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A rare, disappointing meal at Eddie Martini's
Eddie Martini's has long been one of my favorite special-occasion restaurants. It has always featured great steaks, wonderful atmosphere and service that I think is unmatched in this city.
I have eaten there on birthdays and anniversaries, I've hosted job interviews there and I've had political luncheons in the place.
That's why I'm so surprised at the dinner I had there Friday night.
My wife and I were there for our anniversary dinner. When you go to Eddie Martini's you order steak, and that's what we did. My wife had a filet and I had a porterhouse. I also had escargot for an appetizer, snap peas with dinner along with asparagus Hollandaise and sauteed mushrooms.
Whenever I've eaten at Eddie Martini's I always left raving about the meal. Not so much this time.
The service was still outstanding. But my wife's filet was very dry. Even a steak that is ordered medium well done should be moist. This one very dry. My porterhouse was good, but not great. The texture of the steak was much more limber than it should have been. A great porterhouse should have a bit of firmness to it.
Neither my wife nor I drink and our bill was $158 for two. That's a lot of money to me and I expected an outstanding meal. Let's just say I was very surprised at how ordinary it was.
I hope it was a momentary failing.
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ActionDan | Nov. 15, 2012 at 4:40 p.m. (report)
Forgot about that AJ Bomber's thing..... that joint should feel fortunate getting lukewarm reviews.
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mikeb | Nov. 15, 2012 at 5:48 a.m. (report)
ocmex,
Here are the problems with the review:
- OnMilwaukee has positioned themselves as a site that essentially is a cheerleader for all things Milwaukee. This isn't a site that gives negative reviews of area businesses. This isn't a site that offers honest critiques of the plusses and minuses of the business. This also holds true of Milwaukee institutions. For example, Bonny Tanzilo writes about the positive aspects of MPS, but never the negative aspects. The only negative stuff I ever see on this site is aimed at the Republican party. So to see a post ripping a restaurant is a bit out of character.
- Most restaurant reviewers will visit a place 2-3 times before writing a review. This is because I think a good reviewer understands that a place can have an off night. You make those extra trips to confirm whether or not the place is good or bad.
- Recall this is a site that wrote a blog about a lukewarm review that AJ Bombers had titled "Here come the AJ Bombers haters". So, are we going to see Jeff Sherman write a blog about the Eddie Martini "haters"
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OCMEX | Nov. 14, 2012 at 11:59 a.m. (report)
quickened, I'm no stranger of negative reviews (I've been a chef in this town for over 20 years.) The fact of the matter is that just like good reviews, bad reviews need to be written. Dave has been to Eddies several times accordinrg to this story. It's not like he is tyring to get the place closed down. He's just making it clear, and I think in a soft handed way that a place that usually excells in it's food preparation dropped the ball this time. I don't think the long time fans of Eddie's are going to stop comming just over this one story. I think any reviewer has the right to print the good and the bad. Let Eddies learn from this misstep and improve. In the long run it will be better for everyone.
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quickened | Nov. 14, 2012 at 7:21 a.m. (report)
OCMEX ,
Dave certainly is entitled to his opinion and welcome to share those.I write food reviews and if I get bad service I make sure to go back at a later time before I write the review. There are a number of different reasons that things can go wrong and it's part of the business. To dump on a place in a public venue can be damaging to that particular business believe it or not. There was a large article that I read that went into the dynamics of this. If i find it i'll post it here.
For me personally a good reviewer goes back to see what has changed. Was it just a bad server, cook had an off day? Those things are easily remedied. If the problem is higher up you'll see continually bad service. A good reviewer takes these variables into consideration and does a number of tests before the opinion goes public.
Life isn't all unicorns and rainbows but there should be some tact in writing a review that reflects a problem at a restaurant.
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OCMEX | Nov. 14, 2012 at 12:08 a.m. (report)
Dave sounds to me like he's had a lot of great meals at Eddie's and this one was'nt up to par. Can't a guy speak his onions? Or is he only allowed to write "Nice Things" about places he dines at? I've had less than stellar food there on an occasion.......Big Deal!! Eddie's can use a little real life ink for once. Nobobys perfect.
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