Café Carlyle

Great place for high tea. Good pastries

When you think of the Carlyle you think of high class, high brow jacket eating style and service that should be top notch.

We went for the Debbie Harry show which is classy already. The dinner show required you spend at least $75 dollars before exiting the curtain doors. I figured that shouldn’t be too hard to do here. While excitingly waiting for Debbie to come out to enchant us with her voice the meal was like an expensive amuse bouche. I got the roasted chicken and my two friends got the steak. I also started with the shrimp cocktail and everyone else got a house salad with 3 cocktails.

The cocktails was not bad. The shrimp cocktail looked a bit sadly plated with 5 ‘jumbo’ shrimps. While I know it is only the café, it could have been at least presented better than the diner on 10th Ave for $26. My roast chicken was super moist and tender at $39, I hope the chicken had a enjoyable life prior. Able to wander free range in the fresh air of Murrays Farm upstate NY before becoming dinner on my plate. The whole 8oz Beef Tenderloin coming in at a whopping $48 was like a Wendy’s commercial of where’s the beef and the 3oz $16 green salad plate looked like it came from the 9oz $3 dollar salad bag at Whole Foods. The $17 New York Cheesecake was well cheesecake. We could barely get water at our table which we asked for 4 times and finally just gave up. I know, this review is beginning to sound like the Visa/Mastercard commercial.

And yes, when the lights dimmed and Debbie took stage and spending time with friends was priceless until we got the bill.

Really enjoyed Molly Ringwald. She spoke to her audience and she connected well with her musicians. She was entertaining. The Cafe Carlyle dinner was very sub-par and tasteless, yet expensive - a forced minimum price for food and drink made the total experience additionally disappointing. My entrée could have been a "small plates" or tapas-size serving - it certainly was not an entrée portion with only 3 medium-sized scallops??? Ridiculous for the prices on the meal, and the grit in the scallops made it feel as though I got them from a street vender. The lobster in one of the "signature" dishes (also way over-priced - it was mostly pasta) was so tough and tasteless - it seemed it had been frozen again and again. The drinks were good - also expensive - but then most club drinks are in NYC, so no surprise there.