Based purely on their website I was expecting the interior to be quaint, eclectic even, but it was fairly lackluster. When we first walked we were greeted with a view of a double closet door and a coat rack. The place is tiny (no problem with that) but crammed full of so many tables the wait staff could barely get around. Walls are painted plain yellow with industrial drop ceiling tiles. Yawn – again not what I was expecting - I love places that are cool or interesting but I can forgive the lack of decor if the food is splendid.
After an interminable wait at the coat rack (14 minutes with an empty table right in front of us) we were seated. The wine by the glass list was a joke – only 4 or 5 choices, we chose soda. The service was ridiculously slow. I don’t mean it was slow in a have-a-relaxing-meal-take-your-time-slow, I mean slash-your-wrists-slow. Our waiter who, it turns out, is the brother of the owner was fairly clueless and completely unsophisticated. He stopped reading the specials to us twice – once to talk to another table about their order and once to tell a waitress to bring water to yet another table. We ordered the fish special and the stuffed sole. Before our meal came out we ate a rather wilted salad which seemed a few days past its shelf life and listened to the table next to us saying “no really, he must have forgotten about us – he must have really” and they had a different waiter to us. Our waiter came back out to ask us again what we had ordered (seriously) and went back to the kitchen to get it. The stuffed sole was ok. Bland like my grandmother cooked it, but passable. The fish special was raw in the inside. Yep raw. My husband called over a different waiter – a young lady who took my husband’s plate back to the kitchen – not a word of sorry or “I’ll be right back”. I continued to eat (I know it’s not polite but eh, we have been married a long time and I was about ready to eat my own arm). Our original waiter eventually came out with he food (same piece of fish reheated) and put it in front of him, again not a sorry in sight.
We declined dessert and asked (begged really) for the check. Took 10 minutes. Was brought over and mutely handed to us. We went to A&P and bought brownies and that was the best part of the night.
OK – I feel better I got that off my chest. I know oodles of people like that place and it gets great Zagat ratings. I really wanted to like it but, alas, it was not to be.
This weekend we also went to the Strip House and it was a better time, next weekend Restaurant.MC.
Edited by SunnyNJ, 05 February 2008 - 03:22 PM.
