No lauds for Lauderdale

Ever in search of a good brunch place in Tokyo, I've been wanting to visit Lauderdale, a newish restaurant in Roppongi, for a while. Billed as a cross between a French bistro and an American diner, it's received good reviews in several newspapers, blogs, and magazines and seemed especially well liked for its weekday breakfasts and weekend brunch. So on Easter Sunday Hideaki and I met up there with his sister and her family.

And we were all terribly disappointed. Not by the food, which mostly lived up to the reviews, but by the atrociously bad service. But first, here's what we ate:

On the weekend brunch menu all main dishes come with two sides. Except that they weren't really side dishes: they ended up arriving long before their main accompaniments (and before any of our drinks). My sides were orange-glazed carrots and falafels with yogurt dip, on the left, and Hideaki's were fries and chili. The carrots and fries were good. The falafels turned out to be miniatures, which were cute, and although they were tasty and fun to eat they were overcooked and dry and really really needed the dip. The chili- well, one look will tell you that something is wrong with it, and upon tasting it I had to conclude that whoever had made it knew chili con carne in concept only and had never personally eaten any. Served with, for some reason, a few slices of pita bread. To be fair, it wasn't awful tasting, and Hideaki liked it. It just wasn't chili. Also, I should note that everything was nicely presented and any messiness shown above is because we'd already been picking at some of the earlier arrivals when I took this picture.

Lauderdale is famed for its souffles so I ordered one with mushroom and cheese. And this was truly delicious. The crust was crispy (thanks to a light dusting of sugar, which was a bit weird with the savoury flavours but not weird enough to detract from the dish) and the insides soft, fluffy and just a little bit gooey. The rich mushroom flavour was wonderful.

It was served with thick cream, to be spooned into the souffle once it was broken open. The souffle would have been good enough without it, but the cream brought it to a higher level of decadence.

Hideaki ordered buttermilk pancakes, which were very good. I thought they were fantastic actually, but Hideaki said mine were better (yeah, the two out of ten that I don't burn). He was surprised at the two tiny slivers of bacon that came with them: upon ordering he'd been given a choice of bananas, blueberries and bacon as a topping, and considering the price (1500 yen) had expected a little bit more than the tiny paper-thin shavings of bacon that he got.

We split two desserts: a brownie sundae, above, and a sweet souffle, below. I'm not much of a brownie- or sundae- girl, but the ice cream part I tried was nice and everyone else seemed happy with the rest of it.

The dessert souffle was flavoured with banana and pepper (the one other sweet flavour was sold out) and was very nice. I liked my savoury one better, but everyone else preferred this.

So the food was mostly good, even excellent. Now, the service. Hideaki had made reservations several days before, noting there was a young child and asking if there was some kind of booth or nice table for a family. He was told there wasn't. Since he wasn't asked to choose smoking or non-smoking, he assumed smoking wasn't allowed and didn't think to mention anything.

So we arrived at the restaurant just after Atsuko, her husband and her five-year-old daughter. They were seated on stools at one end of a large communal table, right next to the front door. I was a bit surprised at this, and more surprised to see that in the back of the restaurant there was indeed booth style seating, as well as many individual tables far more comfortable than ours, with actual chairs. As we got settled in, I noticed two more things: the cold wind blowing in from the door right behind us, and the cigarette smoke drifting our way from the bar that we were right next to. Why on earth they had sat a family with a child in such a place I have no idea, especially when we had reservations. When we asked to be moved the waitress promised to do so as soon as a table became available.

Our request was quickly forgotten, and as new tables opened up they were given to new arrivals, most of whom had no reservations (I know this because my seat next to the door let me hear everything). I couldn't help but notice that all the other parties at the comfy tables were either foreign families or mixed Japanese and foreign groups (there were some Japanese parties, but they were relegated to the bar or the chilly patio). I also noticed the way that the foreign parties seemed to be fawned over by the waitstaff (all Japanese), while we had trouble attracting any one when we needed them. Could this restaurant really be so blatantly treating foreigners better than Japanese? We could only conclude that this was the case. Sure, I'm foreign, but had arrived after my Japanese in-laws and I can't help but think that if I'd made the reservation in English and showed up first we wouldn't have been stuck at such a crummy table and received such crummy service.

It didn't end with the seating. When I ordered my souffle the waitress warned me that it took 20 to 25 minutes to cook, to which I said fine, but just to be sure she asked if I was really OK with that. Of course I was. The 20 to 25 minutes had already been mentioned on the menu. And on the restaurant's website. And in every single review I'd read. And it was, you know, a souffle, which nobody expects to appear instantly. And besides, it's Sunday brunch, I was there for a leisurely meal and didn't mind waiting. And indeed, we did wait. Our side dishes slowly came, one by one, and then our drinks. And half an hour later, my souffle came. Nobody else's main dishes, none of which had come with warnings about how long they'd take, had arrived yet. And although I ate as slowly as possible, the souffle was long gone by the time everyone else's food arrived. I've given up on expecting restaurants in Japan to serve main dishes at the same time, but found it really strange that the one menu item that was supposed to take the longest actually arrived long before the other main dishes.

Hideaki's pancakes arrived when he and my brother-in-law were out on a smoke break (they'd asked if they could smoke on the balcony but were told to smoke at the bar, and since they didn't fancy blowing more smoke our way were forced to go out and walk down the street to find a suitable place). And they were covered with bananas. The waiter had already vanished but I tracked him down and pointed out that it was supposed to be bacon, not bananas. Ignoring me, the waiter looked at Atsuko (although he didn't seem to have a problem communicating with the other foreign diners) who confirmed this. So he picked up the plate and shoved it in the face of a random foreign guy waiting for a table behind me and asked him if he did indeed order bacon (I guess my sister-in-law and I didn't look very trustworthy and he needed further confirmation).

When he finally realized that the poor, confused guy didn't belong to our table and hadn't ordered the pancakes, he disappeared, coming back a minute later (the fastest service of the day) with the correct topping. It was the exact same plate, exact same pancakes, misted with the exact same random foreigner's breath, just with the bananas removed and bacon added. I could still see the moist imprints where the bananas had been. Thank goodness Hideaki doesn't have a banana allergy.

The bill arrived while the others were still eating their main dishes, and 15 minutes after that came our desserts. And while were eating those there came a long-forgotten cocktail my brother-in-law had ordered with his main dish.

I've become used to oddly-timed courses in Japan but this was by far the most outrageous I've experienced. And a place that charges this much should really be able to get it right. I would normally be able to give a restaurant the benefit of the doubt and figure that they'd been caught understaffed on a very busy day, but we were also treated shabbily and there's just no excuse for that.

The souffle was so good (and where else in Tokyo can I get souffle?) that I may end up giving Lauderdale another chance. But I'll make sure it's on a weekday and, just to be on the safe side, make sure I'm in a party of foreigners.

Lauderdale
03-3405-5533
Keyakizaka Terrace, Roppongi Hills, 6-15-1 Minato-ku
Open daily 7:00am to 11:00pm

Comments

[kat]

too bad about the service :( really takes away from the food.

[Debbie Bello]

All of the food looks so good but that sundae look absolutely sinful! I love bananas and chocolate.

[illahee]

oh wow, that pancake fiasco is completely unacceptable. i only like bananas some of the time, and if i weren't expecting a banana flavor i would have probably been revolted. but even worse is the service! i would call and complain to management!!

[joeinvegas]

Sorry, but none of that looks American. The service sounded French though.

[clea walford]

Shame that the service is so bad at Lauderdale, but the brownie sundae is too irresistible...

[yamaonna]

wow, that's such a shame about the service! Good food is important, but to really enjoy a meal the service has to meet a minimum level where the staff arn't rude!
If you haven't tried the buffet brunch at French Kitchen in Roppongi's Grand Hyatt I certianly recommed that. Its a bit expensive (6000 or 7000yen I think), but the food and the service are top notch. Best french bread you will ever eat!

[Mari]

Good thing you didn't have to leave a tip! One of the benefits of dining in Japan. I've often found that restaurants in Japan billing themselves as "American" don't/can't quite pull it off -- something gets lost in translation, both in the preparation and presentation. Frankly, when in Rome, I'd rather eat what the Romans eat!

[Lauren Dunn]

The way it sounded you could have done what most people do and ask to speak to a manager, most of the time it works. I'm actually surprised you didn't. At least your souffle was tasty. Can't wait for the next good read!

[Amy]

Thanks for the comments.

Illahee, I found the shoving of the plate in a stranger's face more revolting than the bananas. Definitely a fiasco, but I think the time to call and complain has passed.

JoeinVegas, very funny. To be fair there was some classic American brunch stuff on the menu, and the pancakes (should have taken a picture!) were really good.

Yamaonna, the French Kitchen brunch sounds nice. But ouch, that's a lot of money! I do like a very fancy brunch once in a while, but sometimes I want just a nice, casual brunch like you can have in every other civilized country. Why is there no place to do this in Tokyo?

Mari, believe it or not we actually found ourselves wishing that there WAS tipping in Japan, so we could have the satisfaction of not leaving one. I agree about "American" restaurants in Japan, but the crazy thing is that this place was full of foreigners, most of whom looked and sounded American. And they all seemed to be loving it.

Lauren, that sounds totally reasonable and I would have done so back in Canada. But for some reason Japanese people, at least regular Japanese people, don't complain. The others in my party would probably rather have died than speak to a manager, and I've become so used to that way of thinking that the thought didn't even cross my mind. Now I regret not saying something.

[Pala]

Dont put up with this for a souffle! You can get an amazing souffle at Artemis - a french restaurant in Jingumae. The chef makes amazing passion fruit souffle for desert.

[Amy]

Pala, thank you! Artemis is now on my list of places to try.