either the glass needs to be larger, the bottle left onthe table or the water lady needs to be more attentive. I had towave my glass in the air at one point to get anyone’s attentionto the situation.
When two liqueur filled chocolates were brought at the end of the meal, Irealized that the server really hadn’t been listening at all. My husband, on his low carb diet, would not eat them and neitherwould I since I despise alcohol. It would have been better for herto ask if we wanted them and we would have said “no” andthen they wouldn’t have been wasted at our table.
On a positive note, my husband’s escobar was excellent as were hisscallops. My beets with blue cheese were also very tasty and theamuse-bouche of the gingerbread with fig filling should be on thedessert menu since it was outstanding.
Any of these items on its own wouldn’t have made for a subparevening, but when so many things happened at what we thought wasKansas City’s destination restaurant, we were verydisappointed. And, getting menus that were personalized for anothercouple rather than commemorating OUR anniversary seemed to be a slapin the face and I blame Hillary for this.
As I stated at the beginning of this letter, we were hoping to make thisan annual occasion, but we will probably try another one of KansasCity’s upscale restaurants next year but we still look forwardto hearing from you regarding these issues.
Sincerely,