4290 Bistro & Bar

Brunch on Mother's Day! Great food and excellent service. Definitely commended from the Executive chef -Brian Hill to the servers. We were impressed on the selection of  food: different sushi, seafood-oysters, large shrimps, Alaskan king crab legs, smoked salmon; different kinds of salads; omelet station; craving station and hot entrees.  Forgot the full long table of cakes and sweets. A new place for us to go back for a brunch. Price is reasonable! BTW, the kids had their own selection of food...how creative is that!!!!

This review is purely for the Mothers Day Brunch. I've actually eaten here before during there early bird 3 course meal for under $20 and it's pretty legit. But the Mothers Day Brunch...

1st off, you need a reservation as it's packed. Price was freaking over $50 per person (they include tip and tax). They usher you into the grand ballroom where the buffet is lined up in the middle.

Why the brunch gets 1 star:

Service:
Blows. Absolutely sucked. I think we got our Champagne refilled a grand total of twice during the hour and half we spent eating here. We had to ask the waiter four times to bring us water. They just don't care.

Food Quality:

Seafood:
Nothing special. Tiny crab legs, tiny oysters, and clams. They had peeled shrimp which was actually the right size, but they also had a sign for Sashimi, but instead had vegetarian sushi lined up. They didn't even have California rolls.

Breakfast Buffet:
Not bad. Not amazing either. Your normal breakfast items along with some specialties like French Cheese Rolls and eggs Benedict.

Carving Table:
Roast beef was dry. Took a few bites gave up. Omelet was whatever, nothing special inside. I didn't even bother trying the honey ham.

Desert Table:
Looked life the Desert table at Safeway.

Ambiance:
While you could eat in the restaurant, or sit outside, we elected to sit in the ballroom near the buffet tables. It was like sitting in an airport waiting lounge, loud as heck with screaming children running around and people running amuck. The grand ball room was dim, and the ambiance was... suck ass.

Bottom line:
Yes, I know this hotel is suppose to be a 4 star posh hotel in middle of Palo Alto, but come on, for $55 bucks a pop you could at least pretend to try. I honestly could get seafood at a Chinese buffet for 50% that would equate to the same quality, or take my mom to Dennys, spend $30 bucks and get equal quality food, with probably the same Ambiance, and better service. Nothing is good here, you will leave feeling unsatisfied and completely robbed.

A new addition to the Sunday Champagne Brunch rotation.  There's no carving station but they make up for it with incredibly fresh salmon, crab, shrimp and oysters.