Charlie Trotter's redux. Or, "You can't go home again"

When we heard that Charlie Trotter's was closing, we had to go back for one last meal.  We've been there many a time, and the experience has always been memorable (more here...), to say the least.
I remember the first time we went - when we got married, our friends (major shout-out to Mirabell, Tom, Ed and Sarah!) bought us dinner there, and, it was awesome.  Awesome not just because of the "Newly married" glow, but awesome in that timeless decadent sense of a brilliant haute cuisine experience.
But this time, this time, Charlie pulled a full-on George Lucas on us last night.  In one shot, he not only managed to clobber stuff that I held dear, he managed to retroactively rewrite my memory so that they were never cool in the first place!

Seriously, the rip-off-ness was awesome, Awesome I tell you! 
We walk in, and the hostess says, and I quote, "Do you have a last name?"
Huh?
Somewhat puzzled, but perfectly willing to play along, I responded appropriately, and a short while later we were seated.  Table of four - The Fabulous Nicole, Paula, Jill, and myself, ready for The Experience.

We sit around for around five minutes, until nattily dressed Dude A shows up, and shows us the menu and wine list, and us being simple folks, we just said "Bring It On, and Do The Wine Pairing please", a choice to the tune of $400/head, but what the heck, its The Experience, isn't it?
Mind you, we did tell him to skip on Rabbit and Apricots/Plums/Peaches/Any_Stone_Fruit 'cos of allergies (remember this bit)
Then we sit back, relax, and wait for experience to start.

20 (!) minutes later, we're still waiting, with empty glasses.
I catch Dude A's eyes, he gives a bit of a perceptible start, vanishes, and shortly thereafter, our first course - an amuse bouche of some kind - shows up along with a glass of bubbly.
Its an amuse bouche, which means that its gone in about one bite, which is a bit of a problem since we're zombie-starved at this point, but whatever, surely there is more food coming, right?  We'll just wait for the next course, because the first 20 minute delay was just them gearing up for The Experience, right? Right?

 27 (!) minutes later (oh yeah, we're measuring the time with chronometers at this point), we're still waiting, with empty glasses once again.  No water either, by the way.  Mind you, some random dude had come by and dropped off a few dishes of butter on the table, but that was about it.

Dude A had absolutely vanished at this point, and based on everything thus far, I suspect was standing by the door behind the kitchen smoking a doobie.  Which, come to think of it, would have been ok by me if he had just shared a bit, since it would have made the interminable wait somewhat more bearable.  Then again, maybe not, since I would then have had the munchies, and remember there was no food on the table, certainly no fritos, and no edible flowers either.

So yeah, we corner Dude B, and do the "Hey, dude, we're still here, y'know?  Perhaps some water might be nice?  Or some wine?  Maybe some bread to go with that butter over there? Or, and we're going out on a limb here, maybe some more food?" bit.
This does produce an "I apologize" from Dude B - the only one of the evening - who gets us our next course, and who we then proceed to never see again, (The mystery of the vanishing Dudes at Charlie Trotter's.  Discuss) but that doesn't hold a candle to the bread that showed up shortly thereafter.

Oh the bread, the Bread! Staff of Life! Reason for existence! Delicately perfumed marvel of yeast-ian chemistry!  Key ingredient in that awesome invention by the Earl of Sandwich! The most...

Yeah, that may be true in Paris, or heck anywhere else, but not here at Trotters.  What showed up was - and there is no polite way to put this - fucking stale bread.

Seriously.

Rock hard, crack your tooth, usable as a hammer, stale bread, which, quite possibly was way more than a day old.

Stale beyond all possibly depths of staleness, stale.


So stale, you mama <something insulting here>

The staleosity, was at the level where, I swear, it had to be the bread equivalent of the waiter spitting in our drink.
 Me, I was reduced to helpless laughter, to the point I almost peed my pants.  Seeing as how that would be somewhat uncool, I decided to go to the restroom instead, which was pretty much OK, except that I come back to find that Dude C had showed up with the main course, dropped it off at the table, explained the foam this, emulsion that, beet and parsnip something else to the rest of the folks at the table, and had taken off, leaving them to do the honors for me.
Y'know, they don't even do that at the fish-shack around the corner from us?

A brief digression on the wine-pours.
Dude, I don't care how bloody exclusive your "Charlie Trotter Estate Bottled Bubbly" is, or how old the Assyrtiko vineyard on Santorini is, it is not premier-cru Bordeaux, and there is no, repeat no reason to do "One Sip And Vanish With The Bottle" pours.  When your wine pour lasts one sip, you are harshing my buzz something fierce.
End digression

About this point as best as I can tell, Dude D, and Dude E took over (Dude C vanished too.  I was really expecting Soylent Green to be one of the courses) and based on the service, I think Charlie pretty much scraped the bottom of the barrel, or quite possibly just forced a couple of DePaul students to wait-tables at gunpoint.  Highlights from my memory include such joyful items as

• Breadcrumbs left on the table, presumably for us to snack on.
• Napkins that vanished if one went to the restroom, never to reappear (the napkin, though perhaps us not reappearing may have been a good idea)
• The ever present lack of water.
• Mysteriously appearing bread (which was quite good this time), but only offered to some of the people at the table.
• Three successive desert courses, silently left at the table, with no explanation or context (and in my case, There Was No Spoon)

Around this point, Dude F (Soylent Green! I'm telling ya...) drops off a some candied fruit and takes off.  The Fabulous Nicole gets suspicious after tasting one, and flags down Dude F who hasn't vanished yet, and elicits an explanation - "Apricots, Apple, and Something Else".
Apricots?
Hmmm?  Remember the "No Rabbit and Apricots/Plums/Peaches/Any_Stone_Fruit 'cos of allergies" bit from earlier?
Apparently, for old Charlie, the "Any food allergies and issues" bit up-front was the equivalent of tapping gloves before a boxing match, a meaningless gesture after which he tries his level best to lay you out.

At this point, we're heartily tired of all this shit, and just want to leave, except, and you guessed it, Dude F has vanished.
I mean, seriously gone, never to be seen again, along with Dudes B through E.
I am pretty much ready to go Soylent Green is Trotter's waiters, Its Waiters!, except, miraculously, Dude A shows up, and takes our cards.
Perhaps he missed the Soylent Sweep 'cos he was smoking that doobie, but hey, whatever, I'll take it.

Another agonizing 10 minute wait later (what were they doing with the cards?  Seriously?  I should probably go check the usage on the cards...), we escape, but even then only after wandering down some random concrete tunnel (Dude A apparently got converted to green wafers at this point), hastily backing up, finding our way out, and being accosted after we leave by a random host guy who plaintively sez. "Don't you want to see the kitchen?"
I mean, what was that supposed to be, a bribe?  All I could think of was

"No dude!  We don't want to see the fucking kitchen!  We just got taken for $400 fucking dollars per head, and are not really Feeling The Love.  You didn't even use Lube!   A "Kitchen Tour" is not really going to make anything better, and given our experience thus far, you might either brain us with a copper pan, or worse, mistakenly lock us up in the wine cellar, where our pickled corpses will be discovered a few years hence."

But, just wanting to leave at this point, we left.

So yeah, Charlie Trotter, I hope that you have some reasonable explanation for the monstrous cock-up that this evening was - assuming that it was a screw-up. Sadly, it looks like the Yelp reviews were accurate (a first in my experience).

Sigh.

Then again, the next morning, we had breakfast at Sprout, and it was awesome.  Attentive waiters, funny bartender, a host that cared and ludicrously good food too.
 At $40/head.
As compared to $400.
The irony is so thick, you can cut it with a knife...