TARDIF'S AMERICAN BRASSERIE — Restaurant in San Antonio

First and foremost, sorry for the lengthy review. My wife and I are just regular folk who have been blessed with the chance to travel a good bit and eat in many beautiful, but expensive, restaurants. We were just driving around, were hungry, and found Tardif's just down the road. This is a beautifully decorated and appointed restaurant marred by two large tv's in the bar area. I found this to be distracting for a high end French restaurant; would never occur in Paris where we have visited. The service was excellent; Art was our server and knew the menu. Since we were just two, we had a similar sized table against the wall with a nice painting overlooking the main dining area and the bar. One other distraction was a gentleman, possibly the manager sitting to the left of the bar working on his laptop. Probably a good place to keep track of the house and staff. The chef did come out of the kitchen and spoke with some of the patrons, but not us. no big deal, he was busy. The menu was large with many of our favorites and more from which to choose. House bread came out quickly with herbed butter. The rustic bread slices were warm and wonderful with that butter. We started with a dozen P.E.I oysters, Prince Edward Island, for $41, always more expensive than gulf coast oysters, served with a wine Mignonette, house made cocktail sauce and fresh grated horseradish. These oysters were very small, as are other east coast offerings, but sweet, briny and just wonderful. We could have eaten 3 dozen but $$$. Our next appetizer was the Mushroom Vol-Au-Vent $18, wild mushrooms baked in puff pastry. The presentation was beautiful, puff pastry light and flaky, mushrooms cooked perfectly in cream sauce, though just lukewarm. We splurged this evening with the most expensive entrees, the Chateaubriand $69, a generous 14oz, and what should have been a center cut filet, cooked to order and served with your choice of sauces and ala carte sides. We had a Port (wine) Demiglace (reduction) along a Ratatouille (tomato stew) of fresh local vegetables. After some discussion with our server, we opted for medium rare; my wife and I know the difference in what is rare, medium rare etc. What came out was underwhelming at best. Clearly, what came came out was definitely not a center cut filet, but pointed at one end hunk of meat on a plate with a little kettle of the Port Demiglace which was luke warm at best, but tasty and a good compliment to the steak. Now to make it clear, the crust carried the spices that gave the filet a good bit of flavor. Unfortunately,the center was very red, cool at best; not medium rare, except towards the narrow pointed end. This was a generous 14 oz piece, but still disappointing. The serrated steak knives made it difficult to slice at table. Presentation here was sorely lacking. For comparison, Perry's at La Cantera, though a smaller center cut serving for two, and a bit less money, is sliced and served tableside with three different sauces and asparagus. Beautiful presentation. We did not have desert of which there were a number for your choice. Overall, cost of the meal with tip, $195.00. Truthfully, my wife and I loved the menu, and except for a few things, the ambience/service was great. We will...

Tardif's is nearby, so we decided to try it out for date night last weekend. The overall ambiance is inviting, if not crowded, in the dining area. The décor is a mix of brasserie with modern touches. The clientele was lacking diversity when we dined there. Something that just stood out to us. Our waitress was Victoria; she was friendly enough, but we'd find her absent frequently throughout our visit. We were offered sparkling or still water and chose sparkling, as always. Believing it would be the standard S.Pellegrino or Perrier, we were thrown off when two small bottles of Topo Chico were brought and poured, mine into a glass with a brown lime hanging off the rim. I even commented on how odd it was for an upscale French restaurant to serve Topo. Our drinks were properly made, although my Hendrick's Gin Rickey was served with a straw that required me to dip my fingers into the cocktail to retrieve it. I looked at a neighboring table and saw someone's cocktail had an "adult-sized" straw, so I asked Victoria to bring me one, which she did. My subsequent Rickey had a proper straw in it. We ordered the bone marrow appetizer, advertised as coming with toast points. The marrow was caramelized beautifully and the fat succulent, but the "toast points" were pitifully thin baguette rounds. They are more like bagel chips than toast points and not substantial enough to serve with the rich marrow. For salads, we ordered the beet arugula salad and Tardif's spring. My husband's beet salad purported to come with roasted beets, but if you've been traumatized by canned beets as a child, you can taste them a mile away. These beets were as soft as meat and devoid of caramelization that would suggest roasting. My Tardif's salad was inedible for all of the salt it had on it. I don't know how one manages to ruin a signature salad with such a common ingredient, but they did and did it well. Victoria was off chatting with a co-worker, so my husband flagged down someone who looked to be a manager. He initially ignored my husband after making eye contact and asked the lady next to us how she liked her meal. My husband stood up as he began to walk away to ask him to come over. You can't ignore a 6'4" guy, I guess. He took the salad away. The meal's highlight was the branzino and duck Magret we ordered as entrees. Brought by the manager, who told me he had the garde manger try the salad, and I was right. It was way too salty. I thank him for confirming I was telling the truth. I guess. The roasted capers added a great brininess to the branzino fillets. However, the "drunk pears" served with the duck were cloyingly sweet and didn't do the dish justice. The potatoes pave could've used the salt my salad came loaded with, and the haricot verts were adequate. We were offered dessert, but when we requested coffee, Victoria said the coffee maker was broken. Something about offering dessert without telling people ahead of time there's no coffee available is a pet peeve of mine. We ordered the desserts to go, and as I was finishing the last of my Topo, my husband said, "Check out that table back there." I turned around to see a bottle of S. Pellegrino. I guess they do serve it....

Keep in mind that our experience was the second dinner service the restaurant had done. Trying to be fair in my comments, I think the facility has tremendous potential. Not sure about the chef, he was on premises and allowed the following to happen.

Appetizers... the French onion soup and the salmon crepe. Soup was lukewarm, the combination cheddar and Gruyere topper was partially melted. The croutons were well seasoned but not browned or warm. Broth was excellent, savory with a nice touch of sweet, not salty, properly herbed. The broth to onion ratio was off... too much onion though they were cooked properly and tasty. The salmon crepe was the only food we got all evening that was properly temped. Big portion, overweight the herbed cream cheese (described as creme fraiche). The salmon was perfect, the crepes were tender and properly cooked.

Chardonnay was not chilled properly.

Entree... lobster and pork chop. Lobster was modestly portioned (small) but that was okay, well prepared, sauce was very good, dwarfed by the amount of potatoes, which were good but lots of them. Lukewarm at delivery. White on white presentation... could be more attractively plated.

Pork chop... this was a tough one. Really. The glaze tasted delicious but created a shell. And the sizing is not in line with their web menu, the one I received may have been 8 to 10 ounces... with a bone. It looked like the chop had been cooked with a sous vide as the internal was pink, but again lukewarm. A couple of bites were on point, but for the most part it was tougher than expected. The potatoes gratin were again delivered with the cheddar gruyere mix, and again missed on temp. If they'd been allowed to cook the sauce would have developed but instead there were perfectly cooked and seasoned potatoes swimming in cream and a little butter with a partially melted cheese helmet... and you guessed it, it was lukewarm.

We were warned when we sat down that service was working out the kinks. And we saw some great looking food go by (the frites looked worthy, burger attractive).

I would like to try again before making final call. The site is beautiful, I can see what I think the vision is. Rough meal though. And no discounts while they work out the kinks, so it wasn't cheap. When you spend more than 150 you kind of want to be...