Aixois — Restaurant in Kansas City

Not what we expected...

So, my husband and I went to Axios on Tuesday night to celebrate his promotion. It had been on our list of restaurants to try, and the weather was lovely, so we decided to give it a go.

The Pros:

Kate our server was fabulous. We just adored her. She was attentive and friendly. Couldn't ask for better service.

The cocktails were tasty.

The patio was romantic with lights strung about, and it didn't hurt that you could watch all the furry college boys run along the Trolley Track Trail. lol

The Cons: The Food

Now, let me preface this by saying that I am not a professional chef. But I am a foodie who frequents fine dining and local flare restaurants and a home chef who makes gourmet meals frequently and is aware of flavor composition and technique. I shouldn't compare all French restaurants to Le Fou Frog, but it's still the best (sorry Cafe Des Amis. And still have yet to try Cafe Provence. Stay tuned. lol)

I don't think I have ever paid such an exorbitant amount of money for poorly made "French" bar food.

We started with the escargot, mussels, and frog legs. Classic, right? ANY French restaurant should be able to produce a quality dish like these in their sleep.

Unfortunately, the bowl of mussels came out lukewarm and several were not even opened, and because they were undercooked, they were chewy and rubbery. The broth wasn't even flavorful as I tasted it with stale crusty bread.

The shoestring fries were tasty.

The escargot was not served in the shell as is accustomed, but instead deshelled in a vat of butter with some mediocre diced mushrooms. Again, chewy and rubbery and not tender and delicate like they should be.

The frog legs were also swimming in a pool of melted butter and herbs. The meat was tough to remove from the bone. They should be similar to ribs. The meat shouldn't fall off the bone but should easily be removed. The meat itself was flavorless, but edible.

We decided to share the shrimp salad. It looked and tasted like something you would receive from a nursing home buffet and the shrimp were so hard and tough, I could have used them as ammo in a slingshot.

These were not great starts. And again, pricing was comparable to any fine dining establishment.

And now the main courses...

My partner ordered the Confit Duck Leg, and I ordered the Ruby Red Trout.

I have had confit duck, and this was not it. The duck should be juicy, tender and come right off of the bone, but the opposite was true. It was tough and almost inedible. It was more like duck jerky which tells me it was overcooked, and the oil was too hot, frying the duck to and unrecognizable state.

The trout was skin on, which is fine. I love fish skin especially when it's tender and flaky. You should be able to eat the skin on a fish and it should not be rubbery and undercooked like this. So, I ate the flesh, and it was just ok. Again, not very flavorful.

Dessert. Maybe dessert would save the day? Not quite.

The profiteroles and ice cream: Kate recommended the hazelnut ice cream which was lovely. But the choux pastry was tough and overcooked. I've been making choux since I was 13 years old. These were just not right.

The lemon curd filled crepe: I was super excited because I love crepes AND lemon curd. And I thought, "how could a French restaurant mess up a classic French delicacy?" Well... I have had crepes at many establishments including the Renaissance Festival. And this crepe had too much egg in it for one and was severely over cooked. It was like a thin, crappy, rubbery omelet filled with a mere suggestion of lemon curd. Even the lemon curd was pretty underwhelming.

So, with all of that food and drinks we spent over $300 like we would at any fine dining establishment for a special occasion.

What a waste.

Now, maybe they had an off night? Maybe a different chef is on the weekends? But there were just so many misses at a restaurant that should be able to churn all of these out effortlessly in at least a decent quality.

We won't...

This was by far, the absolute worst restaurant experience I've ever had (if I could give negative stars, this would be the time for them). We walk in tonight and with a whole 5 tables in the entire restaurant, the hostess (who never smiled once) asks us if we have a reservation. We say no, she scoffs at us...looks around and sighs. She takes us to a table and tells us that there will be a wait for a waitress. We ask for clarification and she says they are short staffed (there's three waitresses). Hostesses are supposed to be pleasant and friendly, not rude and act put out by doing their job. We sat down and watched waitress after waitress walk by without even saying hi, or someone will be with you in a minute, or here's some water...nothing. If we would not be using a Groupon, we would've left. 17 minutes later, our waitress arrives, we order water to start and our food. Literally 2 minutes later, another waitress shows up with what we order. I ordered the salad, fries, and chicken, however, they put everything on one small plate, so 90% of my fries were soaked in the sauce put on the chicken and the lettuce was drenched in it too. My husband had the shrimp with pasta and vegetables, which the only "vegetable" that was in it were a ton of mushrooms and a few tiny pieces of pepper. To me, that should have been included on the menu. I would've liked to have a glass of wine with our meal, but there was no one around us. We watched another nearby table (with a different waitress) get served multiple times, the manager filled up several other tables with water...but ours was MIA. We sat with empty water glasses from the moment we got our food since the water glasses were so small, but never once got a refill. Finally, we asked the other waitress to please bring our check (no one ever came to make sure our food was even correct or okay). The was another table that also had to get up and ask the waitress to order (which did make us feel a little better that it wasn't just us). When the waitress finally came, she rolled her eyes when we had the groupon out. She again came with excuses of how there was ONLY three waitresses and the bus boy left early (three waitresses, a bartender, and a manager was MORE than sufficient to help the amount of people there). The other waitress (who I asked for the check) came with our check while she was giving us the excuse, she took our check and the hostess came back with my card and threw it on the table. I've been to a lot of restaurants and have NEVER in my life felt like I did this evening. I wouldn't go back here if someone...

Saturday, March 11, 2017 - Worst dining experience I've had in 20 years. We had a large table of 8 people, one of which was the owner of a very well know winery in Napa Valley. It was supposed to be a great dining experience.

We brought some fabulous French wines ($20 corkage fee) and ordered food. The food came out and was so salty it was uneatable. Our server, Nicole, was apologetic and took 2 meals back to replace. These came back and we're still extremely salty.

Another one of our group had the steak and had to send it back. It took so long to get it they decided to box it up. We tried to speak to the owner, but he wasn't working that night. This was strange for a Saturday night!

We then asked for the manager and Sally came out. We found out that she was the reservation person. They didn't even have a manager on duty. Again, this was on a Saturday night with 6:30 reservations!

Sally didn't have the authority do do anything for our very bad experience. She ended up waiving one corkage fee and taking off one chicken dinner. We asked for the owners name and managers name and it literally took 15 minutes for her to bring these names back to us. No phone numbers, just names.

We then asked Nicole for 3 bills, one for 5 of the meals, one for a couple and a final single. Nicole brought the 3 bills back and they were all wrong. She went back and re-did these, but put all corkage fees on one bill. Not wanting to wait another 15 minutes, decided not to ask for another re-do of the bills! However, we then waited for her to come back to pick up our checks and payment. We waited 20 minutes until I finally tracked her down and told her she had some upset people waiting to pay and leave.

We finally got our bills, paid and left.

We won't ever go back. It was a terrible experience. The night before, we'd eaten at Tatsu's and had one of the best meals we've ever eaten. This place...