bonsoiree portion size

Does anyone else have any problems with the portion size at Bonsoiree? My friend and I went to the Fish Dinner on the 12th of January. We loved the service, the talk with the Chef, and generally really wanted to love the food. But there were, at most, two bites of food on my plate for each course. Now, I totally understand a 5 course meal isn't supposed to be huge. But how can you leave hungry after a meal like that? Because we did. The other problem that night was the pacing. Courses would come out every 15 minutes. We were famished. We'd wolf down our two bites and then wait another 15 minutes for another tiny plate of food. The dishes were very good and I wrote Chef Chenier after our meal the next day. He promptly answered me and was very candid; saying that some patrons had complained about the portion size. But because everyone gets served all at one time, and because the kitchen is small, they can only do so much. He also said that after the end of our meal, if we had told him we were still hungry, he would have made us something! Which I thought was amazingly accomodating. I loved this restaurant. I just wanted more food. If there were just bigger portions, I would be there all the time. Does anyone else feel the same way?

Thanks,
Therese

Agreed.

I have not eaten at Bonsoiree so I can't speak to this exactly however, my feeling in general is that more times than not portion sizes are actually too large. I at at Mix (The Alain Ducasse restraunt in Las Vegas) last week and found the portions on the 7 course tasting menu to be far too large.

I like a two bite serving believe it or not. My reasoning is because, after a second taste of a dish, the tounge gets "dumbed down" to the real flavors of the dish. Thus the two bite portion, they taste it, you "wow" them and they get one more tatse before you get to wow them again with something new.

Unfortuneatley (and I'm not saying this is the case with you) the American public has been programmed that a proper serving is that trough of pasta you get as Maggiano's. I find that sad.

I've eaten here many times and I will agree that the portions are not huge. I have never left stuffed, and I also have never left hungry. Seems that a fish dinner may be on the light side anyway. I think it's great you wrote to them and they responded. Kurt has always been very accomodating to me.

Yes,
I agree than Americans expect too much food. That's why I wanted to say, I didn't expect a large portion and didn't want it.

I think, perhaps, because we were so hungry beforehand, we just needed more food. When I go to a nice dinner I tend to eat lightly that day. And maybe we were just too hungry. I wanted some feedback because I really want to try the restaurant again. And want to know how you all feel about it. If it was just a case of me being too hungry, then maybe I should give it another shot.

After Mrs. Davooda and I dined at Trotter's last year, both having the degustation with wine flights and leaving hungry, I was a bit apprehensive about Bonsoiree.
However, we dined at dined at Bonsoiree last Friday night, both had the seven-course menu (*** see my earlier post***) and left happy, full and wanting to come back ASAP.
I am 6'5" 250 and a big eater, and I will readily admit that sometimes a huge trough of pasta is right up my alley! But this meal was just right for me in terms of portion size and, despite the nearly immediate delivery of our first course, the pacing was optimum. Mrs. Davooda actually couldn't finish her last course.
In the interest of full disclosure, Mrs. Davooda and I did have some hors d'oeuvres and champagne in our hotel room in advance of the meal, but nothing monumental.
BTW - how cool is it that Kurt would have made you something if you had shared you were still hungry!
Davooda

D, I did read your post. Which is why I keep doubting my experience and wanted to post. I think maybe this night's food wasn't as big as other nights. Maybe b/c it was a special meal? I want to try eating there again.

You all have given me a lot of postive input. That, and there are so many things going for this restaurant; the Chef, the Food, the Service. That it just was that much more disappointing. I think I'd rather give Bonsoiree another chance because I think they care that I come back. As opposed to other places who really could care less.

I think it's AMAZING that the Chef even wrote me back. And if I would have had the nerve to state I was still hungry, I'm sure he would have made something amazing. He stated that he makes pizzas for people when they need something extra. Who's going to do that? No one. I think I may just have had a weird night or something. I will try it again in a few months for my Birthday and hopefully, see what's new. Thanks everyone!

Whenever I've gone for a "regular" dinner, I've been very happy with the portion sizes. The one time a went for an "underground" dinner, I thought the portions were about 90% of what I would have liked them to be. We didn't go out for hot dogs right after dinner, so we certainly didn't leave starving, but we did make a nice size batch of popcorn when we got home.

We had the "underground" dinner recently (I hope to post a detailed report on the main Bonsoiree thread sometime soon) and I have to say that the 4 of us all felt the same way about the amount of food -- there was way too little of it. We all left hungry, even the person in our party who barely weighs 100 pounds. My wife and I actually went to Spoon Thai for a small, second dinner afterward. I order tasting menus pretty regularly and this was, by far, the smallest amount of food I've been served when ordering one.

Taking this a step further, I thought that the amount of food (4 small savory courses, an intermezzo and a dessert) was quite overpriced at $95/person. If you throw out the postage stamp-sized intermezzo, which really shouldn't be counted as a course to begin with, that's close to $20/course. It's always hard to put a "real" value on fine dining but the "underground" dinner at Bonsoiree stood out to me as a relatively poor value. Since none of us knew how much the dinner would cost (we never asked and didn't really care), after the meal and before the bill came, we each wrote down on 'secret ballots' 2 prices: the price at which we thought the meal would be a good value and the price we expected to be charged. The highest price any of us fairly seasoned diners wrote down in category 1 was $75, which was $20 less than the actual price of the meal. I thought this was very telling. Fwiw, in category 2, 2 of us guessed $80, 1 guessed $95 and one guessed (crazily) $125.

I liked most of what we ate at Bonsoiree, though the small portion size made it somewhat difficult to fully appreciate all the courses. By the time I really got into a few of them (tried different components together, tasted those components with the wines we brought), they were already gone. Having never been there before, we brought some lower-end wines, since we didn't know what to expect. I was glad we made that choice because I wouldn't have wanted to burn through anything extra special at this particular meal. It wasn't that the food wasn't good, it's that there wasn't enough of it to really savor it, or justify opening a great bottle to pair with it.

=R=

Sorry to hear that. My wife and I have done the 8 course menu there several times, and always come away happy, with full bellies, for slightly less money apparently. We've both been wondering about the Saturday Underground events, but it sounds like we'll just stick with the 8 course on a week night next time.

ucjames wrote:Sorry to hear that. My wife and I have done the 8 course menu there several times, and always come away happy, with full bellies, for slightly less money apparently. We've both been wondering about the Saturday Underground events, but it sounds like we'll just stick with the 8 course on a week night next time.

Yeah, maybe "underground" is Bonsoiree's secret code for "tourist." I guess they saw us coming.

I greatly prefer going out on weeknights but sometimes it just has to be on a Saturday. I thought it was interesting that there was already a thread here specifically about portion size at Bonsoiree, which I didn't know until I came here and searched for 'Bonsoiree' after our meal. More than anything else, that's what we were thinking about after our meal and apparently, we're not the only ones.

=R=

I've always loved Bonsoiree, but I haven't been there in more than a year due to the very thing you bring up here. The original concept of Bonsoiree was more "Asian fusion", but now it's full blown Asian, which I'm not that fond of. Plus the cost/portion ratio is way out of whack now. I always wish Shin good luck, but the restaurant has gone in a direction that doesn't work for me.

I completely agree with John. I was a big fan of this resto, but for the reasons you mentioned, I too haven't been back. Too much on the Asian side and I've left hungry. I still remember the best short ribs that I ever had that Luke made. They are long gone.

Bonsoiree hasn't had many recent posts, so I thought I'd write about my first experience there. I was invited by a friend who had a coupon to Bonsoiree, so I went there for the eight course Fall tasting menu. I'm pretty much in agreement that the whole Asian flair isn't the best choice for a tasting menu. Typically when I leave a tasting menu, there are three or four standouts that I find innovative and special. Here, I thought there were only two: the motoyaki, the signature dish which is a giant scallop. The waiter told me that the motoyaki was created two years ago but it pretty much shows up on the menu often because people like it. The sauce is buttery and creamy, has a rich flavor, and the scallop has a nice sear to it. It basically melted in my mouth, and I loved it.

Bonsoiree by cjaw

The other standout dish was the dessert, which they call "Cremeux/tobacco/beets/bourbon/amaranth" on their website. I didn't think the flavor was all that special, but the tobacco ice cream was memorable because it burned my throat, if you can believe that ice cream can burn. I liked it because it was a surprising sensation.

The other dishes were cooked well, but I felt they were just ok. Not so memorable. But at $85 for dinner, it was acceptable. I didn't feel that the portion sizes were bad, and I was full after the 8-course meal. But I can see how a 4-course meal can leave one hungry for more.