Darrah M.
Yelp
It's extremely rare for me to give a bad review. But this one had to be given.
TLDR: second to worst service ever I've ever had in my life, did not get the full experience, awful seating, inconsistent meat quality.
I'm still going to keep it fairly to the point here. We thought we were going to be late due to traffic. So we called ahead and let them know at a max we would be late 15 minutes. They said that was fine. We actually arrived on time but were told we had to wait until everyone was literally inside the building until we could be seated but we could wait in the lounge area. 5 minutes later after the car was parked I reproached the host and advised all parties were present and she repeated the same line. Wait in the lounge. What exactly am I waiting for at this point? She said once I receive a text I would be seated.
I proceed to the bar, ask for an appetizer and a drink. 15 minutes later I get a text. "No worries," says the bartender, "I never put in your order! You can start over at the table." Oh you mean wait longer.
I go back to the host and tell her I got my text. So now she tells me to wait in line. The line of about 30 people. While groups are approached and asked to follow, after shifting around for other groups to walk thru the floor, we get asked a second time if we had gotten a text. I say yes and after a flurry of hand signals we are told to "follow him." I start to follow a waiter thru a maze of people and tables and a half loop around the cold bar and then way over to the far back corner where they keep extra stacks of dishes.
Fine. We're seated. I was never asked if I wanted to order anything to drink but was simply asked "sparkling or still water?" We were asked if anything special was being celebrated (a belated birthday dinner for me).
We proceed to order the special where they parade choice cuts of meat around to you and we advise the waiter that medium and well done options were needed at the table. Cool! A rough start but hey, I give plenty of grace.
After we circled the cold bar, when we returned to the table we were brought mini cheese stuffed rolls, plantains and mashed potatoes. (The mashed potatoes should have been called potato soup, they were so thin). The first round of meat came quickly. Parmesan pork and pork sausage. Both delicious!
Immediately the meat stopped coming. A different server came by and asked if we were ok and we said yes but wondered when the meats would come marching in again. She said they were about to take another spin thru the dining area. Ok great!
We got garlic beef (this recipe needs reworking) and another beef type (this one was SUPERB!) And who do we see again? Mr Parmesan pork! (This gentleman essentially ran a marathon with those pork skewers, he made more rotations around the dining area than I have made around the sun!)
Then we got neighbors! A 16 member party was seated so close to the back of our chairs that I had to get up sideways and chose just not to get up anymore. They were nice neighbors and initially we thought we would see more food since they would have to circulate the meats to that table. And initially we did! Chicken thighs, chicken drums, bacon wrapped beef, and bacon wrapped chicken! But after serving our neighbors we seldom got any of the leftovers.
Then our waiter appeared to bring want water. We asked about the filet mignon, the lamb chops, top sirloin, and another lamb cut (can't recall the name) and were told "oh they're coming around, I'll make sure they bring some back here." The filet NEVER arrived. The lamb chops were divine and came as we were ordering dessert (2 lamb chops in 2 hours is pretty abysmal).
My complimentary dessert did come with "Happy birthday" written in chocolate syrup. My date thought it said happy bi... Nevermind. Also the "well done" servings were the charred parts of the medium cuts they bought around. $130 Very disappointing
