Three Birds Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Corning

After my experience at Three Birds last night, I’m completely dumbfounded by all of the good reviews they’ve received. We are relatively new to the area and I picked this restaurant for my birthday dinner because of the good reviews. I’m pescatarian and there were multiple things on the menu that I was excited to try. Unfortunately upon arrival, we found that they were doing a limited holiday menu and none of the things I was interested in trying were available. The server informed us that they’d just decided a few days prior to go with a limited menu for the rest of the year. Had we known, we would have canceled our reservation. We almost left but decided to go ahead and order. My partner got a Caesar salad that was fine, I started with the crab cake appetizer. The menu said it came with a traditional remoulade sauce. What it actually came with was a chunky, green pickled relish, which was unappealing in presentation and flavor. My partner opted for the duck confit for his entree. The server asked how he wanted to the duck cooked, which was a baffling question since duck confit, when done properly, is cooked through. There was nothing special about it, it came with basic mashed potatoes, a handful of vegetables including just one Brussels sprout cut in half. The skin on the duck leg was not crisped at all, as is usually done on a properly executed confit. Overall, it was okay, but that’s it. I opted for the fig flatbread from the appetizer menu as my entree. The menu description said it came with a lemon arugula salad. When it arrived, it was a bland flat bread with chunks of dried fig, which I could hardly get my fork through, a few shreds of some sort of unmelted cheese and the arugula “salad” was hot and wilted, sautéed arugula with no discernible lemon flavor whatsoever. The whole dish was unappetizing and inedible. The service was also lacking. Our server dropped the apps off at the table and we didn’t see her again until she brought the entrees. She never asked if I wanted another glass of wine. We’re also still trying to figure out why there was a bottle of some type of flavored olive oil on the table when no bread is served. The entire experience was so disappointing that we didn’t stay for dessert even though I originally wanted to order creme brûlée as my birthday dessert, but didn’t want to spend another dime on subpar food. It’s astounding to me how short the execution fell on everything we ordered. It’s shameful that a chef would put out this kind of food and stand behind it. We’ve been to several other restaurants on Market Street and all have been excellent. Skip this place and go to The Cellar or the Quincy Exchange if you’re interested in a far superior dining experience. We should have gone with our instincts and left Three Birds as soon as we found out they only had the limited menu. My entire birthday experience was ruined by this place and their...

This was one of the worst dining experience my husband and I have ever had. We arrived at 6 and shortly after placed our order for both appetizers and mains, along with drinks. After that nearly an hour dragged by before we got our appetizers. The server only came by twice. The first time was because my husband flagged her to get the drink menu, the second when he flagged her to order a drink. By the time we got our appetizers we were so hungry we couldn't enjoy the finer points of it. And then after another 50 minutes, during which our server never came by, not to apologize for the delay or ask if we needed anything at all, even after we asked another server to send her over, I began to have an anxiety attack from the unpleasant experience. Finally, what I assume was a manager, came by and offered to comp drinks and dessert just as they finally brought our meal. This was supposed to be a romantic birthday meal, but the entire waitstaff was inattentive and quite frankly absent for us. It ruined an otherwise pleasant day and left me so sick after my anxiety attack that I was nauseated, headache and in tears. We have been better served at McDonald's than we were at three birds last night and I will never return. It should not have taken 2 hours to get our main course and apologies and explanations and attention should have been frequent and generous. Instead I felt like the unwelcome black sheep relative at the favorite child's birthday party. In my opinion, our server should be retrained, reassigned...

So much for fine dining. This whole experience was beyond disappointing. I’m being generous with 3 stars because our server was a nice person and the drinks were good. When I made the reservation months ago, I mentioned we were celebrating a birthday and that we would like a window table. Neither were acknowledged. The hostess showed one person in the party to a cramped table when it was said TWICE that we needed to wait for another person paying at the bar. She ignored me, so I ended up going back to the bar and showing them to the table myself. Soup came out quickly (btw, what kind of “fine dining” establishment serves a cheap plastic wrapped package of oyster crackers? come on…), but we waited forever for entrees. Bar napkins and straw wrappers (aka garbage) stayed on the table for most of the service until they were accidentally knocked on the ground. I can go to a cheap diner and they’ll take care of table garbage better than this place did. Food was forgettable. Potato mash was gritty russets (has the kitchen never heard of a yukon gold?). Sauces on the swordfish and the lamb feature were weirdly sweet. Also, lobster thermidor is one of the features? What in the 1950s is that about? We were never even offered a dessert menu when the server picked up our plates, so we just asked for the check. For a $142 bill and another $40 at the bar, I expected way better than this. This was supposed to be a special night and it ended up being subpar....