I'm still bugged by that restaurant meal...

[grasswire]

Last week some shirttail relatives were in town. They took us out for dinner, to a nice newer restaurant that has gotten mention in Gourmet magazine and other press. I ordered the lamb with toasted walnut and blackberry sauce. When it came, there were several small slices of lamb (about three ounces) and a spicy sausage patty about an ounce and a half.

I was really insulted by the fact that nowhere on the menu did it mention that the meat portion would include a lamb sausage patty. That, to me, violates the trust of the guest. I ordered lamb, not lamb sausage.

Even with the patty, I thought the portion size was very small. Four and a half ounces of meat? For 20 bucks, a la carte?

What say you?

This is not a fancy place, just a nice neighborhood restaurant where families are welcome, right next to a tavern.

[grasswire]

1. here's the actual description from the menu

"Cattail Creek Farm Lamb

Green beans with toasted walnut butter, crushed blackberries, & mint sour cream potatoes $20"

[Tesha]

2. I agree...

for $20 of a lamb dinner you'd expect sliced meat - not ground lamb and not so skimpy.

Did you speak up, or did you not want to upset the founders of the feast?

[grasswire]

4. I did not.

But I plan to send an e-mail to the chef-owner. That's kinder than putting it in a review online, I think. The mint potatoes were a little screwy, too. But the blackberry toasted walnut sauce was really delicious.

[Warpy]

3. They were running out of lamb and had to extend it

and places chichi enough to get into Gourmet often offer small portions.

Seriously, 4.5 oz. of meat is not that small. I realize that prole food joints offer an 8 oz. slab o cow, but fine dining portions are more sensible.

However, if they want to stay in business as a neighborhood restaurant, they're going to have to redesign their menu and price structure for that neighborhood. Mentions in Gourmet won't get people to go really far out of the way and won't do a whole lot of good unless the restaurant is in the big city.

[grasswire]

5. yes, I know that

But this is not a chi chi restaurant. Nor is it a prole food joint. It's a neighborhood restaurant in a largely blue-collar part of the city that has 837 restaurants in just that quadrant. I don't really care about the size of the portion as much as the fact that the kitchen should have told the guest that a spicy sausage would be replacing part of the lamb. Actually, I couldn't eat the sausage. The flavors were repugnant with the lovely sauce.

One of our dinner companions has twenty years of executive chef experience at some pretty ritzy establishments (including a Ritz Carlton) and thought the sausage an odd thing, too.

[Warpy]

6. It sounds like they're not going to be in business long

unless they change that menu.

You might write them a note telling them how you feel. Praise the sauce and damn the sausage and suggest when someone orders something they're nearly out of, they inform him about any substitutions before the order goes in.

[cbayer]

7. I would rather have a small amount of something really good than a large

amount of something mediocre. But that's just me and I realize that most people eat larger portions than I.

I usually order an appetizer as my main dish because I get full really fast, but I understand that if you ordered an entree, you expect more actual food.

Writing to the chef/owner sounds like a good idea. You may even receive an invitation to return with a meal on him!

[cbayer]

8. One more thing. I just took an extensive road trip, which meant lots of eating in

restaurants. I wrote reviews on every single place - from a burrito shack to an upscale Italian place - on tripadvisor. I think it's one of the best resources for finding and then reviewing restaurants everywhere.

I also use UrbanSpoon and yelp, but I have found the reviews on these sites to be much less reliable.