Chowhound can ban commenters and delete comments all they want on their side of the tracks. Over here, we've pledged to to give those spurned by Jim Leff a voice, in this series, tagged The Lost Posts. In this edition of The Lost Posts, Volume IV, we explore the case of bugs and other foreign substances chowhounders report having found. Turns out this kind of talk is verboten.
STATUS: Banned With Explanation: Chowhounders cannot be trusted; Libel prevention.
Contraband: Cafe Sabarsky/Cafe Fledermaus. My wife and I had a rare lunch together and because we were in the area, we went to Cafe Sabarsky. Unfortunately we didn't have time to view the Klimt paintings in the Neue Gallery upstairs, and were pressed for time for lunch, so we ate downstairs at Cafe Fledermaus.
Before I can talk positively about the food, I must set the record straight about this place. The service is horrendous. It is awful. It is pathetic. It is slow. It is sloppy. It is every negative adjective you can apply to waitservice.
There were two waiters (one of them ours) who were remarkably pathetic. The lone waitress looked like she might know what she was doing, and in fact looked skilled but harried because of the lack of effort from the other clowns. I could go on and on at great length to describe how bad the service was, but what's the point?
The food, however, was very good though wasn't without it's problems.
My wife and I shared a bowl of chestnut soup which was perfect. The right temperature, the appropriate inclusion of prunes, the right texture. Excellent. The bread and butter we had was pretty good too as was the Kaffe Klimt (coffee with whipped cream). At least I think that was the name of it.
D. ordered the spaetzle for her entree ($15), which was served with wild mushrooms, peas, sweet corn and tarragon. It was excellent and was pretty much exactly like the rabbit spaetzle dish at Wallse. Unfortunately, as we were halfway through the dish, we noticed a hair in the food...one that definitely did not come from either of us.
I ordered the Viennese sausage with goulash sauce ($10) and was pleased, although next time I'd try the Bavarian sausage instead. The goulash sauce was fantastic and even had a nice chunk of meat in it.
The food, for the most part, is great. But again, the service is downright insufferable.
For someone so seemingly strict - Chef Gutenbrunner has absolutely no control over his dining establishments with the exception of Wallse, which is most likely where he spends most of his time. Wallse was an excellent experience (save for the wobbly chairs and tables and cheesey lucite vases) but my other K.G. experiences have failed greatly in certain aspects. The fish I had at Blaue Gans should never have been served looking the way it did, the service and hair issue at Cafe Fledermaus was beyond bad and the refusal to serve us dessert at Thor (at 10pm) was completely unacceptable.
Note to Kurt: Your staff doesn't take you seriously.
Chowhound Explains:Hi dkstar1, you've been sent the following by a Chowhound moderator:
Dear dkstar1:
We had to remove your post (below) and we wanted to explain why.
We don't allow reports of bugs, cooties, foreign objects, etc., on Chowhound. Here's why: food, service, and ambiance are things anyone can opine on, and in time a consensus emerges. But while different chowhounds can balance each other's opinions - pro and con - for a restaurant's pasta or chocolate cake, once someone reports a bug, cootie, or foreign object, that warps the gravity of the discussion. It can never be balanced. And while we trust your sincerity, many people who report such things do so out of a motivation to smear a place....and that, of course, is libelous.
If you find a restaurant lousy or sloppy, that's a matter of opinion that can be corroborated. But a report of, say, finding a hand grenade in your salad can't possibly be confirmed or argued or verified or balanced, so we declare it out of bounds for our discussion.
Most importantly, where matters of health and public safety are concerned, proper authorities should be notified so that the problem can be dealt with. A serious health situation can't be effectively addressed via a breezy food discussion forum like Chowhound.
Melissa
Chowhound.com
For Those Who Live to Eat· Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts I [~E~]
· Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts II [~E~]
· Banned on Chowhound: The Lost Posts III [~E~]
