Last night I had the New Year’s Eve dinner with some friends, and I really hate to say it, but it was a very disappointing experience.

My appetizer was crab-stuffed mushroom caps (they came out 50 minutes after we were seated, and the dining room was at half capacity), and that was probably the biggest mistake of my evening. At first I was thinking about the jumbo shrimp cocktail, and the four at my table who ordered them said they were excellent. The crab-stuffed mushroom caps, however, looked terrible and tasted very dry and fishy, neither hot nor cold, which is what happens when things like this get prepped early in the day only to sit out way too long. I personally would have been embarrassed as the owner of a restaurant to serve such a substandard appetizer at any price.

In defiance considering the money I was dropping on this dinner, I managed to choke down the first two, then gave up and left the last one. I would’ve complained, but our waitress (friendly enough) was obviously at the end of a long and difficult day. I thought maybe I just had bad luck, but after speaking with the other individual at my table who ordered the same appetizer, he agreed: the consensus between us was they were absolutely horrible.

For my main course I had the grilled airline chicken breast. It was very moist, delicious, and still hot from the kitchen. I enjoyed the grilled root vegetables, but for the money I was spending, I would’ve expected a lot more on my plate than 3/4 cup of some of the cheapest food items per pound you can buy. The gravy was just average.

My dessert was carrot cake, and it was flat, dense, and tasted like too much baking soda had been added. The glaze was a common powdered sugar frosting, with little (or no) cream cheese.

Some of us took a chance on one of the lower-end bottles of mixed red (Gen5 Ancestral), and found it to be very good, if not excellent.

I have been to Adelle’s previously for happy hour appetizers and drinks (pre-covid), and I found the service to be excellent, and the food way above average, especially for the price, and so I can only conclude, based on the more favorable reviews that I’ve read, that Adelle’s simply suffers from a consistency of quality issue.

After this experience, I don’t think I’ll be able to muster the courage to venture back. It could’ve been a wonderful holiday dinner for me, one that I would’ve raved about to my friends, but the food was just so far below the price point, that it will stick in my memory for a long time as a most unpleasant dinner.

To be 100% fair, a few at my table enjoyed their meals very much, and from what I gathered it was the 8 ounce steak (an extra $20) that was the hit of the evening.