An Experience at De Santos Leaves Much Desired
A week or so again, Melissa and I tried our luck at De Santos (http://desantosnyc.com/). We had never been but there was a great deal on Living Social, so we snapped one up. I'm always hesitant about deals because I've gotten burned before with Groupon...but this wasn't Groupon! I had my eyes on certain menu items so it was exciting that we would each get to pick an appetizer and an entrée as well as two glasses of wine each! OR....so we thought! Once we arrived, we shared with our server that we had the Living Social deal. I guess this is fairly popular option since they had a separate pre-printed menu. Most of the entrees on the menu are in the same price range, so we thought we could pick up to a certain value and then just pay the difference. Apparently, that was wrong. So, our options were limited to 2 appetizers and 3 entrees.
The Dreaded DISCOUNT MENU
I'm always down to try Mac and Cheese, so the Truffled option wasn't a big deal to be "forced" to order. I would have preferred a different appetizer (I read RAVE reviews on Yelp! for the Beef Carpaccio), but I was being flexible. For my entrée, I wanted to swordfish or the duck, but went with the salmon as it seemed the most appealing to me at the time.
Even with the coupon, at LEAST we got the same yummy bread!
As we waited for our courses, I was pleased that the bread was fantastic. I got a bit scared we wouldn't get it because it wasn't explicitly listed on our Living Social deal, ha! The bread was served warm with a honey butter - SO good!
Truffle Mac and Cheese but not really
This Mac and Cheese was SO SAD. It was as if the pasta was just in a big bucket and they slopped some into an individual serving dish. Typically, places finish it off in the oven so it gets a nice crust. I'm not sure if the presentation suffered because we had the Living Social deal or if they just executed poorly. Either way, it could have been so much better.
Salmon
The salmon was quite good. It was cooked to the right temperature (medium) and the Greek salad served with it went nicely with the dill cream sauce. While it was good, I probably would have preferred a different entrée.
For the wine, we could pick a house red or white. The red was just fine, but I guess it was the quality you'd expect with a Living Social deal.
I'm undecided if I will return. I'm not sure if these restaurants realize that through a deal, many customers are experiencing the restaurant for the first time. If I paid full-price, I'm not sure I would be pleased with the money spent.
Cheers,
Liz