Sidéwon Andre N.
Yelp
My sister celebrated her birthday here last week and we had a Great time, but there were some major hiccups from the restaurant that made our time here tarnished. This is why I rated 3 stars and I'll explain below.
I hurried to the restaurant 30 minutes late and was surprised when the birthday girl and the group of 22 people were waiting outside, and crammed by the check-in counter at the front of the restaurant. It seems the restaurant forgot the reservation made weeks prior. Not only was the group inconvenienced, but they had to remove (2) smaller parties to make room...Who dropped the ball here?
We were seated and the waiter was AMAZING! Really nice, professional guy and I can tell he has been a waiter for sometime as he had a unique system giving us a # for our orders due to the large size of the group. We began ordering drinks and appetizers and asked for the Hookah Girl...
This may not be a total reflection of the restaurant but the Hookah girl is a joke! She never arrived after we asked for her 3xs' and then when she finally did arrive we were packing up to leave! Secondly, we flagged down another employee who I believe worked for Spice House and he said we couldn't order Hookah because they want to transition the area soon and Hookah may make us stay in the area too long....Remember, the restaurant seated us on a reservation 45 minutes late!
We carried on and danced as the DJ was great, playing Maxie Priest, Beres Hammond...All the classics!
When the appetizers arrived I was impressed on how they were plated. Only major hiccup was my sisters salad. There was a bug on the lettuce leaf. I don't believe they brought a new salad either. I think they just took the leaf off and gave her the same plate back... I'm not sure what happened in the kitchen but some of the salads were washed and others weren't. You can see the brown dirt on the leaves especially the pieces chopped by the lettuce core. This may be bagged salad, but please...Wash the salad!
Some of my favorites were the Spring Rolls-Cut diagonal, and the Crab Cake. I was expecting 1 for $22 but to my surprise you get 2. They taste pretty good as well...Not Noble Fin or Del Frisco but passable...Not too much bread.
When the main courses arrived everybody seemed to enjoy them! Mine was marginal...I ordered the salmon and asked it not too be over cooked and they literally burned the damn thing! The girl a few seats down had such a large piece that looked so succulent. Mine was cooked so dry it favored a piece of Tilapia or something like that. The mash was good and the asparagus was crispy and well seasoned.
As we ate our main courses, this is when the pressure came from the restaurant to rush us out for their mistake.... They immediately began asking for dessert preferences where you can pick a chocolate cake or cheesecake with strawberry, mango, and I think peach topping.... I truly felt insulted when they brought the cheesecakes in To Go boxes ready to go after bringing everything else on china.
When it was time to pay the bill it was a Fu**ing disaster! Apparently there is a menu which we ordered from that is $65 for a starter, main and dessert. Gratuity is 30% (Quite High) and included. To make a long story short, my sisters card was charged $1,700 yet we were also given separate receipts. Mine had all my items on it, and others just had drinks and appetizers while others solely had drinks.... There was no consistency and the waiters did appear to crack when they presented them to us as it would be a jigsaw puzzle to clean it up!
Basically we were confused as hell! We paid the damn bill but the restaurant got over for sure. If the $1700 was the charge for the $65 menu, why did some of us have receipts for the menu itemized out? We still don't know how they did the breakdown but we paid it and left...
The night was fun, but it could have been Amazing! I WOULD NOT suggest the restaurant however to anybody planning a birthday or any large event. They will forget the reservation and place pressure on you to eat and leave so they can continue with Sunday Funday. The bill will also be a mess! I will return but for Sunday Funday only as that seems to be the expertise here.