Perry St.
176 Perry Street (between Washington & West)

A good friend of mine had asked me to brunch to discuss some interesting business ventures, which is the only reason I agreed to drag myself down to the West Village on a Sunday morning. With the Subway weekend mess, my hangover and the fact this was one of Jean-Georges Vongerichten's spots, I was very hesitant. But nevertheless I went. The business side of it was totally worthwhile, but the restaurant experience was worse than I could have imagined -- and that's saying a lot (if you know how I feel about Jean-Georges restaurants).

The decor of the restaurant is minimalist, which is nice. Lots of windows and light, so that was good. However, whoever designed for the doors to be facing the Hudson River must have been a fool, because with gusts over 25mph coming in from Jersey (like today), the doors are nearly impossible to open and the middle area becomes a horrible vacuum. This is just lack of foresight... But nevertheless, I like minimalism and light -- especially for brunch. So at least the blazing sun was good.

The service started out really mixed. There seems to be 1 waitress working very hard, 1 waiter working very hard, and then there's 1 waitress working dourly and another waiter who was barely there. Unfortunately that really made this entire brunch experience drag and drag... They got orders wrong and took over 25 minutes to bring the bill. Not acceptable. That one waitress that worked hard did most of the work for the entire restaurant...poor girl...

I also do not like prix fixe situations, where we have little option. I do not enjoy dessert, but was forced into it. For the first of two dishes (it was 2 dishes and dessert for the prix fixe) it was the chicken soup. Awful... There was so much lime juice in it within seconds my teeth were feeling the acid. I remember Jean-Georges's love for Asian tastes, but this sourness was way beyond any Thai tom yum soup. This was just bad. If it wasn't for the pieces of avocado and chicken, I would have just dumped it. Yuck...

The second dish was the beef tenderloin. It was not bad at all, but boring. Plus, I had ordered it medium rare. They were so slow in their service that by the time it came out, it was medium well or close to well-done. This is unacceptable for a restaurant of this supposed stature. I was not feeling well at all by now, exacerbating my hangover...

The dessert was a crème brûlée with (ugh!!!) foam on top. This must be the MOST MISUSED culinary technique of the last decade...it ruined the flavour. It was horrendously sour and did nothing to match the over-flamed crust. Someone had fun with the blowtorch back there. I ate less than a quarter of it and dumped it. Ugh...

When you dump 2 of the 3 dishes of the day, I know it's been a bad meal. The flavours don't do anything, the creativity is nil. Just bad fusion once again, the trademark of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He's had so much turnover in his restaurants and the scores of bad reviews in recent months...he really needs to take some responsibility and fix things before things collapse in his "empire". Shambolic to say the least...

Food: D
Atmosphere: B+
For Lone Diners: D (*)