le bouillon

a $250 punch in the gut. my husband and i dined with another couple here on valentine's day. we got the tasting menu with the wine pairings. we are all foodies and have been blown away before by food and wine tasting menus at some of omaha’s finest like v. mertz, boiler room, darios, monarch, & bella rose…..and we expected le boullion to be up there with these. unfortunately, we found the food at le boullion to be more comparable to what we had at the french restaurant at our all-inclusive secrets resort in mexico....which isn't bad, but it's just not a $250 dining experience.

theservicewas slow and terrible. our waitress made us feel like every request was a huge chore. ie: we arrived early to enjoy a drink before our friends got there. the waitress told me the only wine i could order would be a 3oz, $12 pour from the wine tasting menu. i explained i was hoping to have something other than what i was already going to have with dinner. she reluctantly dropped a wine menu off with maybe 6 wines on it, no description. i asked if she could elaborate on any of the wines, which she did in a sort of i-can't-believe-you're-such-an-idiot-that-you-don't-know-what-these-wines-are kind of way. she was just really falsely sweet. and when we got into dinner, she'd drop off our food with maybe a 5 word description and nothing to say about the wine that was paired with it. all of us teased about how bad she hated us and how she was probably spitting in our food in the back lol!

the food was the biggest let-down. before the tasting we ordered two separate appetizers. shrimp, which were overcooked and the oysters, which were bland. the tasting menu was a total joke. the amuse-bouche was a hushpuppy, a piece of bread and ham on a toothpick, and the worst i’ve ever witnessed on a tasting menu - a soggy cracker (that we're pretty sure came from costco) with what appeared to be easy cheese on top. course 1 - soup, way over-salted. course 2, the entree, was duck, which was tough and gamey. course 3 - dessert, which was a mold of what seemed to be dannon vanilla greek yogurt, and chocolate donut bite which was hard as a rock - i could not even bite into mine.

by the time the bill came we'd been there 3 hours and all of us needed to get home to our babysitters. we did not provide this feedback before leaving (we should have), but all of us were still so disturbed the next day by how ripped off we felt, that i called and spoke to the manager, katie. she said she would follow-up with me again but i never heard back.

bottom line, if you're looking for an exquisite food, drink and dining experience, do not go to le bouillon.

le bouillon was fantastic. theservicewas exemplary and the food was even better. i recommend the vichyssoise and the cassoulet. they were extraordinary. my experience was excellent and i look forward to coming back!

very disappointed. my husband and i went here for nye dinner last night and we were very disappointed. i was so excited to go here because i love these types of restaurants and food. we showed up about 15 minutes early for a reservation and got sat right away which was a great surprise. after a few minutes our waiter came by and explained there was a special prix fixe and then walked away. my husband and i knew we had to try the rabbit rillettes, so we only ordered one and the pate. now i have had charcuterie at many places and was disappointed at the portions. first of all the rabbit rillettes was just one serving on a single piece of toast. we had wished the waiter would have said something to us since we both said we were going to try it. also the pate charcuterie was 2 chunks of pate, store bought mustard, a few almonds, and the smallest amount of pickled vegetables i had ever seen. as soon as these we're delivered my husband and i decided we would like to order main dishes as well. however, our waiter did not deliver our first course to us and we did not see him until about 5 minutes after finishing these 2 "bites" for appetizers. i ordered the skirt steak and my husband had the duck, sausage casserole dish, which is not on the menu online. when our food was brought out we were a bit disappointed in the small portion size. when we ate our dishes we were even more disappointed with the lack of flavor!! i ate my steak, which was just steak, so sauces or tiny side of veggies or anything, in about 5 minutes. i started to get a bit irritated when the waiter came over and asked if i wanted more champagne and i said no thanks and he took the glass. he did see that i was done with my meal, clearly, since i had my fork and knife crossed on my plate and was just sitting there. my husband was also almost done with his meal. the part that irritated me the most was after that, we timed it because it was ridiculous, we did not see our waiter for 25 minutes!!!! i was livid. we thought maybe if we put our coats on he could see that we were finished eating and ready to go. i really wanted to have dessert, but after that i just wanted to leave. after he finally came by when our coats were on, he asked us if we wanted to see the dessert menu and cleared our plates. we told him no, we are ready for our check. that also took quite some time. usually i am very patient with servers when i know it is busy or i see them with a large section, however it was not that busy and everyone around us was getting greatservicefrom their waitstaff. in total, we saw our waiter to take our drink order, fill our water once (which he didn't say one word while he was doing it), to take our appetizer order, to take our dinner order, to ask if i wanted another drink, and to bring us our check. if it was his first night, i don't think nye was the night he should have started. he never even told us his name, i found out later, once we got our check that his name was dale. he was also very uninformed on how to describe certain items on the menu. i wish my experience was better, but i was hugely disappointed. maybe i will give it a try in about 6 months.