Sur La Table — Local services in Natick

I attended a cooking class there with my adult children to have an experience together. The class started 15 minutes late because the instructor was not finished preparing for it. They may be shorthanded, so this can be excused. We weren't in a rush, so it wasn't a big deal.

The class was too large for the room, even with three people not attending. We were a group of 6 and teamed up, but that left most of us standing and watching most of the time. It was not hands-on, as expected.

We did not end up cooking the meal that was advertised. It was supposed to be chicken under a brick, and it was grilled - risotto was cheese and peas, but no peas. Dessert was vanilla mascarpone panna cotta, which is naturally gluten-free, so we picked this class. We were offered ice cream instead, as they did not have the right mascarpone. But instead of the ice cream, the chef made mousse-filled cream puffs, which were good but not gluten-free, and did it all herself while we were "on break" shopping in the store. And did not offer the gluten-free customers anything different, not even the ice cream initially offered.

Very little instruction was given, so it was not a class. While the food was delicious, eating while standing up as the workers cleaned dishes around us was not ideal. And while we still had fun being together, for the price of the class, we could have gone to a high-end

restaurant but were looking for more of an "experience".

All in all, it was a very disappointing experience, and I would not go again...

I took the Pasta 3 Ways Cooking class. I wish I had read these reviews before signing up. The instructor didn’t seem to know how to “teach” this class. The tomato sauce we created was bland. No salt or pepper added by students. We did learn how to cut a shallot and garlic to add, of course with a plug for us to purchase the garlic peeler in the store. While we we rolling out pasta she went around and added a pinch of salt to our sauce. No clear instructions on how to fill raviolis and no demonstration. We had nothing to follow along with as we were told the printer didn’t work so we had no printed recipes. So why not just email them to students so we could print out and bring with us? I know it could have been done as the recipes we emailed to me long after class was over at 3am. We weren’t given a whisk or even a small fork to mix eggs for egg wash. We were told to use the pastry brush. One large pot of canola oil was used to fry all the dessert ravioli, so by the time she got to me I could smell the old, dirty oil which reflected in the taste of the ravioli. They ran out of paper towels at the hand washing station so a bag of paper dinner napkins was put out for us to use. This just the tip of the iceberg as yes, it does get worse. This class was a Christmas gift that I was really looking forward to. So...

I took the Taste of Thailand "class" on January 11th. This was NOT a class, this was a demonstration. I could have watched a cooking show for free, however, my son paid 90.00 (this was a Christmas gift)for me to watch the chef cook. The only hands on was us chopping some ingredients, in which 5 of them were forgotten about or just not offered. No basil, tofu, bean sprouts or chili sauce. The food portions were extremely underwhelming. They ran out of bowls, therefore, some of us were offered the soup in a ramekin. The shrimp was cooked by the chefs assistants and put on saucer for us to share. But...we didn't get much of a chance to even enjoy it because it was placed on the table and quickly whisked away. Why? Because they were rushing us out the door because another class was starting and they needed to clean. They took a break halfway through the class, solely, for us to shop in their store. The food was not cooked properly and was lacking any flavor. The pad Thai noodles were severely undercooked due to the chef not preparing them correctly. He explained how they were supposed to be prepared but did not follow his own instructions. I would not recommend this...