Flemings Steakhouse–East Side Class

I have to say I was surprised to receive an offer of a $50 gift card from Flemings in the mail.  I am always a little skeptical about these type of offers, but after a careful review this was on the up and up.  It did require going to the Flemings website and registering, but other then making a reservation there were no other strings attached.  Now a high end steakhouse is not my usual hangout, I prefer the more casual and affordable eateries, and since I haven’t eaten meat since 1978, steak is not high on the list; but this was free food and Flemings has plenty of fish and seafood on the menu.

Located at 28869 Chagrin Boulevard, Woodmere, OH 44122 in the Eaton Square shopping center, Flemings is easy to miss as its fairly nondescript building is next door to the flashier Bravo.  Once inside you find a classic atmosphere, the dining room is a large high ceiling room with lots of wood, with most of the accents coming from high end wine bottles arranged around the room.  The tables are set in a simple high end manner.  The overall atmosphere is upscale and timeless.  Pretty much what a high end steakhouse should be. 

Service is also high end, with my server and the rest of the staff, being friendly and knowledgeable, yet extremely professional.  This is what service should  be and makes dinner at Flemings an truly enjoyable experience. 

With $50 to play with and my own dietary restrictions, I decided to go with 3 appetizers and a side.  You can see the menu (without prices) at Flemings Menu.  Prices are not cheap, especially when you consider entrees come ala carte, but the food quality is top notch.  

I started with the Sweet Chile Calamari ($11.50), which was a generous portion of nicely fried squid with a Asian flavored sweet chile sauce.   The squid was perfect with nice chewy pieces of the mild rings and tentacles having a nice tender chewiness and a mild flavor, the sauce was good, but I thought it lacked a bit of a punch, to my taste concentrating the flavor and adding a bit more heat would have taken this up to the level I would have expected from a upper tier restaurant.

Next up were my other two appetizers, the Lobster Tempura and BBQ Shrimp Appetizers.  The Lobster Tempura ($18.95) was a nice portion, with 4 potions of half a lobster tail split out of the shell, but still attached lightly battered and fried along with a variety of tempura vegetables.  While both the lobster and vegetables were very nice, unfortunately the nice thin batter came out overly greasy; I don’t know if the oil wasn’t hot enough of if the tempura wasn’t properly drained, but this was  bit of a disappointment, especially after the nice fry job that had been done on the calamari.

The BBQ Shrimp ($12.95) appetizers was the biggest disappointment of the meal.  Four medium large shrimp were baked in a casserole with a sauce that contained none of the spiciness, sweetness or smoke I would expect from BBQ sauce.  I was a bit taken aback with the portion size, especially compared to the generous portions on the other items I got.  The sauce and preparation did nothing to elevate the shrimp and may have even taken their quality down a little.  This is not only an item I would  not recommend, but unless Flemings makes some major changes, this shouldn’t be on their menu.  I usually say your tastes may vary, but I have a hard time thinking anyone would enjoy this dish, especially at this price.

Finally I ordered the Chipotle Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese Side ($7.95) which was a more then generous bowl of beautifully flavored comfort food goodness.  This was the clear highlight of the meal, and with most of this nestled in my refrigerator for another meal I look forward to eating it again.  The perfectly cooked pasta was smothered with a rich cheddar cheese sauce with a subtle hint of chipotle heat to keep it interesting.  I have a feeling this is more representative of most of the Flemings menu, classic American fare made with high quality ingredients and with a classic flavor profile.  

Flemings impressed me with their ambiance, service and the Mac and Cheese, among the other food, the Calamari and Lobster Tempura were both good, but fell a little short of greatness.  The BBQ Shrimp was a true disappointment.  At the price points Flemings charges, this should not be happening.  Of course, I am not the target audience that Flemings is going for, their overall reputation is that they have some of the better steaks available in the area, so your visit may be quite different.

Around the Corner Saloon - Lakewood Bar

I probably should have put this up sooner, but I was trying to figure out what to say about Around the Corner Saloon in Lakewood. We ended up there kind of by default; as we were headed out to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Beck on a Saturday. Unfortunately our first choice, Melt (review here) had an hour wait and then one of my friends did not want to Indian so India Garden was vetoed (review here). By this time we were just looking for something decent and fast, and that is pretty much what we got at Around the Corner. ATC is a bar right near the Lakewood/Rocky River border at 18616 Detroit Road (see map). They do have a very nice and big patio out in the back, so the setting was nice, even if the furniture was a bit rinky dink. The menu (see it here) is pretty much what you would expect, burgers, wings, bar foods, etc. There are a couple of surprises, such as the lettuce wraps with your choice of beef or chicken, but pretty much a Cleveland bar menu. So the question becomes how is the food? Well, it ended up being fairly typical bar food. I had the fish sandwich with fries; the fish was a nice sized portion of frozen fish, deep fried and topped with cheese. Pretty decent, but nothing memorable. The fries were crisp and well made, yet nothing special. My friend had the lettuce wrap and while there were alot of interesting possiblities, including jicima and a couple of sauces, nothing was really distinctive or special; a real questionable choice was to provide a pile of small Romain leaves as the lettuce wraps, not easy to wrap and just a bit wrong for the dish. The only item that stood out was the Tomato Florentine soup; a rich and thick soup with some nice flavoring and a good presentation; it almost seemed to come from a different kitchen. I should mention that sevice was OK, but that the kitchen sent the soup out twice and the lettuce wraps were about 15 minutes behind the rest of the meal. Things like this happen, but it is not good when you have to try really hard to get your waitresses attention as she is lounging by the bar to correct this. If you don't deliver your own food to your table, you should always check in to see that everything is right and there are no problems. Overall ATC is a nice bar, with a very nice patio; I would guess a great place to get you drink on, however it is probably not the best choice for dinner, especially given the other alternatives that are nearby. While nothing major to complain about, on the whole the food was just average. Just because a place is doing a fairly standard menu, does not mean that the food cann't be good.

Customer Service - Some Recent Experiences

I wanted to do a slightly different type of post here talking about customer service. I have experienced this from both sides; I spent many years working in restaurants and since then have eaten at many types of restaurants. Three recent experiences will help to illustrate my points. First the good; for those who have read my post on Gray House Pies, in addition to the wonderful pies, I was very impressed with my interaction with the owner, both with his willingness to share his passion for his products and his concern that they be presented in the best possible fashion, even if it took taking a couple of dollars out of his pocket. Clearly his pies are not just a job, this is a place that wants its customers to enjoy the quality of their food and to return again. This was especially interesting as he knew that I had already purchased gift certificates and thus had paid most of the amount already. The bad, fairly recently I headed out for lunch at Caballo Bayo in Chagrin Falls, which has been my main go to place for Mexican Food recently. While the food was good and the service was OK, I ran into an issue when the check came. In most of my lunch visits I have ordered the #1 special, which is a Chili Relleno, Taco, beans and Guacamole Salad; a good deal and even more so because they have allowed me to get a Shrimp Taco as part of this. Well this time there was a $2 charge added to the bill for the Shrimp Taco; when I asked my waitress she explained that there had been a change in management and that now they had to charge for this. I of course asked her why she hadn't mentioned anything when I ordered and all she could do was apologize. I of course paid, however I left with a very bad feeling, about this for several reasons. First the fact that they added a charge without putting it on the menu or telling me in advance is never a good thing. I found during my time waiting tables that letting people know about things like this and letting them decide is much preferable to just springing it on customers. Second the amount of the charge, $2 seemed excessive, especially when you look on the Caballo Bayo menu and see that as appetizers they charge $2 extra for 1/2 pound of Shrimp Tacos, not a single Taco. Third the fact that the waitress didn't offer to ask her manager or try to in any way fix the issue really upset me; I may not of made a big stink about this, but it did annoy me, enough so that I am very hesitant to go back. Finally the in the middle, recently Pizza Pan (website here) had a coupon for a $2 medium pizza on Fridays at the South Euclid and Warrensville Heights stores. A very good deal, especially as their medium is 12" and 8 cuts and I found the pizza to be very good. I was even more surprised when they told me to hold onto the coupon and that I could use it on subsequent Fridays, which I did. Then last week, when I called in my order, they informed me that there had been a mistake and that corporate had meant it to be a one week deal. While I thought this could have been handled better; with the simple solution being that they took the order and sold me the pizza, but took the coupon, I did understand and at least I knew up front what was going on and had been given a reasonable explanation. I may not have been 100% satisfied, but I did understand and appreciate their position; in addition the promotion had worked, in that I was reminded of the quality of their pizza and considering the size and the value of their pizza, I well order from them again. I know that service is not the most important factor, to me the taste and quality of the food, followed by the cost are more important; but service is up there and it is the least expensive thing to fix. The people are there already, you need to make sure that they know how to deal with people and that they have a clear message to deliver. In addition making sure that people have a good attitude makes a huge difference. One bad experience with service can really s0ur me on a restaurant, while good service will always bring me back. I will do another post with suggestions on what I think should be important to a server. Let me know what you think and some of your experiences, both good and bad.

Melt - Update

Well Melt has added the space next door and they did fabulous job of making it look like it has been there all along. The space provides a couple of extra tables, which will be used when the patio is closed and a lot more space to allow people to wait for tables to become available. Nice job. I also wanted to mention that Melt has a brunch menu available all day on Sunday and while not extensive, the egg dishes, french toast and waffles sound great and look to be really well prepared. On my last couple of trips here, I have added the soup of the day to my feasting. Certainly didn't need it since the sandwiches are enough to fill up even me, but they sounded so good I had to give them a try. And I was very happy with the soups. The soups are served in one of Melt's many variety mugs and they tasted home made. Thick and rich, without being overpowering and seasoned very well, this is what soup should be like. Finally, I wanted to give a big shout out to the staff at Melt. Everytime I have been there they have been friendly, knowlegable about the food and drink selection and seemingly having a good time despite being busy. It might be working in a place that puts out consistently outstanding food, it might be that the management does a very good job of hiring and training or it just might be a lucky happenstance. In an case we all complain enough about bad service, so lets try to recognize and more importantly reward good service. Remember to throw a little something extra in the tip when you think the server deserves it.