RESTAURANT WEEK DINNER NO. 2: CHEZ HENRI

It takes a lot to truly piss me off. I takes even more to make me complain on a public forum (like Chowhound). Actually, I've only done it once and that was during my disastrous 26th Birthday dinner at the Red House. (You can go back and find that blog entry on your own time). But dinner last night qualifies as one of those meals that truly pisses me off. And when I do get pissed off, it's NEVER about the food. It's ALWAYS about the service. As I've written earlier this week, we had reservations for Chez Henri last night to celebrate Tom's 35th birthday. It was a nice coincidence that it also happened to be restaurant week. I've wanted to go to Chez Henri for some time, I've heard that they have an amazing bar menu with French and Cuban influences, so I was looking foward to this meal.

When we entered the restaurant, I noticed that it was packed (not shocking for a Friday night). The bar area was completely separate from the dining room and had it's own seating area. We were seated pretty quickly and I noticed that the dining room had some fun, quirky decorations like ceramic chickens and unique glass lamps that hung from the ceilings. It was a smaller dining room than I expected, but that gave it an intimate, cozy quality. We were handed menus as we sat and perused them for a bit. I noticed that almost every entree on the menu contained some form of pork, though. In the salads, the soups, even the seafood dishes. So it's not a great place to take a Kosher diner. Much like Union, Chez Henri only gave you two options for Restaurant Week, so it didn't take us long to decide. However, it did take a while for our waiter to show up, and nearly 10 minutes had elapsed before he decided to grace us with his presence.

He asked us if we wanted to order drinks (Jayna got a mojito) and was sharp enough to notice that we'd been sitting there so long that we were also ready to order. After we ordered, he went off and we scarcely saw him again for the rest of the night. The runners took care of us from there on out. We were given a basket of bread which had these awesome little round rolls enhanced with cheese and roasted peppers and our appetizers arrived soon after that. Everyone else at the table ordered a soup made from Maduros (ripe plantains).
I think Leah and Tom's favorite part of this entire soup was that large chunk of bacon you see peeking out of the bowl. The also commented on the mellow flavors of the soup, claiming that it didn't really taste like plantains at all, but more like some type of squash. Meanwhile, I broke from the pack and ordered a salad of arugula and serrano ham. (You can see the ham under all the greens).After removing the serrano and handing it off to Leah and Tom (and noticing how fatty it was), I enjoyed my simple salad that was well dressed and quite tasty.

The runners removed our plates and this was when we proceeded to wait for our entrees to arrive. Now, since this was a fairly small restaurant, I could actually see most of the tables around us. I noticed that the table of 4 behind us had ordered about 5 minutes before us and gotten their entrees nearly 15 minutes before we got ours. This could certainly be blamed on the kitchen, but not once did our waiter come and check on us. During this time, I was also able to notice how well staffed the restaurant was. There were 3 waiters (for a not huge dining room) in addition to at least 3 runners and a manager. Our water glasses were kept filled by the runners, but that was about how much notice we got.

Eventually our entrees arrived, and you could tell that Tom's order of pork had spent a bit of time under a heat lamp. Both his and Leah's pork loins were a bit dry, though they did get a very generous serving. Meanwhile, Jayna and I had both ordered a tilapia on a bed of rice with a red curry coconut sauce. Once again, I was surprised at how well prepared my fish was. It actually tasted much more Thai than Cuban, but I really liked the moist fish along with the topping of crisp, lightly pickled veggies.
Our waiter failed to check in on us and even give the cursory "How is your meal?" during this time. After finishing our entrees, our plates were finally taken away by a runner, and we proceeded to wait for our desserts (which we had ordered at the beginning of the meal.) During this time, I also noticed that the waiter had forgotten Leah's order of Cuban fries, but it was too late for those. Finally our waiter made an appearance, asking Jayna what she had decided on for dessert (she couldn't decide at the beginning and asked for a suggestion). She ended up ordering the Tres Leches cake, like Tom and Leah.

When our desserts arrived, the rest of the table enjoyed a sweet, dense cake finished with a marshmallow topping and surrounded by a pool of chocolate-coffee cream.
In the meantime, I ordered a simple mango sorbet. It was cool and refreshing, but didn't seem to have been made in house.
Then the real waiting began. We had been at dinner for nearly two hours at this point. The table of 4 behind us had left long ago, as had another table that was seated shortly before we arrived. Our plates remained visibly finished and untouched before us. I even had my napkin on my plate. Meanwhile, I started counting the number of times our waiter walked passed us and utterly ignored our presence. He made about 12 trips past us (as I said, this is a small restaurant) and during this time, we began to debate what exactly we had done to deserve such awful awful service; such flagrant neglect and rudeness. We weren't overly pick or demanding. None of us had made a special request. Even the runners were ignoring us. As I looked around at the other tables, I noticed that no one else was receiving this type of treatment. The dining room was still well staffed and there were a few empty tables by this point. Finally, Tom asked us for the check, and even that didn't arrive promptly. (It was also missing Leah's order of Cuban fries, which the waiter had never bothered to enter).

The only conclusion we could arrive at was that our entire table hadn't ordered drinks. (except for Jayna's mojito) and with the waiter, knowing that the bill wouldn't be bumped up anymore, he felt that it was OK to simply ignore us. This is the second time that this has happened to me in a month. (the other time was with dinner Taberna de Haro when our waiter went MIA). This was truly frustrating and I was mad. All of us had worked in foodservice at some point, and Leah and I own businesses where we interact with the public on a daily basis. We would never have treated our customers like this. When we finally paid the bill, I refused to allow Tom to tip any more than 15% (he's a very generous tipper and normally gives 20%. I often think he overtips) and dinner ended up taking 2.5 hours. We were all exhausted after the meal and stumbled out of the restaurant, full, but certainly unsatisfied.

And I'll conclude with this mini rant. By and large, the Restaurant Week meals that I've had in Boston have been quite good; better than the ones I'd had in NY when I lived there. But for restaurants, this is your time to put your best foot foward and introduce yourselves to a new audience. I don't think we should blithely excuse shoddy service, poor food and long waits on Restaurant Week. It can be done well and if so, I'll return to that restaurant in the future (Union and Mistral). And restaurants are not required to participate in Restaurant Week. If you don't want to do it well, then why bother? Plenty of restaurants can't justify the cost and don't participate. For me, I will never visit Chez Henri again. As I've said a million times before, great service can make up for mediocre food, but poor service will never make up for the most delectable, luxurious, awesome meal in the world.