Help With Upscale/ Trendy Restaurants in Detroit

[laphoque]

[[it's pretty hard to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Detroit for instance).

Taste of Ethiopia in Eastern Market But then the rest are all either in the burbs or Windsor so your point is well taken.

[English]

The food in Manhattan isn't that great. Detroit's restaurant food quality is far better [[even mediocre Slow's is far better than the average BBQ in Manhattan). Manhattan wins on quantity of restaurants and diversity of cuisine options [[it's pretty hard to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Detroit for instance).

I had some of the best Italian ever in Manhattan, though. Also better Chinese than here, although not as good as what you find in London.

My favorite food city in the United States is New Orleans. Nothing else even comes close to NOLA, and there are a LOT of cities that have worse [[e.g., less flavorful) food than Detroit. I love our dining scene, which is mostly affordable for middle income people. Now that I'm back in the city, I only cook once or twice a week.

[East Detroit]

Instead of forcing this guy to go to the Whitney, take him to Lafayette and spend the extra cash on yourself.

[downtownguy]

[[it's pretty hard to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Detroit for instance).

Not in the city proper, but The Blue Nile in Ferndale is a great Ethiopian restaurant. I give the owner props for living in the city, and nothing compares in ambiance to his old restaurant in Trapper's Alley until he got booted out by the casino.

[Detroitdave]

I've heard good thing about Fountain Fistro in Campus Martius. Roast is definately worth a visit. Andiamo the food is good enough, but overpriced for it's quality IMO

I can't say anything good about Fountian Bistro ,because on my FIRST trip there meeting up with 10 other people on a Friday about a month ago was horrible! It wasn't very busy at all about 6 tables inside and 3 outside , dj playing music outside. got there and it took the waitress 15 mins to take our drink order. then 10 more mins to comeback for our food order,which we NEVER GOT OUR DRINKS ?, so we give our food order and she says "I'll be back with your drinks"
So we reminder her we never got our drinks, so leaves doesn't come back for another 10 mins sans drinks. So at this point our whole group is like " ok that's it let's bail" .
I ask my group " should we tell the waitress or manager why we are leaving " they said NO!
We ask her "has our order been put in" she says yes, we said , "can you please cancel "
We wound up going to 24 Grill , which was excellent !
At any place that sell drinks would have at least brought our drinks to up sell
Would I go back ? maybe , but this place really has to work on customer service.
I use to "shop" restaurants so I know what to look for , and I wasn't being picky or "shopping" this place , just basic restaurant policy .There was so many thing wrong , and it seems like they didn't even notice??????How do you run a place making huge mistakes like this ?
My 10 friends , all from and live in Detroit said they won't go back :-[[
Like I said, I'll get it another try, not sure when

[iheartthed]

I had some of the best Italian ever in Manhattan, though. Also better Chinese than here, although not as good as what you find in London.

In Chinatown, yes, but Detroit doesn't have Chinatown so that really isn't an apples to apples comparison. But regular run-of-the-mill neighborhood chinese restaurants? I give it to Detroit, hands down.

ETA: I do think London's run-of-the-mill neighborhood chinese restaurants are far better than New York's, and at least as good as Detroit's.

[iheartthed]

Not in the city proper, but The Blue Nile in Ferndale is a great Ethiopian restaurant. I give the owner props for living in the city, and nothing compares in ambiance to his old restaurant in Trapper's Alley until he got booted out by the casino.

I don't eat Ethiopian food, so I'm not really that in tune with how many restaurants there are in the Detroit area, but I don't ever remember seeing one. When I say "not hard to find", I mean more like how prevalent a Greek or Lebanese restaurant might be in Detroit; something you don't have to search extremely hard to find [[you can often just point in a certain direction and say "pick one").

[JBMcB]

In Chinatown, yes, but Detroit doesn't have Chinatown so that really isn't an apples to apples comparison. But regular run-of-the-mill neighborhood chinese restaurants? I give it to Detroit, hands down

When I was traveling to NYC regularly for worked, I was shocked at how awful the restaurants were. I visited roughly two dozen, and I'd only consider going back to, perhaps, two [[Ollie's Noodle Shop and Artisinal) I tried roughly half a dozen Italian places recommended by locals and they were all mediocre or terrible. The one good Italian place I tried [[technically it was in Chinatown - or one block over) has closed. I went to a greasy spoon type breakfast place in Murray Hill that the locals raved about - it wasn't any better than the greasy spoon place down the street from my house, but it was three times more expensive.

I'm sure the $100 - $300/plate places are outstanding - what NYC is lacking are good, average priced restaurants. I think the huge variety of restaurants is NYC's curse - if you are a halfway decent waiter or cook, you'll get snapped up by the better, more expensive places, of which there are quite a few. I noticed the service at even the good moderately-priced places was pretty variable.

Now, I could rattle off a dozen Detroit area restaurants where you can get a great meal for under $10. Don't even have to take a subway to get there

[ferntruth]

Don't waste your time. Your friend is an idiot.

So the O/P has a friend who is clearly uneducated when it comes to Detroit, and so the O/P convinces the friend to actually stay in the city and this is the welcoming response both the O/P and the friend receive?

...and we wonder why the national perception of Detroit is so poor? Asinine comments like the above do nothing to change that perception. Rather than insult the guy and call him names, why not actually try to help the O/P change the friend's perception of the city?

There might be an idiot, but I don't think its the O/P's friend.

[Eastside]

Rattlesnake Club

[Patrick]

Instead of taking him to a fancy place, just drop his ass off at Newport and Mack and have him walk home...

[Cooper]

The Whitney? It's been a long time since I've been there, so I don't know if I would recommend it. Is it still a good place to dine? Anyone?

No. The Whitney now serves mediocre food and mediocre service, but it continues to charge above average prices. It's only strength is the decor, and even that is wanting. Many of the chairs need to be reupholstered and even some of the paint is beginning to chip. It's still an incredible mansion, but I'd go elsewhere to eat.

[MidTownMs]

No. The Whitney now serves mediocre food and mediocre service, but it continues to charge above average prices. It's only strength is the decor, and even that is wanting. Many of the chairs need to be reupholstered and even some of the paint is beginning to chip. It's still an incredible mansion, but I'd go elsewhere to eat.

I agree with what you said about the Whitney. I went there for lunch a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me of an old mansion that the owners are no longer able to keep up.