Christopher R.
Yelp
My partner & I went on a Sunday night after a walk around the lake. Beautiful night, lots of walkers & bikers around the lake. This was our 2nd visit.
We've ordered from Pimento on Nicolet many times over the years & have always enjoyed the food. We've had just about everything on the menu, so we thought we knew what to expect...
The guy working the counter was great! Polite & friendly. But, the food was sad. I ordered my usual One Love bowl with pulled chicken & vegetable curry, coconut rice & beans, Jamaican slaw & plantains. My partner just wanted something light, so she just ordered a side of rice & beans & a side of slaw.
My One Love bowl was almost ok. The main components were good (the chicken, jerk sauce, & curry). But the rice & beans had no coconut flavor & there were about 3 beans total. The slaw wasn't slaw. It was wilted iceberg lettuce with a couple shreds of carrot. Seemed like it had been sitting on a countertop all evening. Not fresh. I brought my partner's side to the counter & asked if they could replace it or refund us. The person working the counter spent about 10 minutes running around the patio looking for the manager, & once he found him he came to our table & said he would make it right, at which point I also pointed out the lack of beans in the rice. He did bring another side of beans & rice, (which had more beans, but was still bland) & explained that the person dishing the plate didn't stir the beans into the rice.
After that, when I asked about the slaw, he said he'd find out if they had another batch & returned to the kitchen. I started to eat, since we'd been sat with our food for about 15 minutes. I finished my food, my partner didn't bother eating hers, so I shared my curry. The manager never returned to follow up on the slaw situation.
Before leaving, I approached the counter to see if they were going to refund my slaw. The counter worker told me that they did refund my card, but I wasn't issued a receipt & I've seen other reviews state that they were told they'd be refunded, but actually weren't, so we'll see. It's only $4 for the slaw, but with how poorly everything was executed, most restaurants would have made more of an effort to correct the issues, or at least followed up with me.
Having been in the service industry for over 20 years, when I see a kitchen/management run so poorly, I get concerned about food safety. If you have people in the kitchen that are poorly trained, or just don't care about the quality of the product, things can happen in the kitchen that make the food unsafe to eat.
As other reviews have said, it's really disappointing to see such a beautiful, newly built food pavilion so mishandled. As well as the unnecessary 2nd counter that could be utilized by another vendor to provide more options. This location doesn't hold a candle to the food you get from the Nicolet location.
Do yourself a favor & just go a block away & get takeout food from Brim, or a couple blocks up at Lake & Irving & bring it to the lake (both are fantastic options). Hopefully, Pimento can either turns things around, or fail quickly enough to give another restaurant an opportunity to give people visiting the lake to enjoy something worthy of the location.