I've travelled all over the world & dined at many fine dining establishments so I expect, when I am about to spend $100 on a meal, to have three things- great service, sublime food, & to leave satiated. Not so this time, I would label my experience here, bland & boring. 1. My reservation was on time & the servers were friendly. However, they immediately led me to one of the worst seats in the restaurant at the bar at the end of a counter on a high bar stool where servers would have to go around me multiple times. This is a pet peeve of mine . As a single traveller, I'm often given the worst seat. I watched couples get lovely window seats when I was being stuck at the awful seat, I just said no & asked them to move me. Servers found me a place but then I was basically told that I was not to linger. Strike 1. 2. Service was good & friendly. Meal started with waiter asking me if I wanted a drink. I very specifically asked for one type of alcohol. The waiter checked & said they had it, so I ordered it. They brought it over , I sipped it, & it was not my drink. Then I had to go through this gaslighting experience of having the male waiter tell me that my drink was correct when I knew it wasn't! If I have to pay $100 for meal, I want the correct drink brought to me & I don't want to have to convince a waiter that there is an error. Sure enough, the server went back & I overheard them talk & they didn't even have my choice of alcohol there. They were wrong on 3 counts- 1 -to tell me they had it in the first place, 2- to serve it to me & 3- to try to convince me that I was imagining that it was wrong.Grrrrr! Strike 2. 3. For that price, I had hoped for & even expected a piece of bread, but I guess they don't do that here which was very disappointing.But I heard the waiter say that the portions were big & I even asked about what I was ordering & he said it would be enough. So I thought, I don't need the extra carbs. I ordered the scallops de Boston, which the waiter explained were served raw. Context- I have often scallop scuba dived & eaten scallops straight out of the shell & they have been delicious .What really sold the dish to me was the waiter saying that it had black truffle on it. Now I love truffles so I was really looking forward to it. & for $18, I assumed it would be divine!! What came were 5 slivers of scallop, maybe the equivalent of one & a half , maybe two scallops? They were in a liquid with what look like black truffle shavings. I tasted it & it was completely bland. I could not detect any seasoning but I thought, "maybe they didn't put any salt & pepper on them because they wanted the scallops & truffle to shine" but no, the truffle had no flavour at all & the scallops tasted slimy. I did not enjoy them, but I was hungry so I ate them. They did ask me what I thought of them, but after arguing already about my drink & being shuffled to a bad seat to start the dinner, I wasn't in the mood to explain. To top it off, when I tried to put slight pressure on a scallop to cut it , a whole bunch of ice underneath the dish spewed out all over my clothes, table, etc., which was not pleasant. As I was trying to clean it up, I also knocked over the fake candle. The server came over to help & I explained, "I was only trying to cut one in half". To this, he responded, "don't cut it in half, eat it whole". I guess I had to reach the age of 60+ to be told how to eat scallops correctly without making a mess. At this point, I don't have my drink, didn't enjoy the scallops, have no bread & I'm waiting for halibut for my main course, I asked how it was served & what the sauce Veronique was. It sounded good. My halibut came. It was a generous slice, had some nice brown colour, & seemed cooked well. But when I tasted it, it had absolutely no seasoning, was bland & the sauce also seemed unseasoned & bland. What was the point of the sauce if there was no flavour to it ? This was not a good experience & I will not be back. Strike 3!
Excellent dining experience. From flawless service to great execution on seemingly simple dishes, everything was high quality. Steak tartare was prepared at the table & was one of the best I have ever had. Lobster spaghetti is also highly recommended. Mussels & oysters were the highlight of the small cold platter.
The entire staff at Joe beef clearly love to work there & with each other. This comes out in the food & service. It reminds me of a Danny Meyer restaurant. Their food was exceptional & our server made excellent wine recommendations. We had the beef tartare prepared table side with endives & crostini. The meal could have ended there I would've been happy but we followed it up with a gem salad, the duck meal to share & fries. Not your traditional steak house meal given the other options but would have that meal on repeat. we finished it with a chocolate meringue dessert that our server previously called the "kids dessert" she was not wrong. 10/10 would recommend
