Our Los Banos Restaurant Review - Wool Growers Restaurant

I am glad there is not a tall old oak tree in Henry Miller Plaza because after writing this review I am concerned that some of our neighbors might want to "get a rope" and....

On May 27th, 2006 we went to eat at Wool Growers, a unique French Basque restaurant located on H St. in Los Banos. We had repeatedly heard very positive things about Wool Growers from locals and old timers around Los Banos. It seems that the place is well loved by almost everyone and is something of a Los Banos icon. After eating there we are not sure why...

We may get into trouble from our Los Banos neighbors, but we just were not impressed at all! I'm not sure how Wool Growers got the reputation it did, but we won't be making it a regular stop and in fact we probably won't be back again. I think this is the sort of place you are either going to either really love or really dislike. We fall into the latter category. However, we encourage our readers to check out the restaurants we review for themselves and share their opinions on our Los Banos forum.

Wool Growers is not like any restaurant we have ever been too. It sort of reminded us of a church dinner gathering in some ways. Everyone eats "family style" which means you are seated at large tables forced together amongst your fellow diners. This means that you'll be sharing a table with total strangers. While this may have some charm it is decidedly not for everyone.

When we walked into Woolgrower's a waitress motioned for us to come sit down in a not unfriendly but rather brusque 'get over here' manner. My husband joked that the unique mannerism she exhibited when seating us was similar to what a parent might do when a child comes in a little too late for dinner and did not deserve any special welcome. Yea it's homey, but not in a warm way! In fairness we got the impression that the waitresses were a bit rushed but we watched this similar behavior exhibited to other patrons again and again. Watching the staff and patrons in a detached table was entertaining in its own odd way...

We requested a small table to ourselves - if we hadn't, we would have ended up right in the middle of two groups, sitting opposite each other instead of beside our partner with people we didn't know directly on either side (just like Grandma or Uncle Joe at Thanksgiving dinner). This is not your romantic, private booth type of dinner place!

The atmosphere at Wool Growers Rest is unique as with the food we opine you will either love it or dislike it. Tables are covered with plastic checked picnic style covers. The walls have some pictures of Basque scenes here and there. It is not decorated nicely in my personal opinion, but that's not the point of this place anyway. It was loud inside and amongst the patrons it did have a "friendly" feel to it. In fact there was a birthday group that asked everyone in the place to sing Happy Birthday to one of the people in their group. The whole place erupted into song.

There are no menus at Wool Growers Restaurant . The wait staff will rattle off the selections in a rapid fire manner and repeat it (no less slowly) if you miss the choices the first time. You get to choose your meat - chicken, lamb, New York steak, or prime rib. Side dish selections are NOT selected. Everything else is put down in front of you whether you like it or want it or not.

You pay one price for the dinner no matter which main course selection you choose. Everything is included except for drinks with the exception of a small container of red wine that is served to everyone and ice water. Our waitress brought us a basket of good crusty cold French bread with some butter, vegetable soup , beans, potato salad, and green salad. A bit later we were served some lamb stew and then finally our choices of meat.

The beans were nothing special. The salad also wasn't a big deal. It was torn up iceberg with no tomatoes or anything else added and some sort of homemade dressing that had vinegar and seasonings in it (again - no choices here). The soup was probably homemade but tasted canned to us. The potato salad came on a little plate and it was quite good even though it had lots of egg and peas in it. The lamb stew had big chunks of lamb in it (some of which was still on the bone) with assorted vegetables. There was plenty of stew (in fact there was plenty of everything; the portions are big), but the stew was uninspiring to the both of us.

Still, I was looking forward to my New York steak and my husband to his prime rib. When the meat arrived both plates did indeed look tasty and the portions weren't skimpy. To be honest however neither of us was that thrilled with the main entrees. My New York steak was charred just a bit too much. My husband's prime rib was good, but not great. They were served completely plain with no garnishes which is fine, but the flavor of the meat or the way it was cooked or something just missed the mark.

One other sour note here, we both ordered Cokes to go with our meal and were astonished at the price: $2.00 per smallish glass and this was with NO refills. We ended up spending $8.00 on sodas because the glasses weren't all that big and we wanted enough for the entire meal. The sodas were served from a window attached to the bar on the other side of the wall. We were not in the bar and think that for 2 bucks per glass they should include free refills especially when the meals themselves are certainly not served at bargain basement prices.

At the end of our meal we were both given small vanilla ice-cream cups; the kind you can buy in bulk from the grocery store that usually come with little wooden spoons. My husband had not had one of these since 'ice cream Friday' in grade school and it added to the feeling of general dissatisfaction that we were experiencing.

We asked for something to take our leftovers home in and were given small mouth plastic bags that we tried to ladle the rest of our stew and other leftovers into. It was sort of a messy affair to get our food into the bags, unlike how it is with boxes and cups that most places give you. No ties were supplied with the bags. It was sort of fitting though with the rest of the place. Again, the word "unique" comes to mind.

So, while Wool Growers might be popular with some folks in town, it just wasn't a hit with us. The atmosphere, food, and service is pretty unusual in our experience and we were not really too keen on any of it to be very honest. If what I've described sounds like something you'd love, have fun. Most of the people around us seemed to be doing just that. We, however, won't be coming back. We spent nearly $40.00 for what we thought was mediocre food, a mediocre environment, limited choices and mediocre service. Wool Growers was just not a hit for us. Again, we are glad there is no old oak tree close by...

Specific Opinions By Reviewer One
Overall Rating :	I really WANTED to like this place after hearing it was a local institution over and over but...
Food:	Prime rib was decent but rest was so-so
Service:	more 'directive' than helpful
Decor:
Price/Value:	portions were big but 2 bucks per coke with no refills and high per plate price
Bathroom Cleanliness:
Romance Factor:	Not for me...
Family Friendliness:

Specific Opinions By Reviewer Two
Overall Rating :
Food:	Big portions are nice but taste is nothing special
Service:	brusque
Decor:
Price/Value:	2 only because of portion size
Bathroom Cleanliness:		Not Observed
Romance Factor:	Picnic type seating with complete strangers
Family Friendliness:

Reviews in this section are simply personal opinions. We are sharing these, our experiences and opinions as a means to further discussion in our Los Banos Forums section not to promote or discommend any particular business. In fact we absolutely encourage our readers to make a personal visit to each of the restaurants we review and form your own opinion which (if it is respectful and honest) you are encouraged to post on the Los Banos Bulletin Boards where you are also welcome to discus OUR reviews.

In this section, the staff of Our Los Banos .com shares our personal opinions on the restaurants that we patronize in the City of Los Banos. We would like to stress that we are not professional reviewers, that we have had little or no training in the food arts, and that we are simply expressing our own personal views and opinions on particular visits that we made to the establishments under consideration.

Subjectivity. We make no pretense of the fact that we are not objective. As with art, food is a subjective experience subject to personal opinion and even whim. Some people love a particular artist's work while others can not stand what is put on canvas. Picasso comes to mind. Similarly people's appreciation for a particular chef's abilities are uniquely their own. While our tastes are very eclectic and we enjoy a tremendous variety of different types of food, we do not expect our readers will agree with all of our opinions and views. We DO encourage our readers to try each of the places that we have reviewed and then you can discuss (politely and in a positive fashion) your experiences and opinion of our review in the Los Banos Forum section.

Finally, we strongly encourage our readers to make use of a truly wonderful online resource we discovered last year. Merced County has put together a very cool Food Facility Inspection website which discloses the results of the County Health Department's last few inspections of each restaurant. The results are sometimes quite fascinating and are always interesting. Beware however you may not want to eat at certain places once you read some of the more dramatic entries. We at Our Los Banos .com very much appreciate and support the county of Merced putting these Department of Health food facility inspections online for the public to see.