Marcel's

Eh. If you like having options, Marcel's is the place for you. Not only is the menu Cheesecake Factory-esque in the number of dishes, you also have many choices as to how you eat them--three, four, five, or seven (I think) tasting courses, in any order, from any section of the menu, OR anything on the menu as an appetizer or entree. Not to be a total dork, but that number of permutations is mind-blowing!

Sadly, I think for this reason Marcel's suffers from lack of focus. There were a few real winners, and I think if you choose wisely you can dine well there; however, many of the options that sounded so good on paper fell flat or worse. The seared diver scallop on pork belly with smoked apricot was FANTASTIC. Most times I've had pork belly it tasted a lot like bacon, but this one was almost rib-like. I sopped up every bit of the sauce with my dinner roll. The boudin blanc was also amazing, as should be something that a) contains pheasant and b) has been *hand whipped for 3 hours* (seriously). The flavors were a bit too fall-like for July, but I will forgive R.W. because it is one of the restaurants' staples and scrumdiliumptious. (And apparently a good source of hazing in this teaching kitchen.) The trio of flavored butters that came with the bread were also pretty good, as was the cheese selection. Solid dishes, although not particularly memorable, were the bison and the duck. The accompaniments to the cheese course were not bad, but uninspired--glazed walnuts and raisins. Woohoo.

The rabbit terrine, however, made me sad. This is my favorite protein, but I am sorry to report that no bunnies should have died to make that dish. It was chunkier than I think a terrine should be, and frankly, I do not think the blackberry sauce worked. Perhaps another berry would have worked better, but somehow the blackberries paired with the rabbit ended up just tasting medicinal. It also was not a particularly appealing looking dish--a hunk of mushy, pink-gray in a pool of reddish-purplish sauce. I think the desert was a fail too--the apricot upside-down cake tasted like Fruit Loops, and they must have taken the "toasted" part of the toasted almond ice cream part seriously, because it was so melty when it arrived at our table that I couldn't even taste it.

Although the servers are friendly, knowledgeable and gracious, the service is slooooow. It took forever to get our menus, and to get each course--I think we spent nearly 2.5 hours on five courses, the last two of which were shared among three of us.

I might go back, but only if someone else were paying, and I would stick to a single entree of the scallops or boudin blanc. I also would probably have a snack before hand, because the portions are not exactly generous. And this is coming from someone who wears extra-smalls.
(x-posted to yelp.com)