Chez Claudette is your typical Quebec diner. For breakfast, substitute egg and bacon by ham and beans. For lunch, try a delicious poutine with a homemade gravy or steamed hot-dogs (all dressed: sauerkraut, pickles et mustard). This places does it right in the details. For their hotdogs, the pickles are fresh and sweet. For their poutine, the fries are crispy, their curds are fresh (not refrigirated), and the gravy is made from scratch and not from a powder mix (it's a creamy textured beef gravy, with an obvious pepper seasoning). It is very good. In terms of the restaurant, its narrow L-shape ensures that you're having an intimate conservation with your friends and neighborhors. You choose if you like that or not :) edit: It seems like this place has gone downhill. I seem to be the only one who's reviewed Claudette and experienced warm fries... and I swear, it was a sober poutine experience when i went, and it was a good one!

positive

I recently had dinner at Carnevino with 4 friends. While I've eaten in Batali places before, this one really takes the torta on overpriced food and fussy/condescending waiters and service. Being from NY, I don't take kindly to snowjobs -- and this place was all about that. Our server, a dweeb from LI to boot, who made lots of chit chat with us at first, was all about getting us to spend as much $$$ as possible. He was good with the stories "aged beef, so carefully prepared...be sure to pick up the bone and gnaw on it - like Mario would do if he was here." Oh pleeze. So pretentious. The tale of the cannoli prep was the best, as another server made up seemingly compelling stuff as he went along. I was anticipating and fully ready to vomit up my overpriced meat in response to the line, "each cannoli shell is carefully rolled between the nubile thighs of 16-year-old virgins" if it came to that. And in Vegas, that'd truly be a rare thing. After having 3 small pasta plates to share, we went on to the mains. And, by the way, one of those pastas, the penne with anchovies, was about the worst thing I've ever tasted and should be fully avoided. They push the steaks, but as we were two couples, we could have saved some money with ordering one steak to feed 4 of us. Mr. Server Douche never bothered to mention that the Florentine Porterhouse steaks are big enough for 4 people. Nope. He just had us purchase 2 steaks at the cost of $80 PER PERSON!! The menu is misleading, as we thought it was $80 for 2 - not EACH. Basically for me, this restaurant "jumped the shark" in every way and it'll be a long time until I eat in one of Batali's joints - anywhere. Figures he's friends with Goopy, by the way. Ugh.

negative

Today is the second day that I've waited by the front window for the UPS driver to deliver a package that has to be signed for in person. ALL DAY. TWO DAYS. Day before yesterday he came, knocked so softly no one could hear him, even though we were in an adjoining room, stuck a notice on our door, and was gone in a few SECONDS. We had no time to get to the door. The notice was found in the grass in our yard. I had to pay $6 for redelivery today. He pulled up and stopped at the front of our driveway, got out of his seat, looked in the back of the truck, got back into his seat and drove away. Calling and trying to get help or to have this driver contacted has proven futile. So, here I am once again, waiting from 10:00 a.m. until after 7:00 pm tonight for a delivery that may or may not come. Unfortunately this happens more often than not and we are very weary of it. The drivers need to knock loudly enough for a person to know someone is at the door, and he or she needs to give us a few SECONDS to get to the door. There should be a way to contact the driver and have him return to a household for a delivery that he didn't get out of his truck to make.

negative

Ordered the surf and turf. It came with a small rip eye steak 3 shrimp. Also garlic mashed potatoes hard and cold. Extremely disappointed. Small portions and over priced.
negative