I had a very poor meal last Friday night at Crush. I had been looking forward to going there for a year and a few friends accompanied me to the restaurant. We had to wait 15 minutes for our table, normally not a big deal, but with the fact that they have absolutely no space for a waiting area bugged me as we had to constantly move out of the way whenever a party entered/left the restaurant (hint: reverse the hinges on the front door). As we waited I was able to look into the kitchen and saw that the staff was very relaxed and not too rushed, even though the restaurant was full, and that the chef was at the pass. Anyway, when we were seated the wait wasn't really acknowledged, and that bugged me the most.It took a long while to get service once we sat down and we ended up ordering the tasting menu. That's where things went bad. The courses:

• First Course - Sunchoke soup with truffle oil. My prejudice for truffle oil aside, the soup was good, however two of the bowls had some large bits of green herbage stuck to the sides. Not a good sign since the soup had to be touched by at least the line cook, the chef and the waiter before getting to our table and yet they still served it. I made a point of telling the waiter about the dirty dishes at the end of the course. Not that big of a deal, except ...
• Second Course - Yes, the salad course (bibb lettuce with a creamy herb dressing and prosciutto chip) had dirty edges on the plates as well. They had obviously been wiped down, yet the very sides of my dish had some dressing on them. The ribs on the bibb lettuce were turning brown and the salad had no seasoning. As a cook I felt bad about doing this, but I had to ask for salt in order to give the dish some flavor. As I finished the dish I noticed a fruit fly buzzing around my plate. In summer this would not be that big of a deal, but it's winter. I'm left to wondering how they have fruit flies in the restaurant in winter.
• Third Course - Seared sea bass with creamed root veg and caviar sauce. This dish was the best of the savory dishes and I had no complaints. The sea bass had super crispy skin and the caviar sauce had a nice bit of saltiness.
• Fourth Course - The famous short ribs with mashers and root veg. It was great except it was garnished with truffle oil which was totally unnecessary.
• Fifth Course - The desserts were the most successful part of the evening. The spiced rum cake with the candied citrus was fantastic; the candied citrus managed to retain a wonderful sourness that worked well with the richness of the cake. There was also a great chocolate bombe (very decadent) and I had the mini donuts with the cinnamon sauce.

Overall, I felt like the mistakes were pretty bad and the rest of the meal just couldn't make up for them ... dirty dishware is something that every member of the team should be on the lookout for and it felt sloppy when three different pairs of hands let dirty dishes get to the table. And to have the first thing you learn in culinary school, proper seasoning of your dish, be neglected in a salad that was made with old greens was just sloppy.

After getting named one of the 10 best in F&W, I was expecting more, at least getting the basics right, but the impression I got is that the restaurant was coasting. To me it doesn't matter that we came in on a Friday night and had this experience; no matter when a customer comes they should get a great experience. They seemed to have enough staff in the kitchen to handle the rush, but FOH seemed to be dragging (we had long waits to order, for example).

I know I shouldn't completely judge a place on just one visit, but since I'm just a line cook, I can't really afford to make another one, especially when the first one was so off.