- 整體 2
- 食物 2
- 服務 1
- 氛圍 1
Eating any of the CIA restaurants requires a spirit of generosity to help students appreciate and tune their craft from a patron's perspective. Unfortunately, those students do not always have a receptive attitude, and instead believe (mistakenly) that they are competent in their skills and quality of customer interaction. Perhaps that is what CIA's primary objective is: to build that confidence. If only the food and service reflected some substance behind the facade!
As one example at the Bocuse: Chicken Fricassée is one of the easiest dishes to make, but the Bocuse offering was awful and had to be sent back. Why? Far too much salt, no cream, and tough chicken, creating an inedible mess. Further, this dish sat in front of me uneaten while the rest of our party finished their entrees...no one ever checked in on our status. So on this day's prix fixe menu, I didn't receive a main course - but no adjustment was made to the bill.
Now some of these young people are very nice, but many seem anti-social and really struggling with front-of-the-house comportment -- often not even able to make eye contact or communicate effectively. Which makes remedying problems like the ones we experienced during our visit to two CIA restaurants challenging. But after two years of CIA training, you would think something as simple and basic as Chicken Fricassée would be doable -- as would something as simple and basic as checking in on patrons.
Combined with an equally poor performance the previous evening at American Bounty (where ***three*** dishes were an epic fail), we will not be returning to CIA for any of our meals. The concepts are dreary, execution is uneven or poor, presentation is equally all over the place, and service generally struggles. Frankly, if our experience is any indication, this does not bode well for culinary arts in America.
Lastly, one Bocuse highlight was a "tableside Amish hand-crank ice cream experience." That performance was truly fun and yummy.