Roger La Grenouille — Restaurant in Paris

To be fair. I can't speak for anyone else's experience nor do I know if the restaurant is having a particular interesting night. But I stand by my rating as the experience I have received. For every point below, I have deducted a star.

Atmosphere and Seating - The front room looks lively and well attended to. The backroom where we were sat even though we had a reservation was not. It is dark and the servers only pass by to drop plates off. The room is filled with small tables, your elbows will touch the other tables. For another guest to move out of their seat, everyone will have to adjust their tables. It conjures to mind a can of sardines, or a feeding trough for livestock. If you will.

Service - We were happily greeted by the host, and the waiters were charming and kind. But the service was inattentive as we were not in the main room. No one came to ask if we wanted any more drinks or how we were doing. The menu came about 20 minutes in and our main course didn't show up until 70 minutes into our meal. We were told that the chef has made some mistakes, and the waiter then promptly left.

Food - We had the steak frites by another name, fried frog legs and the chicken. Time issue aside, the dishes were disappointing. The frogs were dry and tough, the bread served alongside were cold and not unlike supermarket bread. The steak was told to be medium rare, but came out bloody and nearly raw once you cut into it, mind you, this was after a long wait, so hard to explain. The chicken seemed to be cooked to be crispy, before being drowned in a sauce that turned it soggy and tepid. The fries were thin and under-seasoned, McDonalds, the American variety even, have served better.

Price - For our meal with 2 drinks came out to be $90. The frog legs, small in portion size as they are, were almost $30. The non-alcoholic beverages are $8 for a single glass of juice/etc. We came at prime dinner time on a Saturday and they were out of many options.

I recommended this place to my girlfriend, who opted for any bistro in Paris. I should have taken her advice instead. If you look at other comments, you'll see tourists, Americans and Russians alike, rave about the authenticity of this place. The French ones lament for what it used to be. I think I agree...

We were sat quickly but a server did not approach the table for about 10 minutes. We preserved a bottle of wine and after it was poured a fly flew into my dates drink.

We informed the waiter and he took the glass and brought a new EMPTY glass. After the server could tell we were upset about that did he offer any sort of retribution for the wine. Fine no big deal….

We ordered our food and after it arrived I discovered a hair in my meal. This really upset me after the bug incident. Unfortunately, we lost the hair and could not prove it. But I was extremely frustrated by the situation. We got the check of 228$ and I left 200$.

The server then chases me down the street over the 28$ discrepancy. He threatened me with police so I paid him 40$ right then and there cash, leaving 11.50$ for change.

During this we were having a heated exchange when the serve spoke to locals in French and they started hanging up on us. What could’ve been handled between me and the server turned into me, the server, 4 locals, 3 other restaurant employees.

The server got verbally aggressive as I flicked a cigarette to the side so I could walk in and follow him for my change.

He got verbally abusive and even put his hands on my date.

He handed me my 11.50 in change and I put the 10$ bill in my wallet and the 1.50$ in my pocket.

While this was going on about 300 euro was taken from my GFs purse. I can’t prove it but my wallet went missing too, I suspect I dropped it in the commotion and all the staff claimed the didn’t see it or have it, a woman who claimed to be the owners daughter told my date that she isn’t a thief, weird nobody said she was. I have a suspicion she stole my wallet and the money from my gf purse. My wallet and her purse was about 600-750 euro as we were going to have a night on the town.

It is completely unacceptable to chase people down the street, it’s unacceptable to employ locals to hang up on us, it is completely unacceptable your server put his hands on my date.

This was genuinely a horrible experience and I will be contacting authorities about going in and reviewing your tapes to prove they didn’t steal our money. This shit...

DO NOT EAT HERE!!!

There was a bug in our wine. We called for an additional glass, as the waiter took our glass of a 70$ bottle. He said “ we charge by the bottle not the glass”. After he could tell we were upset about it only then offered a discount.

We then got our entrees. There was 6” hair in our food. We pulled it out and then unfortunately lost the hair. I’m freshly cut sitting at about 3”, They asked why I didn’t say anything, I was angry about the wine.

I decided to pay 200$ on a 228$ bill and the server chased me down the street over a 20$ discrepancy. I put 40$ in his pocket and said give me my change. I had to follow him back for change where he got physical with my GF and then paid me my change, no receipt.

The serve also got 3 locals to team against us. This was extremely uncool. Talkings hit in French while trying to take the moral high ground, everybody spoke English but refused. Wanted to keep it a secret.

I happily paid the discrepancy and was ready to go before they got physical with my date and that’s where I stepped in. I told them to call the cops and they refused realizing they were in the wrong. We will be calling the health inspector.

DO...