The Palm – West Hollywood

A Roller Coaster of a Meal

Their website says “There is no better place to see and be seen than at The Palm”.  And while that may be true for most nights, we lucked out and went on a Monday night which avoided all the craziness which can accompany a place like The Palm.  Rustic in design with caricatures of celebrities on the wall, The Palm is a loud, boisterous, kind of bar meets high dining place.   The menu is a bit Italian and a bit Steakhouse.   The servers are prompt when they greet you at your table which is always a positive.   

We started with drinks and a bottle of wine. (Yes you read that correctly, drinks and wine and then it was more wine and more drinks….but I will get to that later.)

Once we all had our drinks and had sampled them, our server came back over and we ordered our apps.  The special app of the week was Prosciutto, Melon and Figs over greens topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.  I saw the first two ingredients and that made my mind up.  Frank ordered the Lobster Bisque, and our friends ordered a West Coast Salad.  Everything looked and tasted great.  After dinner I realized that the apps were the first of the “ups” during dinner.  We all decided my app was definitely the best of the three.   

I ordered the nine oz filet.  I asked our server how they cook it (as there is never any continuity to what medium rare is) and once I heard his explanation, I asked for it to be medium.  Frank ordered the bone in ribeye, our friends ordered the chicken parmesan and the Crab Cake dinner. 

I was a bit hesitant to bite into my entree when it arrived.  But looks can be deceiving.  Although they weren’t this time.  The server and the cook obviously have different opinions of medium, and my steak arrived medium plus.  It was dry and only pink in the center.  When I took my first bite, I felt all the moisture get sucked out of my mouth to allow the piece to make it down my throat.  I cut up samples for each at the table to try and they all agreed, it was overdone.  For some reason I am a pretty out spoken individual, however I always feel bad complaining about my meal, so typically I suffer through a bad one.  With my friends all behind me, we called the server over and sent it back.  He agreed it was overdone to what I wanted and immediately sent for a new piece.   This was one of the “downs” of my meal.  The replacement piece came out a few minutes later and it was great.  However the only problem with getting a replacement piece, is everyone else is done eating and you are just getting your meal.  So I finished mine as quickly as possible, all the while trying to enjoy the flavor and the juiciness of the piece.  I think all carnivores can agree, one of the perks of having a good piece of meat, is the juice.  I love to bite into a piece and feel the juices run over my tongue and lap up the flavor.  

We were all finishing up our glasses of wine, when our server comes over with 2 huge pieces of cake. He says it is on us for the mistake.  We thank him and then stare at the mountains of cake that are in front of us.  These pieces could have been a cake each. They were huge.  One was carrot cake ( a weakness of mine) and the other a delicious chocolate cake.  I am usually not a chocolate fan, but honestly I still can’t decide which piece was better.  The cakes were the final “up” of the meal.  

All in all the food was great.  I took a bite of everyones entree and was overly impressed.  I think because it was a Monday and we were there late (we sat for dinner at 9) which is not that late for LA, our service was compromised.  When the bill came, we quickly glanced over it and noticed they had both of my filets on there and the cakes that were supposedly “on us”.  Once we fixed the discrepancies on it, we were very happy with our evening.