Mama Della's, Tchoup Chop, & Emeril's

[tarheelmjfan]

I'll post a more thorough review later, but thought I'd share a few comments on the restaurants we've eaten dinner at so far.

Mama Della's: We were running late & had to cancel our Mythos ressie. My DH was able to get at 9:30 pm ressie at MD instead. You all were so right about this restaurant. This has been our best meal this trip. We had a wonderful server, & the food was fabulous. We'll definitely be returning often.

Tchoup Chop: Sorry TC fans, but we had yet another bad meal here. This one was actually worse than the 1st. The appetizer was great, & our DS's loved the filet. The rest, including 3 desserts, was horrible. I don't mean that they weren't up to Emeril standards. They really were awful. Sadly, the food wasn't the only problem with this meal. If we decide to give TC another try, we will order the crab cakes & filet, but nothing else. I doubt that's going to happen though.

Emeril's: This was yet another fantastic meal. Everything, including appetizers, entrees, & desserts, was great! The only exception would be my DH's entree. His wasn't quite up to the standards we've become accustomed to at Emeril's. The desserts were to die for, which is really all that matters.

 

[pigby]

Tchoup Chop: Sorry TC fans, but we had yet another bad meal here. This one was actually worse than the 1st. The appetizer was great, & our DS's loved the filet. The rest, including 3 desserts, was horrible. I don't mean that they weren't up to Emeril standards. They really were awful. Sadly, the food wasn't the only problem with this meal. If we decide to give TC another try, we will order the crab cakes & filet, but nothing else. I doubt that's going to happen though.

Oh no, was hoping to visit in a months time - what did you order that was so bad and what other issues did you have - was it the service?

 

[gschmerl]

Sorry you have had such bad luck at Tchoup Chop. We have eaten there several tinmes and the service and food has been outstanding.

 

[Cinderella822]

Tchoup Chop: Sorry TC fans, but we had yet another bad meal here. This one was actually worse than the 1st. The appetizer was great, & our DS's loved the filet. The rest, including 3 desserts, was horrible. I don't mean that they weren't up to Emeril standards. They really were awful. Sadly, the food wasn't the only problem with this meal. If we decide to give TC another try, we will order the crab cakes & filet, but nothing else. I doubt that's going to happen though.

I'd also be interested in knowing more about your experience here, such as what you ordered for dinner. I have a reservation there in two weeks and now I'm concerned about it.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

We started with the crab cake appetizer, which was really good. As I mentioned earlier, our DS had the Filet for his entree. He enjoyed it very much. I'm a fan of noodles & my DH is a big meat eater. I had read several recommendations for the Hawaiian Style Dinner Plate, so we decided to share that. As planned, I had the noodles. They were okay, but no better than the lo mein in the food court in the mall. The meats were of similar quality. Again, they were okay, but more food court quality than fine dining. The sides were horrible. The Chorizo Potato Hash was the best of the 2 sides, & it was basically tasteless. Tasteless would have been a huge improvement for the Lop Chong Sapporo Braised Chinese Broccoli. I honestly don't think I've ever tasted anything that tasted so bad. My DH was in total agreement. Even though we shared the entree, there was plenty of food left.

By this time, we were more than ready for dessert. Our DS ordered Emeril's Banana Cream Pie. Now, we're back to tasteless. It wasn't horrible. It could have used a whole lot more bananas &/ or banana flavoring though. My DH ordered the Bitter Sweet Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Cream, which was recommended by our server. He was considering this one or the Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, Chocolate Cake. She said the later was kind of dry & lacked flavor. If it was drier & had less flavor than the one he ordered, it must taste like paper. His cake was terrible. I had the Frozen Coconut Souffle. This was the best dessert of the 3. Unfortunately, the predominant flavor was rum. The alcohol was too strong. The flavor combination would have made a much better after dinner drink than a dessert. 3 or 4 bites was all I could handle.

We had decided at the beginning of the meal to order a bottle of dessert wine, instead of having wine with dinner. Our server said that wouldn't be a problem. Well, it was. After a very long wait, she returned to say the bottle we ordered was sold out. That's understandable, & out of their control. All the other bottles in the same price range ended up being sold out too. After this horrible meal that wasn't worth a fraction of the cost, they actually tried to upsell us on one of their most expensive bottles.

The service wasn't any better than the food. We were seated quickly, which appeared to be a good sign. After a bit of a wait, our server came by to explain that a 3 person team would be serving us. They apparently had organizational problems amongst team members. We enjoy leisurely meals, & weren't in a hurry. The problem we experienced was the length of time we waited in limbo between finishing one course & ordering another. We ordered our appetizer & entree at the same time. We still had a long wait between these courses. The transition from entree to dessert was even worse. It was at least 20 minutes from the time they cleared our entree plates, until they even brought the dessert menu for us to look at. In hindsight, we should have cut our losses long before then. We didn't complain or send anything back. That's just not our thing. I doubt we'll put ourselves in the same situation again though.

Many people love TC. So far, we've tried a total of 6 entrees there & enjoyed 1 of them. Maybe, we've been unlucky enough to go on off nights both times. That would be an odd coincidence, but I suppose it's possible. All I know is that our meals there have been the worst of any fine dining restaurant we've ever eaten at. I don't know how our meals could be so much different than others have experienced, but I truly can't imagine anyone actually liking TC better than Emeril's. We enjoy good food & don't mind paying for it. Our meal at Emeril's last night was more than twice what we paid at TC. It was worth every cent. On the other hand, our meal at TC wasn't worth a fraction of what it cost.

 

[baileysgm]

We started with the crab cake appetizer, which was really good. As I mentioned earlier, our DS had the Filet for his entree. He enjoyed it very much. I'm a fan of noodles & my DH is a big meat eater. I had read several recommendations for the Hawaiian Style Dinner Plate, so we decided to share that. As planned, I had the noodles. They were okay, but no better than the lo mein in the food court in the mall. The meats were of similar quality. Again, they were okay, but more food court quality than fine dining. The sides were horrible. The Chorizo Potato Hash was the best of the 2 sides, & it was basically tasteless. Tasteless would have been a huge improvement for the Lop Chong Sapporo Braised Chinese Broccoli. I honestly don't think I've ever tasted anything that tasted so bad. My DH was in total agreement. Even though we shared the entree, there was plenty of food left.

By this time, we were more than ready for dessert. Our DS ordered Emeril's Banana Cream Pie. Now, we're back to tasteless. It wasn't horrible. It could have used a whole lot more bananas &/ or banana flavoring though. My DH ordered the Bitter Sweet Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Cream, which was recommended by our server. He was considering this one or the Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, Chocolate Cake. She said the later was kind of dry & lacked flavor. If it was drier & had less flavor than the one he ordered, it must taste like paper. His cake was terrible. I had the Frozen Coconut Souffle. This was the best dessert of the 3. Unfortunately, the predominant flavor was rum. The alcohol was too strong. The flavor combination would have made a much better after dinner drink than a dessert. 3 or 4 bites was all I could handle.

We had decided at the beginning of the meal to order a bottle of dessert wine, instead of having wine with dinner. Our server said that wouldn't be a problem. Well, it was. After a very long wait, she returned to say the bottle we ordered was sold out. That's understandable, & out of their control. All the other bottles in the same price range ended up being sold out too. After this horrible meal that wasn't worth a fraction of the cost, they actually tried to upsell us on one of their most expensive bottles.

The service wasn't any better than the food. We were seated quickly, which appeared to be a good sign. After a bit of a wait, our server came by to explain that a 3 person team would be serving us. They apparently had organizational problems amongst team members. We enjoy leisurely meals, & weren't in a hurry. The problem we experienced was the length of time we waited in limbo between finishing one course & ordering another. We ordered our appetizer & entree at the same time. We still had a long wait between these courses. The transition from entree to dessert was even worse. It was at least 20 minutes from the time they cleared our entree plates, until they even brought the dessert menu for us to look at. In hindsight, we should have cut our losses long before then. We didn't complain or send anything back. That's just not our thing. I doubt we'll put ourselves in the same situation again though.

Many people love TC. So far, we've tried a total of 6 entrees there & enjoyed 1 of them. Maybe, we've been unlucky enough to go on off nights both times. That would be an odd coincidence, but I suppose it's possible. All I know is that our meals there have been the worst of any fine dining restaurant we've ever eaten at. I don't know how our meals could be so much different than others have experienced, but I truly can't imagine anyone actually liking TC better than Emeril's. We enjoy good food & don't mind paying for it. Our meal at Emeril's last night was more than twice what we paid at TC. It was worth every cent. On the other hand, our meal at TC wasn't worth a fraction of what it cost.

I have to agree that Tchoup Chop was a huge disappointment. The restaurant was lovely and our service was actually very good... the three member staff actually complemented each other very well. The crab cake was very good but my entree, the grouper special with potato dumplings, had an "off" taste. The sundried tomato/okra salsa had a nice taste, but I couldn't get past the slime (I'm from the south, fried is the only way okra should be cooked . The chocolate peanut butter cake was basically terrible; my granddaughter refused to eat it and she is the number one chocolate cake fan in the world. All in all, not a good experience and certainly not worth $80.00 for one adult and one child (who didn't order an entree). The double scoop of mango sorbet from room service at the RPR at $13.00 was a much better value!!

 

[Zsa Zsa]

Tarheelmjfan:

Are you still out there? We just returned! We did have dinner at Bice, as we told you we would. It was absolutely splendid. We had the assistant manager as our server, and he was very attentive, funny, and enchanting. We all loved him. I'm sorry that I cannot tell you now what we had there, since it was over a week ago now, and we've been at so many restaurants since then so that they have started to blur one into another. My DH does remember he had the veal shank and loved it. My overall impression was very Italian, very fabulous service! Outstanding. Gorgeous view of the PBH. Such a lovely hotel!

We also enjoyed Margueritaville (crab cakes were just ok-but the atmosphere was memorable), Tchoup Choups (sorry you did not have a good experience-to me, the decor was entrancing, and we had the assistant manager helping to serve us-Sebastien-love that French accent! I had the taster dinner. Some I liked, some I didn't, but overall, tres bien!), Lombards (great to eat seafood in A/C on a blazing hot day in a lovely restaurant), Confisco's character breakfast (DD-12 loved getting pics with all of the characters- very relaxing), Mythos (can't beat the atmosphere/theming and food was really great also, The Kitchen (was fun to see the HRH-still couldn't find great crab cakes here, but food was good), Emerils (did it for lunch, but ate like it was dinner!-fabulous-really!, and treated like royalty), Hard Rock Cafe (food was ok, but the memorabilia and decor was a must-see). Did the Seaworld character breakfast (food was not too great and characters/show was for much younger set) and lunch w/Shamu (absolutely wonderful!). Food at Discovery Cove was splendid also! Did not get to the Latin Quarter-husband was rushed to the hospital after our day at Discovery Cove with headache and very high blood pressure. But everything turned out ok! Just happy he's ok. Finally, went on to the Disney Cruise which was the cream on top of a mostly great vacation (all food, all the time, and finally found fab crab cakes!). We took a bunch of pictures of our food, which I will try to post later.

Hope you are still there having fun!

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

We took a bunch of pictures of our food, which I will try to post later.

Hope you are still there having fun!

Oh please post. lol