Sometimes you get excited going to a place but unfortunately, your plan does not go the way you thought. That is what happened with Redeye Grill, a restaurant located across from The Carnegie Hall that went recently through renovation and had one of the best banana cream pie I tried in the city. We decided to go on a Friday evening not knowing that they have live music. Fortunately the weather was nice and we decided to sit in one of their tables outside. I wonder if it was not a mistake! We sat there with their menu for a bit before our waiter came asking if we wanted some water and if we were ready to order. We were and I was surprised to see that he did not write down our order, impressed by such memory. For sure he had difficulties to understand my accent and most of my sentences where followed by a “what?”. I was not impressed that long as he came back asking to confirm the order few minutes later. Then it took a while to get our appetizers, that were finally followed by our drinks (Jodi ordered a pink grapefruit tonic and I got a cocktail, The French Quarter, made with cognac, rye, bitters and absinthe). I had to try their dancing shrimp that are Coconut battered colossal shrimp served with a pineapple sauce, a ponzu sauce and a salsa verde. The presentation was spectacular, the shrimp coming on skewers. Taste wise, it was quite good, crispy and not greasy, the shrimp being well cooked. The second appetizer was guacamole and chips that was nice, the chips being homemade and the guacamole perfectly done, definitely freshly made.

At this point, no water. As we finished our first courses, we waited again a while looking at the managers walking around and cleaning tables, looking at us but definitely ignoring us. Finally, the entrees came. Orgininally I was going for crab cakes but as I ordered the waiter let me know that there was no crab dish available that was a bit surprising for a restaurant with a large seafood selection and I wished they told me before. On top of that, several yummy dishes do have crab in it...So I went for...steak. I ordered a Delmonico ribeye that was supposed to be served with a bordelaise sauce that I asked on the side. When the steak came, there was no trace of bordelaise sauce and instead, I got some blue cheese, that was fine as I did not care much about the sauce. When I cut the steak, I could see that it was not a good cut and, fortunately for me, it was cooked medium and not medium rare as ordered. I told one of the staff who told me he would tell our waiter immediately and then proceeded to clean tables...Finally, our waiter stopped by, apologizing and then coming back few minutes to let me know the steak would come soon and that the Chef mentioned that it was indeed medium-rare but they would bring me a steak a bit more rare than medium (that’s what I would probably call medium-rare anyway and I was a bit surprised about the comment that was unnecessary). This is at that point that we got our water! It took a good 10 to 15 minutes for the steak to come back and I could see a difference in the quality and temperature (below, you can see the one on the left that was cooked medium and the one on the right that is in fact more rare than medium-rare). The steak was good, juicy, but a bit tough to cut in some parts.

We were glad that Jodi got a cold dish as we waited a while between the moment she got it and the moment I got my dish. It was the Green Goddess veggie roll made with asparagus, avocado, daikon and a spicy miso.

Green Goddess veggie roll at Redeye Grill in NYC, NY

After we finished our entree, our waiter was nowhere to be found so we decided to skip the dessert we were so looking forward to have. And to top the poor service we had, they counted two steaks on the bill and added the blue cheese sauce I never asked for! Good that I always check the bill before paying. And again, I got a bit of an attitude from the waiter who, instead of apologizing told me that he was “not a computer”. Well I could have guessed but it is not a reason to be rude! At least you should apologize for a blatant mistake. Anyway, this was disappointing and shows how poor service can wreck a meal. Too bad because the food was decent and I was so looking forward for that banana cream pie.

Enjoy (…)!

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Red Eye Grill - 890 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10019

Redeye Grill: how service can ruin a meal

Jean-Philippe Gerbi