At a seventy-fifth birthday supper for our brother/uncle/etc, nine of us expected a good evening based upon Tripadvisor reviews. The evening was poor.
In short, there seemed to be little communication between the diners and the kitchen. I am not certain as to why. Did the server misunderstand the diners or did the chef misunderstand the server?
Few of the food orders arrived in the manner ordered. Few of the drinks arrived in a drinkable fashion, my Penfold's Shiraz being a pleasant exception. One of us had four consecutive drink orders, but none of them tasted good. How can one misprepare a vodka and tonic or even a cup of coffee?
Much of the cuisine was good (my snapper was very good), but the whole dining experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. That taste became more bitter when the bill included a 20 per cent gratuity. However, the server was helpful enough to divide the bill into three portions for each sub-group. While I agree that servers of large tables should have some protection in their tips, there are few other ways to express displeasure except in tipping. . . . . or in a Tripadvisor review.
I think that an assistant server in the dining room would be beneficial to customer satisfaction. A recent complaint to the manager about our experience . . MAY . . result in some kind of apology to the 75 year old birthday boy. We will see.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.