Falls Terrace Restaurant

Service left something to be desired.   Multiple dishes were incorrect.   Filet mignon was ordered as medium rare and served as well.   Bottle of wine took over 15 minutes to be served.   Others at the table said the food was okay, but the experience certainly was not worth the price.

I can no longer use the term "old people food" as I have been told that it is offensive and rude.  Instead I will start this review by saying that I went to Falls Terrace restaurant with my 78 year old mother-in-law during the "Blue Plate Special" hour.

I must say that "old people food" does not mean that "old people" enjoy it.  There is a certain type of food that I associate as "old people food" and I mean no offense.  In fact, if you don't like the food I call "old people food" then perhaps you aren't old.  What is age but a number...and a way to describe food?

I digress...

Yes, Blue Plate Special.  They have one.  I can not give a restaurant a classification of fine dining if they have a Blue Plate Special.

It boasts a four course meal starting with shrimp cocktail.  My sister-in-law is allergic to shrimp and they refused to substitute something else, like salad or soup...that's pretty bad.

She was the lucky one considering that their shrimp cocktail (which, you know is pretty standard and you aren't really expecting anything besides what it advertises) was embarrassing, how can you mess up a shrimp cocktail?  I mean COME ON!  It was previously frozen baby salad shrimp swimming in a bed of cocktail sauce.  Really?!  I'd rather one smallish regular shrimp with cocktail sauce advertised as an amuse bouche.

Then you get either soup or salad (but not both for people with seafood allergies) and clam chowder for an additional $2.00.   It was pretty sad clam chowder.  It was mushy and flavorless.

For the main course we chose Prime rib.  I must say, it wasn't the worst prime rib I have ever had, it was all cooked properly the various ways we asked and the baked potato was well cooked.  Based on my expectations for the restaurant; the main course exceeded them.

Dessert, I chose the "homemade" bread pudding.  They brag that it is homemade every day with cinnamon bun batter.  Just because you use mass-produced purchased batter in a way that it wasn't intended, does not make your dish homemade.  It comes with a served whole bunch of the white icing that comes with the batter.  I admit, I enjoy a Pillsbury "pop the can" cinnamon bun when necessary but I don't claim it to be homemade (I'm not taking credit for that) and this was mushy.

In summary, my 78 year old mother-in-law thoroughly enjoyed her meal (and believes we did too, hopefully she doesn't read Yelp), and in reality that is all that really matters because we wanted to make her happy.

After reading many reviews I was a little afraid of what my experience might be, but I had great childhood memories of this place and was eager to relive them.  So my wife and I showed up on Saturday night for an early dinner.  Service was excellent, view was better than I remembered and the food was pretty damn good too.  Something feels a little dated about everything but they nailed the classics. I had the Prime Rib and it was perfect.