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What a disappointment! I had been to Morels before with parties of 2 and 4 so I thought it would be find for a larger group. With that in mind, we booked a table on Opentable.com for 8 for a 40th birthday dinner at Morels and what was supposed to be a special dinner turned out to be a disaster. For starters, we were seated in a separate room away from the main room that had zero ambiance and was empty except for us. This was followed up by what can only be described as slow service with our waiter only passing through once in a blue moon. At one point, one of our party had to get up to go find water since we were all sitting there with an empty table and nothing to drink. As for the meal....I'd give a 1.5 stars since one of the steaks was good. Two of our party had the Porterhouse which was tasty. It was ordered medium-rare and was cooked well. Unfortunately, the rest of the meals were sub-standard. One of the other steaks was also ordered medium rare and was sent back since it was overcooked (it arrived warm/hot pink in the middle). And then we waited. And waited. Our waiter showed up (amazing!) and told us it was coming. And then we waited some more. Then the manager showed up and told us it was coming. And then it showed up a minute later. All said and done, almost 30 minutes passed between when the first steak was sent back and the second one was delivered. Not only does that make it awkward with the rest of our party eating, it also ruins the ambience of the table and is quite frankly unacceptable. I wish I could say that they got it right but the second steak was worse than the first one. It was essentially raw (read: cold and red throughout the steak except the far edges) and could only have been thrown on the grill for 30 - 40 seconds at best. By this point, we had all finished eating and didn't want to continue the ordeal. But wait...here's the best part. They charged us for that steak and when we asked that it be taken off the bill we were told no...your steak was cooked to perfection. Sorry guys but no it wasn't. When you can compare one medium rare steak to another one and visibly see the difference, it's not cooked to perfection. While restaurants define medium rare slightly different, a quick web search of the definition of a medium rare steak shows the following: "A medium rare steak should be warm through the middle with a hint of red. Most of the center of the steak should be pink. The sides should be well browned, the top and bottom charred to a dark brown color. This steak should have a firm surface but soft in the middle." It's not supposed to be COLD and RAW in the middle. Restaurants are about more than the food. The ambiance, the attentiveness of the servers and the attitude of the management all factor in. Good customer service means working w/ your customers to resolve a problem when it arises. For a $60 steak they ruined what should have been a pleasant meal and the manager's behavior was beyond unacceptable. Their refusal to even discuss the poor service and food left all of us appalled. Oh yeah, and they don't do anything special for birthdays (like a cake or dessert). Never. Going. Back. PS - The rest of the evening went well so that saved the entire night....pick from the following. (A). negative. (B). positive. I think the answer is
(A).