After reading so many wonderful things about Meritage, my partner and I decided to celebrate our anniversary there a couple of weeks ago. I must say, the food was superb. However, I was very, very disappointed with the delivery. It started out poor and got worse from there. Here are some examples: We arrived in time for our 8:30 pm reservations Saturday night. We were seated in the lobby and told our table would be ready shortly. Shortly after our arrival, a group of 4 came and were also asked to wait for their table. After waiting 1/2 hour, the group of four was approached with a profuse apology for their wait and seated. Immediately after, we were told that our table was ready. No apology for the wait. This made us feel crappy. While the other table, clearly two high powered male doctors and their wives deserved an apology, a couple of women got nada. We sat down at the table and our menus didn't arrive for what felt like an eternity. It must have been at least 10 minutes. We then had our menus for another eternity until our orders were taken. My partner asked for the ceasar salad. I told the server I was not having a starter because I prefered to save room for dessert. Our wine came promptly, a superb Puligny Montrachet. We saw the table beside us (with the two doctors) finish their appetizers and have them cleared without any sign of the salad. Finally we spoke up and were told that the kitchen was confused and thought the salad was for another table. At 10 pm, the salad came. The server proceeded to divide it in 1/2 and give us each a plate, in spite of my clear direction otherwise. I put the plate he gave me aside. The server asked if I disliked my salad. I politely told him that I didn't order a salad. He apologized and said he thought we were going to share. He didn't take the plate. The owner came by a few minutes later and asked the same thing. He finally had the wisdom to get a large plate so my partner would not have to eat two separate servings of salad. Our entrees showed up at 10:30, two hours after our arrival. I was about to pass out by that time. Thank goodness the food was great. There were other mishaps after that, but as I write this I realize how annoyed I am that this happened, it's not worth continuing. What makes the situation even more annoying is how pretentious the service seemed. Anyway, this is one of those experiences that confirms for me that men are treated much better in restaurants. Two women are invisible and not worthy of the same treatment... even though our money is just as green. I would like to recommend this place and can highly recommend the food and the wine list, but for those prices and even had they been lower, we deserved better.
