the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine
the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine
Subj: The Criterion
Date: 30/10/98 01:55:34 GMT
From: Nadine.Furness@gs.com (Furness, Nadine)
To: dine@dine-online.co.uk ('dine@dine-online.co.uk')
To whom it may concern,
I have just read Barry Lain's email to Dine Online about The Criterion
Restaurant in London. I cannot agree more with the impression he holds of
this establishment. My boyfriend made a reservation for a Saturday night
last November to celebrate our 2nd year "anninversary" and we had a most
disappointing evening.
We had very high hopes of enjoying a romantic and delicious evening together
in this much acclaimed restaurant but our hopes were dashed almost as soon
as we walked in.
Apart from the beauty of the room our dinner was spoilt for numerous
reasons..
We had very poor service experiencing the all too familiar scenario of :
waiters avoiding your eyes, being slow, aloof, unhelpful, arrogant and so
on... One could have exepected a degree of arrogance had they had anything
to be arrogant about!
Besides the service, 4 dishes on the menu were off the menu on this
particular Saturday night - from the way we were told with no apology or
expression that this was in anyway a bad thing, we could only imagine this
is not a rare problem.
Having finally made our second choices, we had to ask for bread as none was
forthcoming, and it was not an impressive selection. We also ordered some
Champagne to try and lift our spirits which had been rather deflated by this
stage! We too had to pour our own Champagne during our meal.
The food that came was ok but nothing worth remembering. My boyfriend had
steak which he said was tough, and virtually no vegetables. I had seared
salmon which was quite nice until I found it was still on the fish paper it
had been brought in on! Obviously we made a complaint about this - but the
restaurant manager was extremely defensive and seemed to imply that I might
have planted the fish paper to get a free main course! In the end we did
not pay for this dish but by this time our romantic dinner was completely
ruined.
Furthermore I ordered a selection of ice cream for pudding, and when it came
I only had 2 types - not impressed! They also had the nerve to try and
charge 8 GB Pounds. We found this outrageous for 2 balls of icecream and
so we had to complain again.
The evening went on as above and we were glad to get out as soon as we
could. My memory has probably lapsed over this past year, no doubt I have
forgotten some of the other horrors but the above is bad enough.
Please pass this message on to prevent other diners having such a
unenjoyable evening at a ludicrous expense, served up with poor grace.
Your sincerely,
Miss Nadine Furness
London SW1.
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