French Rotisserie Café — Restaurant in Palm Desert

My friend and I were seated outdoors as originally requested. Our table for two was directly under a wall mounted speaker. The music was extremely loud and I struggled to hear my friend speak. I requested twice to have the music turned down but to no avail. I went inside and asked the owner, Luis calmly if he would please turn the music down. He lost his temper and told me no one else was complaining. I told him no other occupied table was situated beneath the speaker. He said he would come outside and check out the situation. He grudgingly turned the music down. I ordered a 9 ounce carafe of wine. In haste a server inadvertently removed the carafe with wine still remaining while he was clearing the table. I told our server who in turn told the owner Luis. He came storming out of the restaurant and told me I was complaining too much and should not return to the restaurant. He then demanded to know which server removed the carafe with the remaining wine. I told him I couldn't remember what the server looked like. He then brought out 3 servers and demanded I identify the server. I refused to do so because I knew he would reprimand the server. I told him his behavior was mean and embarrassing. He responded " they need to know they did wrong". A server then confessed. It was a cruel and embarrassing scene for everyone. At the end of the evening Luis did not charge me for the wine. It was small compensation for the upsetting set of circumstances he created. My experiences in the past when I frequented this restaurant were pleasant. His wife Fabienne was always sociable and accommodating. She was not present this evening. I also noted in a past review a patron had also complained about the loud music and Luis refused to turn it down. On a positive note our server, Rickelle was very good. I felt bad for her. When I asked her for the owner's name she said she did not want to tell me because she could get into trouble. I hope someone looks into how Luis...

We went for the Paella à la Valencia. I know, Spanish dish at a French restaurant? Had to give it a try. Nice quantity of mussels & clams, I personally would've liked a few more shrimp for the price. But shrimp were plump and properly cooked. Whitefish was good, although, again a bit sparse, more like a garnish. The rice was ok. Spanish paella is known for its saffron rice, but this was more a watered-down version of Mexican "Spanish rice", so, yeah, tomato-y sauced. It was also quite watery, almost like the seafood had not been drained before being arranged around the dish. I give it a 3 out of 5😋. We started with a watermelon salad, which had a spring greens mix base, bit-size pieces of watermelon, goat cheese, and a lovely dressing. I usually eat my greens with a sparse amount of dressing, so this was oversaturated, imo, but still tasty. The goat cheese was the best I've ever tasted. 4 of 5😋. Being a minimal wine-drinker (their list is substantial), I got the Élysée. Delightful! 5 of 5😋 Now, let's get to dessert. They were out of one of their usual items, ok, that's not what I was looking at anyway. We got the Mille Feuillons au Citron, and Crème Brûlée. Made with a delightful Meyer lemon custard, the Mille Feuillons was sweet, tart & tangy. Utterly delectable! 5😋 The Crème Brûlée was decent, flavorful, but a bit thin. 3😋. Service was sporadic. Not very busy, and I noted one service mix up at another table. A little unintended dinner show. 😁 At times they were very attentive, at other times we were waiting, and the gentleman in charge (owner? manager? IDK, he didn't introduce himself) at one point commented to our server that we were just sitting there. Yep. We were waiting to peruse the dessert menu. Overall I rated the place a 4⭐, primarily because of the soggy rice and service delay. Will I go again? Yes. Because the crusty bread with the herbed...

We have always wanted to try this restaurant. We decided to split a French Dip Au Gus for lunch. What arrived was a sandwich slathered-saturated in some type of sauce....with a consistency of a thick BBQ sauce. They brought a side bowl with supposedly the "au gus" it was just more of that very thick sauce. This was NOT a traditional French Dip sandwich, in fact there was so much meat and sauce on this sandwich that you could not pick it up to dip anyway. The meat itself was severely undercooked with portions being RAW. And it was very gristly low quality meat and we could not cut through it. The bread was tough and hard to cut through as well. We were really surprised at how bad this sandwich was. We ended up leaving most of the food on our plates and our lethargic server didn't even bother to ask us how our meal was. The host/maybe owner? came by and we told him that we were kind of disappointed that our sandwich was not a traditional style and the "au gus" was supposed to be more broth like... and all he said was "Really, oh wow" As we were leaving, we saw 4 other women get the same dish and we heard them make similar comments as we had: ""this seems undercooked, what it this sauce?" My regret was that I didn't take a photo of the slop we left behind on our plates but at that point we were so disappointed we had to just...