Have been to Modo a couple of times previously, but this was the first time I've eaten enough food there to comment (previously had focused on wine).
Wanting to try several dishes, we got the "8 to share" chef's menu (or something like that). The dishes ran the gamut, from totally underwhelming (the crab salad, the dumplings) to okay (the meatball) to really good (the goat cheese ravioli, the cod). I also ordered a cheese plate - the cheeses themselves (from local producer) were good, but for ¥98 the portions were miserly.
Which I think gets to the heart of my issue with Modo. I get the idea of small plates, and definitely understand that a great meal should be defined by quality not quantity. That said, most of what we ordered was barely more than 2-3 mouthsfull, which at ¥60-100 per "small plate" certainly qualifies as overpriced, and there were as many misses as hits.
The atmosphere itself is quaint, and service is fine (though far from great... a cocktail took 15 minutes, and adding money to a card for the enomatic wine machine took a good 10 minutes - and the restaurant was VERY light that night). At these prices, the service should be 5-star. In short, you're spending Maison Boulud money for an atmosphere that's only a notch above Element Fresh (for example) and for consistency and quality that pale by comparison to other 5-star spots.
Last gripe - we filled up a card to use the pay-as-you-go enomatic machines so we could try lots of different wines. When done we had leftover money on the card, but were told by the waitress that we could absolutely not be refunded the unused funds. This despite the fact that, printed clearly and in both English and Chinese, the card itself states "Any unused value and the deposit will be refunded upon return of this card."
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