Couple tips OP. Just like anything your likely to drop a couple hundred dollars on... look into it in advance, resturaunts get reviewed too you know. You can find out what other people think about a given resturuants efficiency, quality of food and value for money. Plenty people out there figure that if the decor is modern and expensive, the front counter has someone that calls themself a maitre de and the bill comes in a leather folder it automatically makes it a "good resturunat". Just not true.
BOOK AHEAD, your average bar and grill can handle walk ins easily. Your fancy resturaunt' with highly involved meals with multiple components takes time to produce these meals. granted waiting for the menus and to actually be served at all is frustrating and a sign of poor work practices/understaffing/badly trained staff/ being busier then expected. But with regards to how long the food takes to come out, keep in mind that your food doesnt start getting cooked as soon as you order, it starts getting cooked as soon as the chef deals with all the dockets from tables that ordered before you.
Dont got to top range resturaunts for a big meal. Its just not going to happen, you want pub sized meals go to a pub. high end resturaunts are about taking food beyond just sustenance and turning it into an entire experience, and if you can't afford to have anything more then just a main meal you probably wont end up full, the meals are sized generally so the average person can easily fit in an appetizer, an entree, a main, a dessert and possibly even some cheese and coffee afterwards.
Dont lump us all in together, have one bad experience don't write us all off. There are plenty of bad fancy resturaunts... again i make a point about reviews.
Finally if you don't know what experience your getting into, don't come. You sound like the customers i hate dealing with. I get very tired about complaints about food from people that don't know a thing about it. From telling me there steak is cooked wrong when they don't really know what medium rare means, to claiming im lying to the public because the king salmon i sell isn't nice and pink (they thought king salmon and atlantic salmon are the same fish).
Sorry for the counter rant, and if i came across offensive in anyway i apologise.