Le Chêne French Cuisine — Restaurant in Quartz Hill

I don't think I've ever written a review for a restaurant-- for good or for bad--but if I can save just one person from wasting their money, I'd say it's worth it. I don't mean to be rude, but if you're trying to have a nice dinner, please go elsewhere. I've always heard such great things about this place, so we decided to come to celebrate my mom's recent retirement, since she had been wanting to try Le Chene for years. It was a terrible disappointment.

Let's start with the good parts: The hostess was very warm and friendly on our way in Our waitress was very pleasant as well The bus boy seemed like a nice kid, very attentive Of our group of 4, 2 ordered the filet mignon medium rare (1 with the roquefort, one au poivre) and they received two good cuts of meat, cooked medium rare The stuffed mushroom appetizer was not bad The portions were generous*

The Bad: The Green Peppercorn Duck tasted like a salisbury steak in an elementary school cafeteria. The duck was overcooked, and the sauce could honestly have been from a packet of instant gravy from Food4Less. That poor duck didn't die to be disgraced like that. RIP, Daffy-- you deserved better.

The cranberry duck was overcooked, too, and tasted a bit like if you put some bad thanksgiving cranberry sauce on dry turkey

The sauces on the (admittedly-well-cooked) filets were equally awful. I'm not someone who shies away from seasoning his food, but holy sh*t, both sauces were so salty...There's no way someone did a taste test before sending those dishes out of the kitchen.

The green beans accompanying all 4 entrees were, as far as I could tell, frozen at some point. They were also wayyy overcooked, mushy, and just generally...bad. They were just plain bad.

The potatoes accompanying the entrees were--you guessed it-- insanely salty. Again, I am not someone who is generally offended by salt. Salt, when used right= flavor. But these potatoes used 4-5x the amount of salt a reasonable person would use. I love potatoes, but couldn't eat more than 2 bites. I tried to eat a 3rd bite so as not to waste food, but my self-respect kicked in so I kept it at 2 bites. (For good measure, the potatoes were also overcooked)

The salad to start the meal was plain romaine (I would guess out of a package), with a slice of bland beefsteak tomato, with super generic vinaigrette (and way too much of it). The salad was unoffensive, I guess, but was in-line with what I'd expect at an all-you-can-eat salad bar. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but if you're going to hold yourself out as a gourmet restaurant you have to do something better. Anything at all...

The Old Fashioned I ordered was not good. There's not a ton to say about it, it just was not a good cocktail, and it should have been for the price.

The dirty martini was also not very good. Fine, but not good (too much olive juice, very visibly cloudy), which shouldn't be the case at a "nice" restaurant.

The ambience...ummmm...what ambience? If the food's good enough, fine, you can get away with almost a complete lack of ambience. The food here, however, is terrible so you wish there was some kind of ambience to distract you, but no such luck...

Someone at the table ordered a decaf coffee, and got black tea. Not a big deal at all, and quickly remedied by a super nice waitress, but while I'm listing negatives I figured I might as well be thorough.

The bread and butter to start the meal were probably the first red-flag. In my experience, French cuisine usually involves some nice, crusty bread and good, fresh butter. Here, the bread was...fine, I guess...but the butter came out ice-cold in those little foil packs. Cold butter + flimsy bread is not a promising start.

*The portions were generous, but here it made me feel wasteful because I couldn't force myself to eat another bite of the...

NEVER AGAIN!

This place came up under my Google Maps search for “upscale restaurants”. Reviews and pictures lured my fiancé and I in. Several miles drive into it the nothingness raised my eyebrow, as I began to think about their ability to sustain an “upscale restaurant” in the middle of nowhere. Upon our arrival, my fiancé, who teaches interior design in three major California universities, has agreed with me that this place is simply a diner that desperately wishes to be more than it actually is. The only thing that French in this French cuisine was the music. Service is nowhere near to be an upscale restaurant level. The only French that came out of this diner-level waiter was “bon appétiT”. Yes, the “T” was The emphasis, especially, when the “T” is not pronounced! Instead of a French baguette, you were served slices of white bread. You will not get a glass of water. We have purposely refrained from asking, just to see if they would at least ask us if we want one. I guess we are still in a deep drought. Now, let’s talk about the salad. It looked like something died on my plate! They brought a soggy chopped lettuce, slightly dressed with Caesar dressing and a slice of tomato. Did chef decide to make a new dish, by simply stripping down the ingredients of well-known dishes and calling it his masterpiece?! What the hell is tomato doing in the same plate with Caesar dressing!? Our waiter has simply referred to it as The Salad. No specific name to it. Nothing to identify the direction of the salad style. He should’ve at least used a French accent! The main dish was even more of a disaster. I have ordered lamb chops and my fiancé ordered their “most popular duck” dish. Both dishes arrived on a burning hot plates. I am not even sure that they have chef on staff, because these people simply through all of the ingredients on the plate and had it run in the microwave for about five minutes, on high.... and served on the same plate!... Damn, at least learn how to hide your kitchen crime! There is a difference between steam from the freshly cooked meat and the “steam-engine” steam, due to the overheating that makes meat fuse with the bone. Vegetables were falling apart, as they were in the same plate, in the same microwave been overcooked. Purée was almost the same color as the broccoli next to it, unless it was a broccoli purée. In any case, Danny’s has better mashed potatoes. The only thing that was up to par is the wine. But that is quite hard to mess up, when all you need to do is uncork it. My fiancé picked just a little bit of duck skin and the rest went into a doggy bag. I hope the dog will eat it. If not, then another review will be on its way! I ate those lamb chops, just the chops and nothing else, and only because I was starving. When I’m starving, I will even eat rubber, if I have to. The bill was $124. An upscale restaurant price is the only thing that upscale about this diner! Very...

YOU MUST EAT HERE!!

The ambiance is beautiful and comfortable, with wood accent and soft decorative lighting. A bit dated but still nice.

The food is absolutely incredible. I ordered the elk. Everything on the plate (cranberries, green beans, potatoes) was SO GOOD! Imagine being excited about green beans. My husband ordered the prime rib and said it was amazing.

For appetizers we had ordered the escargot and brie. The escargot was full of tasty herbs. The brie came with walnuts and apple slices. I would normally never order cheese as an appetizer--my husband did that, and I even teased him... until I tasted it. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the best cheese I've ever had.

We both got the french onion soup and again, it was just so good. Thick and creamy with a perfect balance of flavors.

However, the wine we ordered (chateau dangles la clape) was OK. Not bad, but not great. In addition, we had several issues getting the wine. First the wine menu is overwhelming--hundreds of options. For holidays like Valentine's Day, please consider a limited menu of maybe 16 wines max (red, rose, white, and sparkling at 2 price points each, with maybe some house wines, intl, and domestic). This would solve the second problem we had, which was that the server kept leaving to help others because the evening was so busy and it was time consuming to choose a wine. The third problem was that the wine we chose was unavailable. The fourth problem was that it took a while to receive our check at the end because the wine we were ultimately provided was not in your system. All four of these issues can be resolved with a limited wine menu.

The 4 people who helped us (host, server, assistant, water server) were friendly and attentive.

Overall we were very impressed and plan to tell all of our friends. We regret that it took us two years of living in the area to discover your restaurant and hope that you will advertise more. This place deserves to be packed every single day of the year!

To recap: Offer a limited wine menu Advertise more Update the interior Great job with the...