Fig & Olive - West Hollywood, CA

To celebrate me getting a new job, slave girl got a Groupon deal to try out this restaurant with me. The deal was pretty good, for $85, we can have 3 crostinis, one appetizer including crudo, 2 main courses and 2 drinks up to $16 each. I was excited for my first time visit since I've had their crostini when I attended other food events before and was impressed with the food.

Our reservation was set at 6, but when we got there, we found out they had happy hour from 5 to 7. We moved our reservation from 6 to 7 so we could try their happy hour menu. The experience was great, our bartender Manny was fast, friendly, and knowledgeable. He made a suggestion on which crostini to get and also made killer drinks for us.

Happy hour menu

Raspberry mojito, summer in Provence

Cucumber cosmo

We got manchego, shrimp, and prosciutto crostini. They were so tasty it was ridiculous, especially the prosciutto, lots of meat and half fig, what a great bite. We also got caprese flatbread, that was also good.  If you go for happy hour and get him as your bartender, you are in for a treat. Only if we ended our visit here, this would have been a 5 star review. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

Complimentary bread with 3 different kinds of olive oil. Middle one won for us

Manchego crostini

Shrimp crostini

Prosciutto crostini

Caprese flatbread

After happy hour when we got seated, our waiter seemed warm and friendly at first, but after we mentioned we had Groupon, the vibe was changed suddenly. For example, I had a question on how the octopus crostini was severed because I didn't know how many pieces of octopus came with the crostini. I got a "I don't understand your question" and an awkward (I can't believe you asked me that question) stare. If he valued his tip, a "they come in slices on top of crostini but I am not sure how many octopus is on the crostini. I can find out for you" would be a better answer and I don't even work there.

We got octopus, mushroom, and prosciutto again (it was that good). Octopus was a fail sadly, but the mushroom was surprisingly amazing. Based on what we had, I would rank them down from prosciutto, mushroom, shrimp, manchego, octopus, in that order.

Octopus crostini

Mushroom crostini

Another shot of prosciutto crostini

For appetizer, we got sea scallop. We regretted getting that dish because the scallop was undercooked, and we had no idea who thought scallop and carrots would pair good together, especially with the carrot puree. We tried really hard to understand this dish by eating the scallop alone, scallop with carrot in one bite, and everything on the plate together in one bite. We just didn't get it. The flavor reminded me of baby food and texture was gross and mushy all together.

Sea scallop

Dirty martini

Fig and olive

For the main course, I got rosemary lamb chop and slave girl got chilean sea bass. The sea bass was done extremely well, but the rice that came with was not edible. It tasted like the rice package from local supermarket and it was nasty.

Chilean sea bass

Side rice for Chilean sea bass

The lamb chop was interesting. It came with a cover to the table and as the cover was taken off, the rosemary was still burning and the lamb chop was soaked with the rosemary smog. Only problem was I ordered it medium and it came out well done. So after two bites, I decided to send it back to the kitchen. Well, our waiter was checking with all the tables around me except us, water had been empty, I finally got sick and tired of waiting and waved him over and told him my lamb chop was not medium like I ordered. He said, "Oh,  so you want me to bring you a new one?" well buddy, why else would I tell you about my sad lamb chop? I told him "if you don't mind" even though what I really wanted to say was... Oh, it's in Chinese, you wouldn't get it. After my plate was sent back, I noticed some people in the kitchen were looking out at our table (the perk of open kitchen) then my fixed lamb chop was out very quickly. Sigh, three out of my 4 pieces were raw inside. Again, our waiter took awhile to stop by the table and I was hungry (slave girl already finished her food and looking bored) so I ate one medium rare chop, and started cutting on the edge of the first raw one. After I told our waiter about the raw lamb chop, he picked up the two remaining raw chops from my plate and told me he would take these two back to the kitchen to cook it longer for me. Woah, just effing woah. Sure enough, I got my two chops came back to me, under seasoned and well done again. I had enough at that point and well done still beat out raw so I just finished my food.

Rosemary lamb chop

Rosemary still on fire!

Raw lamb still. Meh.

Then well done

Then we sat there with our empty plates and empty glasses for 10 minutes and no one came to our table. I know I know, I could have just waved someone over but I really wanted to see how long it would take our waiter to acknowledge us again. So he finally came back, took away our plates, grabbed the dessert menu from the register, did not ask if we had room for dessert or anything, dropped the menu and left. I kid you not, not a word given, just gone. We actually didn't want dessert and was ready for the check... We waited for another 5 minutes with no sight of this clown, so I talked to the floor manager about our experience for the night. Since it was a Groupon thing, she couldn't do anything for us. She offered free dessert but we were not in the mood to have more food so we didn't get anything. Here was the funny thing, the floor manager then went on to get our check for us and while she was gone, our waiter came back and asked us if we wanted any dessert. Where were you dude? After we told him we were okay, he went to get our check too and we ended up with two checks that evening.

Fancy soap in the restroom

Based on this experience, we have learned fig and olive couldn't make lamb chops for the love of their life but could make some awesome crostinis. If you ever want to try this place, go during happy hour and be sure to sit at the bar (look for Manny); love yourself and never ever eat meals there. That's what I would do anyway.