My boyfriend and I love food and trying new restaurants wherever we go. This is the first time I have ever really felt compelled to write an official review of a crappy experience. We were eager to visit Ludivine while visiting my parents over the...holidays, and as with many upscale, New American restaurants we've tried, we expected decent, well-made portions of farm-to-table inspired fare in line with the prices we saw on the menu. Unfortunately, we were extremely underwhelmed by our dinner here. The restaurant seemed short staffed, as the hostess was also our server, and we had to stand in the cold entryway for awhile before she was able to show us to a table. She didn't bother to tell us the special before we ordered, nor did she ask us if we wanted dessert after we finished our mains (spoiler alert: we didn't want dessert). We paid $40+ for a single, confit duck leg with flabby skin, and about 3 tbsp of flaccid sweet potatoes. I ordered the rabbit milanese. $36 for rabbit didn't sound so bad, but the breading on the cutlet was burnt and acrid and the white beans, while plentiful, had obviously just been dumped from a can into a pan and heated. I did notice a lot of hamburgers coming out of the kitchen and wondered if maybe Ludivine is sustaining itself on its blue plate burger specials to make up for the fact that people aren't clamoring for their main entrees. The one silver lining was the beef tartare we had for our appetizer. It was bright, savory, and served with plenty of toasty bread for scooping. In the end, we were pretty resentful about how much we spent for how little we got--both in quality and quantity. I don't go to a finer dining establishment expecting enormous, belt-busting portions, but I do expect to have an experience I can't easily replicate at home, and I also don't anticipate having to cook something else after dinner in order to avoid going to bed hungry. Unfortunately, Ludivine checked neither of those boxes.More
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