11/10/09

Overpriced woo-woo magic

by cjporkchop

For prices like this, I'd expect the food to 'wow' me. At least a little. And it doesn't at all. Underseasoned, overcooked, bland bland bland.

They seem to focus more on the food's woo-woo-magic than its taste. A quote from their website--

"We, at the Inn, believe in giving you the purest of Nature’s foods, energized as a gift from the sun with a dash of esoteric food knowledge and ancient mystery school wisdom tossed in for your seasoning and pleasure. It may just raise your body’s light vibration and the extra work may cost you a few pennies more, but we believe in the long run, this way of living and eating may prove less expensive."

Well, I've tried spending those few extra pennies, er, *twenty dollar bills*, but I guess those light vibrations don't add anything in the way of flavor.

I cannot recommend this place for a meal, but go for just dessert and enjoy the outdoor setting. You'll have a better time that way.

• Pros: Pretty outdoor atmosphere
• Cons: Insane prices for mediocre food

10/29/09

Getaway from the City?

by Sheauen

My boyfriend brought me here for a little "getaway" one weekend. We went for their brunch and I must say brunch was a great experience. Except for the bugs, which i know kinda comes with the package. There were a lot of bees. It didn't seem to be bothering other diners but I seemed to be drawing every bee from the restaurant to my plate. not to me, but my plate of food. Being allergic, i realized probably not the best idea for me.

A few months later we took my mom and sister here for a dinner, thinking that once the sun went down it would be better. Same situation, bees, lots of them, this time on all of our plates. The waiter brought out a dish of ground cloves and swore up and down that it would drive the bees away and proceeded to scatter clove powder all over the table. He also told us we were making too big of a deal of it and to ignore them and they would go away. Hard to ignore a bee thats planted itself on your 15 dollar salad making it impossible to eat.

We asked if we could move into a room and was moved there between our salad course and the main entree. They brought us the entrees and then we didn't see anyone for over an hour. We refilled our water on our own. We weren't offered dessert but was given our bill directly, when we stated we wanted dessert, another 30 minutes passed before we saw anyone again.

I like the atmosphere of this place, it is wonderfully romantic (if you can get over the bees and bugs) the food is good if not a little pricey. The service is questionable. I woudln't recommend going here for a special occasion. Maybe in the winter time to minimalize on the bugs.

• Pros: beautiful outdoor atmosphere
• Cons: bugs (a lot of them), barely there service

08/22/09

Save your money

by jvs9932

This place is a Topanga Cyn legend. It's been here for decades, nestled into one of the loveliest little spots in the hills. But that's where the magic ends.

I am definitely a foodie but I only expect a few things when I go out to eat. Namely - good food and good service. Price is negotiable, depending on the level of the food and the service. Ambiance is last on my list.

The Inn of the Seventh Ray offers extremely overpriced food served in unimpressive fashion. My wife had a miniscule piece of overcooked salmon for $25 and I had the rib eye cap for $29. It was about the size of a can of tuna, and was nearly 1/3 fat. Not a nicely marbled piece of meat, but chunks of fat you would never eat in your life. It was served over a handful of sliced potatoes and topped with a creamy-ish concoction and a few fresh greens.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for a quality steak, or a quality anything for that matter, and I understand the importance of a nice location in which to eat dinner. But if you're gonna overcharge me for a tiny piece of fatty beef because your restaurant is in a charming spot, at least have a solid wait staff. Our waitress was very nice, but considering our party's bill was $400 for 8 people (2 kids), I was underwhelmed, to say the least.

I know we'll never go back there and recommend you go anywhere else for dinner as well.

• Pros: Ambiance
• Cons: Overpriced mediocre food and not so great service

08/17/09

Was Considering for Our Wedding Reception

by Jhoti

A little disappointed by the reviews I've read because I thought this would be a great place for our wedding ceremony & reception... but now - I am HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS about it. From the Health Dept. closure & bad service & food to the "crashed in side of the car" of the couple who attended a wedding there, combined with management's subsequent lack of responsibility for the damage, I won't EVEN risk it. NO WAY! This place sounds like a disaster. I would die if one of my guests car's were ruined by the valet. The only thing I personally have to go on in regards to a personal experience with them is that I emailed the Inn asking about dates available. My email was answered with with a couple dates and I was to look over the estimate for 60 guests. The estimate was not attached for me to review, and when I requested it again, I never got a response. Nice. These reviews made this an easy one to cross off my list - like the hostess did to the wise couple who decided to leave on Valentine's Day after what seemed like a total fiasco. Ironically, the dates the lady offered me are the Fr. & Sat. of the Valentine's Day weekend. HA! No thanks. So glad I read these reviews. I hope she never responds.

• Pros: Setting
• Cons: Um, everything else?

04/02/09

Beautiful Restaurant

by 1marfields

Excellent place to take a date. Very romantic. I am a wine enthusiast and was happy to see that the wine list was superb. Kudos to the wine director. Food was also good. I recommend it highly.

• Pros: Top-notch Wine List, great setting

04/02/09

THE LOVLIEST RESTAURANT AROUND

by JENNA1

I went to dinner at the Inn of the Seventh Ray with a good friend of mine that I hadn't seen in quite some time. I specifically wanted to eat somewhere that would be not only tasty, but lovely and charming to make our reunion more special. The Inn was the perfect place. Its' beautiful, peaceful surroundings were wonderfully matched by an award-winning wine list that I was suprised to find. (the selections were unique and top quality, not easy to find sometimes in this town) The food was incredibly fresh and the server was extremely helpful and knowledgable. Needless to say, we had a wonderful time. I would recommend this restaurant to all.

• Pros: Perfect wine list, amazing ambiance, great food

03/18/09

WEDDING CRASH AT THE INN RUINS NIGHT

by tmaz

My husband and I were thrilled to be a part of a HUGE wedding hosted at the Inn -- a place we've been to many times over the past 20 years.

Since virtually everyone arrived at the same time, there was a line of cars for the valet. We turned our car over. About 6 hours later we went to get our car and, strangely, the valet pulled the car past us and opened the passenger door from the inside. I didn't notice why he made that move until we got home. The ENTIRE RIGHT QUARTER PANEL of my car was smashed.

We contacted the Inn the next day. They listened to our story and we followed up with the appropriate estimate for repair. Then all of our subsequent calls and emails were ignored. After months of effort, we were finally able to speak to the owner who declared that this had never happened before, so it couldn't have happened now. That was the last we have ever heard.

Considering the size of the wedding and the amount of money they made, one would have thought they would accept the responsibility and use their insurance to cover the damage done by their valet.

So, after 20 years of going to the Inn, we will now never return. We'll be too busy spending $1,100 to repair the car.

Oh, and by the way:

The Inn of the 7th ray was closed down by the health dept on Thursday July 25 2008 for unsanitary conditions (an infestation of r oaches). You can confirm this with the Los Angeles County Health dept or The Topanga Messenger.

* Pros: very high prices

* Cons: unsanitary conditions

• Pros: Very pretty and the worst service across the board!
• Cons: Lack of integrity and responsibility of the owner

03/16/09

Lousy food, lousy service, and way overpriced

by robbysox

Stay Away! We went there Friday night (3-13-09) to check it out as a possible place to host our wedding reception. At first the setting was great, great outdoor atmosphere, etc., but we quickly found out why only about 10% of the restaurant occupied at 8pm on a Friday night! It took about 15 minutes to be greeted by our waitress (who claimed to have been working there for 15 years!), and we saw her only 3 times after that. The service was just terrible, the food, not much better. We had a beet salad which was good, I order the Sea Bass, and my finance ordered a meat dish. The fish was $38 bucks, and severely overcooked. I wanted to complain, but could not find ANY staff around, so I sucked it up and ate it. We poured our own wine all night, had to ask for bread and empty plates piled up on our table until we ended up stacking them ourselves. During the meal, I went looking for the restroom. With nobody to ask I wandered aimlessly until I ran into a woman to ask. Her reply was: That’s what I’m looking for! This stranger and I sent on a quest which finally ended when we found them back up the larger stairway to the front door, totally removed from the restaurant. We elected to pass on dessert and go somewhere else, waited another 15 minutes for our check, finally gave the credit card to another waiter, and never once saw our veteran waitress again.

Lousy food, lousy service, and way overpriced (over $200 bucks for two). It’s too bad that somebody who knows restaurants couldn’t buy it. It has great ambience and a great setting, but you end up enjoying neither as you sit around frustrated with everything else.

• Pros: setting was good wit a great outdoor atmosphere
• Cons: The service was just terrible, the food, not much better

02/16/09

Valentine's Day Fiasco

by lottedixon

Having read great things online, we were considering the Inn as a wedding venue and decided to check it out over Valentine's dinner.

We arrived about 5 minutes early for our 9:30 reservation (the earliest we were able to get with two weeks notice) and we instantly knew something was wrong. The restaurant was disastrously overbooked. There was a terrible back-up for the valet and the crowd packed into the foyer poured into parking lot. While we shivered in the cold and waited to talk to the hostess, we overheard the loud complaints of others who had been waiting 30-45 minutes past their reservation time to get a table. The hostess had long since given into frustration and couldn't muster even a glimmer of courtesy. It was an exceptionally cold night and the restaurant seemed to be experiencing a shortage of heat lamps to complement the dearth of service. While we waited in the chill, breathing the nauseatingly heavily perfumed air and exhaling frosty white clouds, we came to our decision. When we were finally able to speak to the hostess, we told her we would prefer to cancel our reservation rather than endure the up to an hour wait for a table. She brusquely crossed our names off the list.

We overheard more horror stories as we waited in valet line to retrieve our car. They had lost our keys and, though the valets working were generally kind and concerned, the extremely long line was growing agitated and there was little they could do to help us. We stood in the parking lot for half an hour nagging every valet who passed with questions about where our car or keys could be. Eventually, they found our car and discovered that the keys had been left inside. The valet who found it kindly declined the tip we offered with his apologies and we were only too happy to leave the Inn of the Seventh Ray having only lost an hour of our time.

• Pros: Kindly valet staff, even when overbooked
• Cons: Horrifically bad management, poor service, overly perfumed air

02/15/09

DO NOT RECOMMEND IT AT ALL!!!!!!

by adamyansam

I had the worst experience on Valentine's Day 09 at this restaurant. The waitress forgot to bring my wine, the valet parker almost blew up my car, almost everything we ordered and asked for was either wrong or forgotten to be brought to the table. The hostess did not welcome people. I will never go back to this restaurant again and do not recommend it to anyone. Very overpriced and the food was not good at all.

• Pros: The restaurant looks very nice.
• Cons: Service is horrible and food is not that great.