CRAPTACULAR!!!
DESCRIPTION: I did not think it possible that one place could both suck and blow at the same time. The service; a soft spoken, very hard to understand, gentleman wearing a white coat that seemed about three sizes too large, waited on the four of us. He started the evening by taking approximately 25 minutes to return to the table with our drink order. An order that consisted of a whisky and coke, a whiskey sour, glass of red wine and a water. During our wait for drinks, we noticed the table had three different versions of the menu. One version that had two page number ones, one that had a chef s tasting menu and one that had the Open Table tasting event page. Our waiter apologized, looked over the menus and instructed us which of the menus was the correct; we all then shared that menu. This was about the time the fire alarm in the hotel started to go off. The wait staff looked at each other smiling and obviously unconcerned, as we started to get up to leave, the waiter came over to our table and said it was nothing to worry about and please disregard the loud speaker constantly repeating the following message a fire emergency had been detected please evacuate the hotel . The waiter came over to our table and stated if this were really something to worry about the red phone in the corner would be ringing to verify the emergency. The table discussion quickly turned to one of rising concerns since September 11 and how we pay a little more attention to things like fire alarms or emergency warnings. Finally the alarm stopped and the waiter assured us nothing was wrong. This must happen quite often based on the reaction from the staff. We then placed our order. My wife ordered the chicken entr e with the crab cake appetizer. My friend ordered the chicken entr e with the clam chowder soup appetizer. His wife ordered swordfish with a Mesclun salad appetizer. I ordered the duck entr e with a Greek salad appetizer. Appetizer arrived promptly without incident. As for the quality of the food, starting with the appetizers, I would rank overall quality up there with some of the best cafeteria food I ve ever had. Disappointing to say the least. Crab cakes should not be listed as a special featured item of the restaurant - they had very little taste at all and made me happy that no one at the table had ordered the crab cake as an entr e selection. The soup was said to be tasteless and boring. As for the salads, salad is salad and was fine but nothing to write home about. So sets the tone of the evening. Shortly after finishing the first course the waiter returned with the tray containing the entr e items. On the tray were two servings of salmon, the swordfish and the duck. We explained this was not what we had ordered and the waiter quickly removed the salmon leaving the duck and swordfish on the table. Our party encouraged us to go ahead and start eating, as the food was hot and not getting any warmer. Shortly after cutting into my duck entr e I realized this was a beef dish, and not the duck I had ordered. I received strange looks from my dinning companions and when asked was I sure I let them taste a sample just to make sure I wasn't loosing my mind. I called the waiter and asked to speak to the restaurant manager. A young woman came over to the table and I explained the predicament. When I explained this was not duck and in fact a beef dish I was questioned and asked was I sure. I let her know I have been eating both duck and beef my whole life and was, in fact, able to tell the difference. She removed the dish and explained she was going to go and talk to the chef. Now with only one person at the table with food at this point, we started to get disheartened. Now the chicken entrees arrived. The server put the first plate in front of my wife, when she attempted to center the plate at her place setting promptly burning her fingers and noticing that the plate was approximately 3000 degrees, setting ones mind to think the last time I touched a plate this hot it had just come out of a microwave. Vision of Sara Lee danced in our heads. With the delivery of the chicken we now had three people at the table with food and they started to eat. About this time the young woman claiming to be the hotel manager returned to our table carrying the same plate of BEEF I had just rejected. She then attempted to explain exactly what kind of duck it was that I had been served. Never having needed a steak knife to eat duck, I told her to simply cancel my order. She left the table carrying the dish away. When she returned, she asked if there was anything she could serve me as a replacement, in my head I was thinking, duck would be nice, but I declined her offer and explained I was now done and would not like anything else. She asked if she could remove the item from the bill, which gave me a chuckle, and I agreed. Let's move on, shall we? Sampling the other selections we had at the table, we move on to the swordfish. I have never had a worse piece of swordfish in my life. The fishy taste made us wonder how long this had been sitting around in the kitchen waiting for some poor unsuspecting sole, pardon the pun, to order it. Our dinner companion ate about a quarter of it and then stopped, hoping to put an end to the suffering. As for the microwave chicken, the visions of Sara Lee we had in our head earlier were now confirmed as we tasted this culinary train wreck. At least it was chicken, and I ll give you this, it was hot. The evening drew to a close with dessert, and I must say the comments from the group were favorable when it came to the cheesecake. As for the chocolate mouse cake my wife ordered, this was also found to be a disappointment and comparable to eating a big piece of fudge. Like the chicken dish this too was left half eaten when the wait staff cleared the table. The $135.00+ bill we received was in fact missing the duck entr e so they got that part of the evening right. On a high note, the guitar player entertainer was excellent. Lacking the most basic of customer service skills demonstrated throughout, the evening was highlighted by bad, over priced food, and topped off with an argument over what the food exactly was.
DATE: 2004-01-15
FOODRATING : 2
SERVICERATING : 4
AMBIANCERATING : 6
OVERALLRATING : 2