La Baraka — Restaurant in New York

I wanted to love this quaint beautiful restaurant, but the service was awful and the food was as bad.

We had two waiters: an Asian gentleman who was very nice and welcoming, and an older Caucasian woman who was cold, unwelcoming and generally very unpleasant to be around. She made me feel unwelcome. Her general demeanor was "This restaurant is the last place I want to be right now". My wife is much less sensitive to this kind of thing than I am, and she felt similarly. For example, she looked pained when I asked her to repeat one of the day's specials, and she quickly mumbled the special again. I couldn't hear what she said, so gave up on ordering the specials.

Decor is beautiful. The restaurant looks like it's been here for a long time. Seriously exquisite. I noticed the wonderful Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec prints on the wall -- I've had a couple commissioned as 4x6 paintings that are hanging up in my living room! I love the sound the floor makes when you walk on it. The rug. The walls. All of it, beautiful! This place has ambiance!

I didn't actually eat or see the escargot, but someone in the restaurant must have ordered them because I sure did smell them, and WOW, did they smell terrific! Garlic galore! It smelled like a garlic festival!

French Onion Soup: A An obvious high point. A truly spectacular onion soup -- I've never been to France, but my mom certainly has, and she concurs with other reviewers: the French onion soup rivals anything she's had in Paris. The Cheese is a Swiss (not Gruyere?) mozzarella mix. The Swiss provides the flavor; the mozzarella provides the baked on crust. The flavor and aroma from the cooked sherry is very strong. The soup itself is heaven-inspired, and the presentation with the baked cheese crust and crock makes this a perfect French onion soup.

Potato Leek: C Potato leek soup should be a cream-based soup, but this was a vegetable puree. No creaminess at all. I couldn't taste any cream, potatoes or leeks. The only flavor was black pepper and dill... far, far too much dill. I didn't feel the need to eat more than a few spoonfuls of this dill vegetable puree. Yuck.

Quiche Lorraine: C- I would've preferred bacon to dried out ham. The crust was so badly freezer burned that I couldn't take more than a few bites.

Beef Bourguignon: C- I took two bites and threw away the rest. It was bitter and tasted of uncooked beer. The waitress claimed the chef didn't use beer in the bourguignon, but I used to brew beer... I know beer when I taste it, and this dish had the bitterness of a half-cooked malt beer. Disgusting. But aside from that, there was a complete lack of onion. I couldn't taste or see any onions in this dish. Caramelized cooked onions should provide a sweetness to the dish, and there was none to be found. Same goes for the pearl onions... And carrots... All these traditional bourguignon ingredients are supposed to provide sweetness to counterbalance the tannin from the wines, but were missing from the dish.

Literally the worst Beef Bourguignon I've ever had in my life.

Merguez: A- An interesting (and delicious) merguez. I'm no merguez expert, but it seemed homemade to me. Reminded me of small homemade mombar, an Egyptian sausage. Spicy and rustic.

Pates Cheveux D'angel: B- It was very meh. Not much flavor. I've had much better. More oil and aromatics like garlic and Romano would've gone far. I didn't actively hate it, but I wish we had ordered something different.

Coffee: A- This was good.

Creme Caramel: B- Shouldn't this be "Crème brûlée"? Secondly, is your chef Mexican? Because we were served caramel flan! Don't get me wrong, I love flan, but, a) Flan is served in Hispanic restaurants and Crème brûlée is served in French restaurants, and b) this was obviously cooked from a mix. I can pick this up at the local supermarket for 99 cents. Please don't serve supermarket food.

Gateau Au Fromage: B A good cheese cake. Obviously store-bought. Nice crust, but as with the quiche, the crust was...

I'll start with the service. Service was absolute 5 stars. There were two people who helped us with seating as well as orders. Both were very sweet and great with explaining the menu. Our main waitress was very attentive. Came frequently to fill our water and when asked if there's hot water she came back to us with that in less than 3 min. Even apologized when the Fruit tart I ordered was not available and offered other dessert options that's not on the restaurant week menu as a substitute. Shame on some reviewers for saying the more senior waitress is mean to customers. She was nothing but sweet to our table as well as others. When she's observing the tables in the corner she's not smiling profusely 24/7 like she's high on something but who is? When she's actually interacting with customers she had a nice calm tone with a gentle smile. What more can you ask for.

Ambiance was nice. This is a nice small restaurant with a very comfortable homey feeling to it.

Appetizers Quiche Epinard (spinach quiche) - Not a fan. My single complaint was that the spinach flavor can be more potent. The pastry itself was very buttery and flaky yes but I would've preferred more spinach flavor as spinach was maybe.... 1% of the taste.

Moules Farcies (stuffed mussels, garlic, parsley, butter) - This was great. Even my wife who normally does not like mussels loved this one. The mussels themselves were light and did not have that sea/seawater flavor. The combination of garlic, parsley, and butter gave them a great upgrade as well. Can't wait to try their escargot next time.

Entrées Onglet Grille (hanger steak with bearnaise sauce) - My wife asked for medium well. It seemed more like we'll done. Ironically the steak was still extremely tender and not dry at all so we did not raise the concern. The portion was nice as well. We couldn't finish and had to bring the rest home. The next day I reheated it with a small bowl of water on the side in the microwave to prevent it from drying out. It was still just as tender as the day before. Steak itself has a really nice fresh beefy flavor to it. The bernaise sauce was okay. Not much flavor to that. Could do with or without.

Truite Almondine (filet trout, almonds, lemon) - Starting off the fish itself is very nice. It reminds me of the deep fried flounders served in Chinese seafood/dim sum restaurants. The nice crispy fish skin on the outside while the fish meat on the inside is tender and flaky. Very very nice. Some parts towards the center was a tad dry but the almonds with the oil completely solves that issue as long as you eat them together. Lemon also adds a refreshing taste to it. Great combination.

Desserts Gâteau au Chocolat (chocolate truffle cake) - Personally not a chocolate person but my wife liked it. Caramel Flan - It's hard to review this one. I want to say this was the least sweet caramel dessert I've ever eaten. Coming from a Chinese person that's probably the best dessert compliment one can give lol. Typically with caramel anything out there the item would be on the much sweeter side compared to non caramel options. Ironically this flan had a very light caramel flavor all around while being even less sweet than the chocolate cake if I recall. Also at the bottom the crystallized layer was a tad bitter. Almost as if I was drinking coffee while eating caramel flan...

We were two couples last evening for dinner at La Baraka (Northern Blvd. in Little Neck, a block from the Nassau border). There’s good reason that this place has thrived for four decades. It’s an authentic traditional French restaurant with a little Tunisian (North African) flair added into the mix. I hadn’t been there in 20 years, and I’m wondering why not.

Many years ago, I had a friend who maintained that she could tell how good a restaurant would be based on the bread they served, showing care and pride in quality at every turn. By that measure, we were in for a treat, as the contents of the bread basket were freshly baked, hot, and very good. All four of us enjoyed our appetizers, even though one of us didn’t order any – not wanting to leave out one of their guests, the hosts brought her a small complimentary sampling of the soup of the day, which was delicious. Fresh salads accompanied each of the meals, with a choice of dressings either mixed in or on the side.

Some of the dishes we enjoyed included merguez sausage, mussels, dorade (a delicious white fish), baby lamb chops, trout, duck, profiteroles, tartuffe, and fruit tart. All were excellent, with no missteps. The wine list is neither broad nor deep nor expensive, and we settled on a bottle of Jadot Pouilly-Fuisse (and then a second bottle).

Service was top-notch and knowledgeable, from our waitress to the hosts, who were present and available, engaging in conversation with each table. Menu pricing was relatively gentle, so dinner overall was quite a good value. The place was very busy on a Friday evening from when we arrived at 7:15 until we left 3 hours later. I plan to...