The Carmichael

Average. That sums this place up. The food is all average and the service is average. The only cool thing is the bathroom. It’s a really old building and the bathroom is super small. If you want to feel like a beast I would make a special trip here just to use the facilities. The door handle is at knee height and at 5’8 my head nearly touched the ceiling

I wanted to take my sister out for a nice birthday dinner. I called early last week for a reservation at a nearby trendy dining establishment, but they couldn’t accommodate me within one hour on either side of my preferred time since they are new and trendy. I opted to try out The Carmichael instead, which I have walked by a hundred times and never set foot into. What an excellent choice!
The Carmichael was once known as Jacqueline Suzanne’s, and still features that old name in smaller letters on their front window. Located in a very old Inglewood building, the space is brimming with character and not just a little bit of luxury. It was dead quiet on a Tuesday night, which our server, Jodey, told me is the norm for weekdays.
The sign out front subtitles the place as «casual fine dining». It is both of those things. Casual and fine, I mean. Casual in that we were able to laugh with Jodey while watching comically bad drivers trying to parallel park on Ninth Ave out front, while still enjoying our delectable crab-​stuffed portobello mushroom cap appetizer.
(Sidebar! Did you know that a portobello mushroom is just a grown-​up regular everyday common mushroom – aka button, aka crimini, aka champignon, aka agaricus bisporus, aka white mushroom. I was floored when I first learned that. It’s knowing little facts like this that make me such a fungi at parties. Heh! Fungi. I kill me.)
Tuesday nights (at least this Tuesday night) was $ 5 glasses of white wine sangria. A perfect accompaniment to a nice little get-​together of eating mushroom caps and snickering at parkers. Wednesdays is also half-​price wine night. Not all the wine. Just some of the wine. But wine is lost on me, I’m only telling you that in case you dig wine.
My sister ordered the special-​of-​the-​night stuffed chicken breast. I had the blue cheese and escargot tenderloin. Rare, of course. The steak I mean. Nobody eats rare snails. My sister said that hers was delicious, and I believe her. She sometimes makes things up, but she seemed pretty sincere. I really, really loved my steak. Though I wish they gave you super-​sharp straight edged steak knives from Knifewear just down the block instead of a more customary serrated steak knife. That’d be a thing. But they’re $ 150, so I bet some would go missing. I’ll bring mine next time. Changes the whole steak experience. But I’m digressing. This is a review for The Carmichael and not for Knifewear. But still, go check out Knifewear while you’re in Inglewood.
I made my sister order two desserts since it was a birthday dinner. She didn’t eat them both, but got to bring a bit of each home for her hubby. I had a crème brûlée and thought it was awesome. My sister asked me for a bite, but I said no. Jodey rightly called it that crème brûlée orderers are typically not very good sharers. Now, I don’t know if that applies generally, but she had it pretty bang on with me.
So yeah, I’m kind of shocked that this place doesn’t have a review. Oh! Maybe it’s under the old name. Oh well, this is where I’m reviewing it, and this is where it’ll stay.
In short, food was awesome, service was awesome; go.

We went to The Carmichael for the first time on Valentine’s Day with another couple. I realize this is one of the busiest days of the year for the restaurant business, but our experience was terrible. We were seated at a table that seemed to be placed in the restaurant as an afterthought. Our chairs were in the way of the two tables next to us and we were repeatedly asked to move. One of our chairs was backing into the main walkway and was bumped several times. It took over an hour to get our first course, which was just ok. The balsamic dressing on the house salad was just that — balsamic vinegar. Our main course came (three of us had the prime rib and the other had the steak Neptune). The meat tasted good, but the vegetables were cold. It took 10 minutes to get the au jus and horse radish for the prime rib. We weren’t sure why they didn’t come out at the same time? Our water was never refreshed and our waiter didn’t ask if we wanted more wine or cocktails, which were finished as soon as we received the main course. The manager came to speak with us as we were waiting for dessert and acknowledged that our experience was sub-​par. She proceeded to tell us that the chef called in sick and that she wanted to shoot herself in the head because she was so overrun (this was a shocking and unprofessional statement). She assured us that our waiter would «take care» of us. Expecting a percentage off our bill, we were angry when «taking care» of us ended up being one coupon for our next visit for a free entrée (WITH THE PURCHASE OF TWO ENTREES). We had to tell our waiter not to hover over us as we filled out the credit card slip. We weren’t sure if he was ensuring that we signed or that we were tipping? We paid our $ 300 bill and left the coupon on the table.