Mike's American Grill

[jodyrah]

Listen to Tom's radio show. He frequently plugs it.

[BTG]

Yvette,

Thanks again for posting your review of Mikes.

I see that the review now has made Tom's board via cut and paste from someone. Of course the chef responded and Tom has jumped in with his normal narrow minded BS.
I think Tom is still trying to say you should not have went in the first few weeks and then told people your honest oppinions of the place, especially with it being a new advertizer of his. I am actually suprised it has stayed up over there.

I guess we have to appreciate Mike for being better in his response than your last chef/owner who got a dissapointing review from you.

[Yvette]

Yvette,

I see that the review now has made Tom's board via cut and paste from someone. Of course the chef responded and Tom has jumped in with his normal narrow minded BS.
I think Tom is still trying to say you should not have went in the first few weeks and then told people your honest oppinions of the place, especially with it being a new advertizer of his. I am actually suprised it has stayed up over there.
I guess we have to appreciate Mike for being better in his response than your last chef/owner who got a dissapointing review from you.

You are right on both counts, suprised it stayed up over there, he should have been able to tell it was copied and pasted, I was at the time not a registered user, and only found out yesterday it was on his board. That is when I registered over there, just to set the record straight about what was said.

I would never have gone on TF's board and entered the subject line as Leroy did, and made it look like it was me.

Agree, Mike did have a genuine concern in his response, but he did deny saying what the waitress relayed to me was his words. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows, I DID say, I would give them another chance, for lunch, and not order meat. It is touted as a Steak Place ???:rolleyes:

Thanks, for your comments.

[bornready2]

I'll give the short version.

Time One: Friday Night. I ordered the strip steak. It was so tough I could not eat it. The waitress overheard me tell my husband. Offered to take it off the bill. I declined. The side grilled artichoke was fantastic. As far as I am concerned, they recognized a problem and offered to fix it. A point in their favor. She explained...well its not a good grade of meat

Time Two: Lunch, salad, hard to mess that up....well at least that is what I thought, till time three rolled around. Mussels were very good. I like the touch of tortilla chips on top instead of fries.

Time Three: Lunch special, hanger steak caeser salad. One other person got it at the table. I ordered side artichoke again. Never got the artichoke. The smell of the meat as it approched my table was horrible. Me as well as a professor in the culinary field both said something was wrong. Why oh why would we taste it but we did. DUH!!!! My husband asked to smell it, called over the waitress. He politely asked the waitress to bring the salad back and just ask Chef to smell and or taste it. They did. This is the best part
"Chef said it does have a little age on it but its okay to eat":covri::covri::covri:

I wanted to barf right there. At that point I ordered another glass of wine and waited to rest of the 4 other people finish eating. Thennnn the maitre d' comes over and says, ya know, we thought we had one bad batch of meat, the people at the other table, their's came out fine. Helloooo.

I hate restaurant bashing without good cause, this was down right disgusting.
They did take care of the bill, which again, as you know, I wasn't after.

I will give them one more try as I said, but that will be for lunch.

If you decide to go, the grilled artichoke and the grilled asparagus are really good.

In defense of the staff, I would like to say that as a former (disgruntled? To say the least) employee of Mr. Uddo for some time at the G&E Courtyard Grill in it's "heyday", the efforts of even the most professional and earnest staff can and are undermined by temperamental, stubborn and egotistical Chef/Owner(s). I once had a customer return a dish of crawfish etoufee' due to the fact that he found several shells in it. Mr. Uddo's response? To hurl the dish, plate and all, through the window in my general direction in full view of the diners in the courtyard. This is but one of MANY such anecdotes that I and countless other waitstaff, barstaff, foh and boh staff who had the misfortune of working with Mr. Uddo could (and do) recount. This kind of behavior may pass for entertainment in the context of prime time "reality" programming (Hell's Kitchen, etc) but in reality, the staff is only the first stop in the line to the top. I HIGHLY doubt that the meat you returned was ever presented to Mr. Uddo to taste and/or smell. If it had been, you might have found yourself (or at least the server) dodging a flying plate, profanities or worse.. The antipasto we served at G&E regularly sat on shelves in the dining room at room temperature for hours on end (several of the dishes in a mayonnaise base, mind you....do the math) and it took some pretty fancy footwork to steer customers away from them without finding oneself unemployed.. Your post does'nt surprise me.Granted, Mr. Uddo could not have gotten as far as he has without some measure of culinary
talent. However, it takes more than one self-serving egotist to make a restauraunt a success. By the looks of this forum that is a lesson Mr. Uddo has yet to learn...

[NoNoNanette]

BornReady-

You might be "disgruntled", but certainly posted with class, man! Well thought out post.

[Yvette]

At first when I saw this post resurrected again I was saying...why, why, why.

Agree, you did not sound like a disgruntled worker. A very well written article, thanks. I was sadly laughing as well as an OMG interjected here and there.

[adoyle2]

I was a huge fan of G&E Courtyard Grill. Michael Uddo is a brilliant chef and is raising the bar again at Mike's American Grill.

[cherrro]

Sorry - I think that there are too many restaraunts that are far better than this place.
My husband and I went for the first time 7/29/09 for dinner (around 6:45)
1) It is a good looking restaurant inside. ++
2) we were seated right under the blaring speakers belting out bad 80's music. too loud... --
3) only two other tables were occupied the entire time that we were there---which set off alarms for us when we arrived. -
4) no inexpensive wine-- we don't mind paying for good wine but it was over valued for the brands offered and the pour was a little short. -

Now for the meal, my husband ordered the Tuna special (a yellowfin tuna piccata with angel hair and then he ordered a side of garlic barbant potatoes) for ~$19 (i can't remember the price exactly), I ordered fish and chips for $17. The fish was supposed to be trout- it seemed fresh but what kind of chef fries fish with the skin still on it? gross!- I ended up taking all of the batter off to scrape the skin off. There were 4 pieces of greasy fish and about $2 worth of plain -mcdonald's type of french fries. The 'special' tomato tartar sauce was flavorless and the fish was not served with malt vinegar as stated on the menu. Sorry "Chef"- $17? Ms. Pauls and Orieda was equivalent quality and a heck of a lot cheaper.
The spouse enjoyed his tuna for the first several bites but found the dish to be too 'artificial' to eat even 1/2. He usually eats until he is full but he just got tired of the flavor and stopped eating. The fish was cooked to medium but texture seemed too firm to be truly fresh-- perhaps previously frozen from Breaux Mart ($7.99)? again- $0.50 worth of pasta. I tried the garlic barbant potatoes and got the distinct artifical taste of garlic powder, also no evident pieces of garlic on the potatoes.

Two entrees, 1 side dish, and 3 glasses of wine= $68 without tip.

No second chances on this one- I tend to give places mutiple tries before passing judgement but the consistently poor value/quality of food for both of us has made up my mind on this one. Bravo's has it all over Mike's in the way of food quality---heck I have it all over Mike's and I am a wannabe home chef! I don't see this place staying around for much longer. 3 tables on a wednesday night in the heart of Metairie during dinner rush? the rent is eating your lunch!