J. Fleming's Absolutely Delicious: User Reviews

I have been meaning to go to J. Fleming's for quite some time now and finally made it over last night after catching the early train home. My wife and I both enjoyed a nice cocktail (her Pinot, myself a nice Bell's Oberon) before sampling two of their delicious sandwiches. My wife had the sliced sirloin and I had the Cuban pork sandwich. Both were fantastic, as were the accompanying waffle fries. The service was prompt and courteous. J. Fleming's also had a cool-looking private dining room that was converted from what looked like a vintage walk-in freezer to a fine wood paneled private setting. They also have a huge outdoor beer garden for when the weather is nice. I would definitely recommend checking out J. Fleming's if you are in the Westmont/Downers area.

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After sampling a pretty good Cuban sandwich from J. Fleming's catering business, I had somewhat high hopes that his restaurant would be a spot I would want to go back to again and again, but after an extremely disappointing dinner, I won't be going back.

My wife and I loaded up the 3 kids and headed over for dinner last weekend. When we arrived, the hostess waved to the tables and said we could go ahead and seat ourselves anywhere. One problem. We were a party of five and the only tables were four tops. No one offered a solution, so we had to slide two tables together ourselves. Not a deal breaker, but not a great start either.

The kids ordered from the kids' menu, and the kids' fare seemed fairly standard: average mac 'n cheese and overly-breaded chicken fingers. One of my kids also ordered split pea soup (she loves the version I make at home). That, too, was average.

My wife started with the "Absolutely Delicious Chicken Salad." Not inedible, but there were several pieces of mushy, brown baby greens, which can make a salad extremely unappetizing. The salad also contained candied walnuts, with the MAJOR emphasis on "candied." WAY too much sugar on these walnuts to use as a salad garnish.

For her main course, she had the Cuban pork sandwich, which is quite good, but best eaten in a half or quarter portion. (The original sampling we had at a catered party was much smaller and went down easier.) The sandwich also was served with the most flavorless potato salad I've ever tasted. I LOVE potatoes and good potato salad. These dry potatoes coated with a small amount of flavorless mayo -- and apparently nothing else -- were a poor excuse for a potato salad.

I started with the gumbo, which had a superficially fine flavor, but lacked the depth, complexity, and texture of a good gumbo. It was much too runny (watery), and ate more like a soup than a gumbo. For my entree, our server recommended the salmon over the tilapia, so, though I'm normally not the biggest salmon fan, I followed her recommendation. Unfortunately, I never got to taste it, because it never came to the table. Nor did any other entree for me. The server simply forgot to put the order in. Then, to add insult to injury, the restaurant did nothing to remedy the situation. Although the server said she could still put the order in, we had already been kept waiting a significant time for our first and second courses (roughly 30 minutes after ordering to get soups and salads and then another 20-25 minutes after finishing first courses before entrees were brought out), and I had no interest in waiting for another 30 minutes after every other member of my party was done to receive my entree. Nothing else was offered -- no dessert (indeed, I don't even know if they serve dessert because no dessert menu was ever offered), no break on the check, no coupon for future use. Nothing. There were several other minor service mishaps and mistakes. Won't be going back.

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