Review :
The three of us dined at Apple last night and were pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the food. We live near Apple and :) there was only the outside dining area. We were a little disappointed when we were brought upstairs to a darker and cold (too cold) dining area. Apparently all of the outside tables were reserved.

It was quiet for a Thursday night (perhaps because of Halloween) but we didn't mind as we wanted to chat.

We started with the Bibb lettuce salad and the Kobe beef sliders. Both dishes knocked our culinary socks off. The salad was perfectly dressed with a green goddess dressing and spiked with bits of bacon and small croutons. I will crave this salad for months to come. The Kobe beef sliders were beyond, beyond, beyond. It was another world of flavor! My hunch is that they are cooked in bacon fat. They are served on tiny, gorgeous brioche buns and were possibly the most perfectly cooked burgers (kobe and non) all three of us had ever had.

Our main courses were solid: the blackened cod, the roasted chicken breast and the beer-battered cod (from the starter menu). All three were perfectly proportioned, seasoned, and presented. My girlfriend remarked on her beer-battered cod "it's like deep-fried air" as the texture was so perfect.

For dessert we split the devil's food cake and the apple pie. I wasn't impressed with the devil's food cake and found it to be dry, but my two companions really enjoyed it. The pie, however, had remarkable flavor. It is a beautiful presentation in "mini pie" form (complete with criss-cross crust on top). The granny smith apples added an incredible tartness which was offset by the marscapone ice cream (incredible).

As for the dinner rolls, they are incredible and worth requesting if you don't receive them right away. We received ours in the middle of our first course.

Our waitress was lovely and the staff attentive. In fairness, I give Apple Restaurant 5 stars for it's food. The ambience isn't quite worked out as I don't think Apple has figured out what it is. The food is so strong - Apple could merely be a restaurant and do quite well on its own. But being in West Hollywood and directly across from the Abbey, it feels the need to be a club, lounge and bar. The problem is that all these things share the same space so as we were finishing our meal and basking in the afterglow of all the goodness, the wait staff started to move all the tables off the floor. It felt incredibly odd and really, for what we paid and the high quality of the food, was a major faux pas. Additionally, the temperature was far too cold when we first arrived and our table wasn't balanced. But these can be forgiven as Apple is still finding its legs.

Go for the food and be out by 10!

Review :
I need to express my disappointment in this restaurant. I read reviews about this place and it was a new hot restaurant and was highly acclaimed due to the Executive Chef being the son of Bradley Ogden. Nonetheless, we were not impressed whatsoever.

We ordered the tuna tartar as a starter and it was just bland. Nothing to tell your friends about. Oh, I forgot to mention that we noticed that at other tables, they were given small dinner rolls and butter in the beginning. We had to ask for the bread and butter and they looked at us like they a dear in the headlights and then served us the rolls.

As our entrees, we ordered the rock shrimp fettuccini and the ribeye. The ribeye was fine, but the fettuccini was very, very, very salty! I guess you can see how salty it was. Also, the fettuccini was supposed to include pine nuts, which it didn't. I told the waiter that it was really salty and he said that he would send it back to the kitchen. The waiter came back out to tell us that the chef agreed that it was too salty. About 20-30 minutes later, they brought out a new plate of fettuccini. During the time they were making a new plate, I gave my girlfriend half of my ribeye since I couldn't just stand there and have her stare at me eating. At this point, we had lost our appetite and our nice evening out on Friday just killed the mood!

I just couldn't sit there and not say anything to the manager, so I asked to speak with the manager and told him our disappointed we were in the quality of the food and the lack of service. My girlfriend and I were so unhappy at this place, that we refused any kind of complimentary gestures. The best thing about this place is the dinner rolls. It was actually pretty good.

I would never go back to this place again nor would I recommend any of my friends to try this place.