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| - I came here with a friend to celebrate her birthday (her choice) on a Wednesday night at about 7PM. This Boston Pizza location is in the Brock Road plaza that has the Walmart and Sobeys in it, closer to the end with Sobeys. Although the parking lot always looks full, this restaurant always seems half empty - can't quite figure that one out.
We walked in and the hostess greeted us and asked where we wanted to sit (patio, bar or dining room); we picked dining room and she gave us a choice of a booth, which we asked for. A few minutes later, we sat down with menus and started to peruse.
Odd thing, there were two "wine" glasses on the table that were etched with some kind of design. I think they were for some kind of promotion on alcohol but we never found out what for. Weird. Our server also never cleared them away when we both ordered water?
Neither of us were sure what we wanted so it took us a while to decide - it also took our server close to 10 minutes to approach our table and offer us drinks. Neither of us were pleased with that and when she did come over and ask for our drink order, I had to tell her we were ready to order. If you've read any of my other reviews, you probably know that having to say that is my biggest pet peeve at a restaurant. If your customers are ready to order when you come by for a drink order, either you've got regulars who eat at your restaurant all the time or you're taking too bloody long to get to the table. Here, it was the latter (as is usually the case).
We ended up ordering bandera bread to start and my friend got the chipotle cheesy mushroomy pasta thing and I went with the Chicken Ciabatta sandwich with the cactus cut potato chips. I did let the waitress know that it was my friend's birthday we were celebrating when we ordered and she made a point of acknowledging it and wishing my friend a happy birthday.
And then... another 15 minutes went by while we waited to get our water. Seriously? It takes you 15 minutes to get two glasses of water? I wasn't impressed by this point. I was even more not impressed when our Bandera Bread came out and we didn't get side plates, just a few napkins, before our server smartened up and brought some over after I ASKED for them. We also had to ask for cutlery because there'd never been any on our table. Really? That's the basics of working at a restaurant.
Onto the food - the Bandera bread was, as always, amazing. It's really simple: just pizza dough on the bottom, some kind of olive oil garlicy sauce and then cheese on top. It comes with this sort of garlicy sauce to dip in and two of us can never leave a piece on the plate. Probably one of the best appetizers to go for on the menu.
The Ciabatta Chicken sandwich was all in, a massive disappointment. I've seen other people order it and it always looks fantastic. My sandwich that was nothing special taste-wise, looked picture perfect. But this sandwich is simply chicken (which, by the way, WAS cooked to perfection, can't deny that), tomato, lettuce and garlic mayo on a bun. It was boring. SO boring - perhaps I should have expected as much but I thought something classic like that would be done well and that it would taste pretty good. I ended up picking the sandwich apart, eating most of the chicken and then the nicely grilled parts of the bun. Will never order that again and wouldn't recommend it unless you've got a picky eater or someone who doesn't like spice or anything crazy. The cactus cut potatoes were good... in the beginning. The ones that were thin were nice and crispy and great to dip in the sauce they gave me. But most of them were too thickly cut OR not cooked enough to be crispy. They folded easily and were soft... very odd - not a terrible thing but not what I was expecting.
Our server was good enough to bring my friend a dessert of choice for free (cheesecake) and she popped a candle in it as well. I was kind of hoping for the staff to do a happy birthday song like they usually do but I guess our server didn't feel like rallying the staff or just didn't bother because we didn't get that treatment - disappointing, especially when I've seen it done many times at this location (and others) before. So I sang her happy birthday on my own :)
All in, this was really a typical BP experience for me. The service was abysmal and the food was mediocre. BP has a few stand out dishes that are great but I would never EVER choose BP for myself for dinner. I WAS starting to come around before this experience but this was the last straw. The only reason I end up at BP is because friends always suggest it and I feel bad saying no since it was her birthday and her choice. After this experience, I'd say avoid this location like the plague. It wasn't busy, there was no reason for us to have such completely crappy service and the food was disappointing.
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