I have lived in New York City for 16 years and I've never had a dining experience so negative as the one I had at M. Wells Steakhouse last Wednesday night.
I was craving a steakhouse meal and my wife decided to take me to M. Wells as a generous and thoughtful holiday gift. Once there, we ordered the Wedge Salad (to share) and splurged for the $150 Porterhouse for two, which came accompanied by Bearnaise Sauce and sides of both Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Potatoes.
The salad was fine - unremarkable - but a passable NYC steakhouse wedge salad.
The Porterhouse was awful. It is the worst dish I have ever had in any NYC steakhouse and probably the worst dish I have ever had in any NYC restaurant at any price level. It tasted like a boiled piece of shoe leather. Although it bore a visual resemblance to steak (pink on the inside and charred on the outside), it bore no taste resemblance to any piece of beef I have ever eaten. I'm not exactly sure what the problem was (poor quality meat, poor food storage, poor seasoning, improper cooking method), but the steak was inedible.
My wife and I looked at each other and didn't know what to do. We are the kind of people who don't like to make a fuss, but we literally couldn't eat the steak. Neither of us had ever sent a dish back at any restaurant and we didn't exactly know what to do.
We ate the Brussels Sprouts in their entirety as we deliberated (salty, but tolerable) and ultimately decided to send the Porterhouse and its accompaniments back. I had a spoonful of Potatoes during this deliberation process, pushing them away after one bite. We did not touch the Bearnaise sauce.
We called over our server and told her our predicament and she apologized, gave us menus and took the Steak, Potatoes, Sauce and empty plate of Brussels Sprouts away. We ordered substitute entrees (Meat Pie for my wife, Filet Mignon for me) and resumed the meal.
The substitute entrees were almost as bad. The Meat Pie was a mess of tendon-laced nubbins of meat topped with treacly fruit jelly. The Filet (wrapped in bacon) was over-salted, over-cooked and oddly topped with three broccoli florets. Out of frustration and hunger, I ate the Filet. My wife took two bites of Meat Pie and gave up.
We asked for the bill and that's when the experience really got bad. We were stunned and appalled to see charges for the Brussels Sprouts ($10), Potatoes ($10) and Bearnaise Sauce ($5) appearing a la carte on our bill. I called our original server over to question the bill and was directed to another server - Julius (who may have been a manager). Julius explained the bill to us by contending that we had consumed the the Brussels Sprouts, Potatoes and Bearnaise and that consumption constituted us being billed for them. His implication was that M. Wells had done us a favor by taking back our $150 steak without any charge and we should be thankful to him for letting us off the hook for a mere $25.
We conceded that we had eaten the Brussels Sprouts, but told him that we didn't touch the Bearnaise, and that I had taken one spoonful of Potatoes. We also told him that the food appeared as a package on the menu and that us sending back the steak should constitute removing the entire package from the bill. He began to argue the facts with me, accusing me of eating more than one spoonful of the Potatoes. He said that he would remove the Bearnaise, but not the Potatoes and dared me to resume the argument.
It was an entirely unpleasant discussion and rather that continue it, I told him to bring us whatever check he thought was fair. My wife (who, remember, was taking me out to dinner) told him that the worst part was that she, as the purchaser, felt conned by the experience and would not return.
Julius's conception of fairness was a bill with a $10 charge for each of the Brussels Sprouts and the Potatoes.
There are so many delicious steakhouses in New York City - avoid M. Wells. Not only is the food terrible, but the contempt shown for the customer is appalling.
We paid, left, went home, had a laugh about the terrible experience and ate store-bought Ice Cream. It was the best thing we had eaten all night.