McCormick and Schmick's (Rosemont)

I can honestly say without equivocation that Saturday night was the absolutely worst dining experience I have ever had in my 57 years. Ginger and I had plans to see Barry Manilow this past weekend and we decided to have dinner before the show. I made reservations for McCormick and Schmick's Seafood Restaurant from the fine dining section at Open Table.com for 5:45 pm and we were particularly happy that the Rosemont location of the restaurant was so close to the Rosemont Theater. It is a snowy evening that slows traffic but we still manage to arrive right at 5:45 PM and unfortunately have to surrender our car to a valet parking service as McCormick and Schmick's has no parking lot and the only way to park is to let someone else park it in the Intercontinental Hotel parking lot. We walk into the restaurant behind a couple and their small child that had just exited a car with Indiana plates and dressed in sweats and calf high snow boots. Clearly they weren't dressed for dinner but were immediately seated in the bar as the hostess told them that seating in the main restaurant would be at least two hours. As we wait to be seated we admire a beautifully appointed bar and dining room. The ceiling is domed with gorgeous wood beams and the seal of Illinois in stained glass in the center of the dome. The bar is separated from the main dining room by a full matching wood wall with a golden oak stain. I must admit it is impressive and sets a beautiful dining environment. We have high expectations for a wonderful meal. We are met at the hostess station and led after just a few moments to a booth just inside the restaurant and on the right wall. The hostess removes the excess place settings while Ginger goes to freshen up and announces that our waiter (name I can't recall will be right with us.)

Our waiter arrives while Ginger is still in the powder room. I know what she wants and order a medium to expensive glass of Chardonnay for her and a glass of Merlot for me. Now I should have seen what was coming when the glasses of wine are offered in two pour sizes (5ounce and 8 ounce). Yup you guessed it.... Those stupid little carafes that drive me insane. Why can't they just put the wine in a glass and serve it like that. Nope they use the idiotic method of pouring the wine into a carafe of exactly 5 ounces, bring to the table only to pour it into the glass sitting in front of me. It appears silly and frankly cheap. If I was a bartender with any kind of credential I would be insulted as this is clearly intended to measure out every drop of wine from a bottle and ensure that no one glass receives any more than another. Ridiculous!!

Ginger returns to the table just as our waiter deposits some very delicious sourdough bread at our table and we give him an order for a half dozen oysters. They arrive very quickly and they are badly shucked and in fact one of the shells is badly broken and the shards of the shell or in the oyster. They are sandy and taste as if they were not the freshest batch of oysters being served in Chicago this night. Not a good start. We tell the waiter and he seems unimpressed and unconcerned about our complaint yet we give him our dinner order anyway. Ginger orders the seared Ahi tuna and I order a strip steak with a lobster stuffed twice baked potato. We also order another glass of wine each. Our waiter moves away unhurried only to return to perform the ritual pouring of the mini carafe into our wine glasses again....Silly!!

Dinner arrives and Ginger has placed in front of her tuna that has already been sliced. I have seen it before but generally many restaurants provide the tuna as an entire piece of fish that has been fully seared on all sides....sometimes encrusted in sesame seeds or other seasoning. Sometimes it's sliced for the customer and sometimes it's not. Not really a big deal. I get a piece of steak that appears to be well cooked and juicy and the potato is of a medium size that is well stuffed and overflowing. Ginger tries her tuna and immediately complains that it is ice cold. If you knew my wife then you would know that this is unusual for her.... She almost never complains and something has to be wrong for her to speak up at a restaurant. As she is telling me this the manager appears at our table and asks "How is your meal?" Ginger tells her that her tuna is ice cold and places the backs of her fingers on the fish to illustrate her point.... "Go ahead try it," she says to the manager. The manager touches the tuna and agrees that it is cold. She says, "Well they can't reheat it as it would cause the fish to be overdone," and we agree. The manager tells us that she can't understand why the fish is cold and says she saw them sear it off earlier today at 3:00PM and that it must have gone from the refrigerator directly to Ginger's plate. What????!!!! I'm flabbergasted as I stare across the table at Ginger who is as incredulous as me. I can't believe my ears. My goodness, it is now nearly 6:30 and that means the fish was supposedly cooked 31/2 hours earlier. What chef worth his salt would pre-prepare anything as fragile and simple to cook per order as seared Ahi tuna... It literally takes minutes to do. What assurance do we have that it wasn't done yesterday or the day before? We are stunned and say so. The manager shrugs a bit and says that it's normal and I proclaim it to be a poor practice. Ginger is offered the menu again since she has refused to order the tuna again and she orders salmon. I tell Ginger I will wait a bit but she insists that I start to eat. I try the potato and it does have lobster in it and I also notice it to be a bit gummy. It has a gluey library paste consistency that, although the taste is okay, the mouth feel is off-putting. It also isn't that warm which I can't really attribute to the lack of preparation more than to the issue we had with Ginger's meal causing me a delay in beginning to eat. I offer my plate to Ginger and she has some potato and I cut off some steak for her. We essentially share my dinner. A server appears with Ginger's plate of salmon and my dinner is almost gone. The salmon is accompanied by a mushroom ragout and a very large serving of broccoli crowns. Now I have to say, I like mushrooms and I like salmon....Ginger likes mushroom and she likes salmon, but there is no way that this particular dish should be served as it was composed. Salmon and mushrooms are a big deal in some regional menus like the Pacific Northwest but I will guarantee it doesn't taste like this muddled mess. The fish was mushy and the mushrooms weren't well seasoned which made the flavor profile too earthy and almost muddy, as in dirt mixed with water. Strike two..... make that strike three because the broccoli was so undercooked it crunched like raw carrot and forget trying to get your teeth through large stalk still attached. It could be extended to a strike four and five if you include the oysters and potato and even a strike six and seven for the stupid carafes.

We need to get to the show so we can't stay and discuss the finer points of our meal with the staff or management of McCormick and Schimck's (Rosemont) but I do tell the manager how we feel and that perhaps they need to look at policies that would prohibit the preparation of tuna hours in advance of dinner service. There are some things for which advanced prep is required and routinely done in most American restaurants but cooking any fish so far in advance isn't normally one of them.... But maybe I would be surprised. The waiter moved so slowly and was so unresponsive to our concerns I wonder if he has a pulse.... The manager so clueless as to the back of the house that I wonder if maybe she needs to find another line of work and the chef so poor that I'm surprised he is employed in any cooking capacity at all. I have been told by more than one friend to avoid McCormick and Schimck's as the food wasn't that good but that was always in reference to the restaurant in Schaumburg.... I guess that extends to all of them. At the end of the evening my wife and I stopped in a new bar and grill near our home to get a bite to eat....neither of us had had enough to eat at dinner and we were ravenous. I will never eat in McCormick and Schimck's again and I will never recommend it. In fact when asked I will do my best to discourage future patronage among my friends and acquaintances. If faced with a choice of McCormick and Schimick's or a Big Mac.....choose McDonald's.

http://www.mccormickandschmicks.com