We ate at Fredricks in San Antonio tonight, a French restaurant. The service was excellent. Our waiter's name was Brett. The ambiance was nice--a dimly lit room with tables full of respectful, well dressed people. The food can only be described as just "okay,"and certainly not worth the crazy prices. A note: we don't mind crazy prices for crazy good food. This was not that. One of the main reasons I love French food is the seared fois gras. I was thrilled to see it on their menu (but not surprised given this is a French restaurant ). I ordered it. After the amuse bouche the waiter advised me that they were out of fois gras and offered the fried spring rolls instead. Fried spring rolls as a substitute for fois gras? Whatever. A French restaurant that is out of fois gras is like McDonald's running out of fries. Major disappointment. Next came the salad. We ordered one to split that seemed like perfection. Walnut with blue cheese and red onion. What we got was good, but not what we ordered. We got a Ceasar salad with chopped walnuts. No blue cheese that we noticed--it seemed like to us like it was covered in canned parmigiana. No red onion except for one tiny piece on my spouse's. It was okay. The streak au poivre (pepper steak) was regular steak with some funky tasting pepper sauce. We both thought that the sauce tasted musty or moldy--not right. The flavor was not good in our view. The gran mariner soufflé came out and looked burnt to the point of being black on the top, and the soufflé had fallen. I thought maybe it was chocolate, but the inside color was light. We sent it back and immediately ordered the cream brûlée. It came out --the top was not crispy at all. It was a flan, with a good raspberry sauce, but not crème brûlée. A bummer. These are all basic French dishes. Nothing that should stump the band. We have ordered and enjoyed these same dishes many, many times at other French restaurants. We have cooked each of these dishes ourselves many, many times. You might ask: what do you expect in San Antonio? For a total bill for 2 people over $300, we expected much, much better. In fact, we have had many great meals in SA--for example, Paesanos' oso bucco is fantastic and is just down the street. I doubt we will be back to Fredricks.
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