rev:text
| - My wife and I went here for our 15th Wedding Anniversary dinner. We chose the place specifically because of Mark Tarbell's reputation as a chef.
Everybody makes mistakes. It is how you handle them that shows what kind of a person you are. In the restaurant business, it's that attitude that turns a "we won't be back" into "we'll definitely be back!"
The story:
We arrived for our reservation and were promptly seated. We started with the Kale Chips as a starter, and both quite liked them.
I ordered the scallops and my wife had the halibut special. My wife's was excellent, she was very happy. My scallops were fairly underdone -- cutting into each of them it was clearly raw in the middle. The garnish of pea tendrils and morels was fantastic.
I informed a passing employee (I thought she was a hostess) as our waiter was busy with a large table, and she agreed with a quite surprised look that they were definitely undercooked.
When I got the plate back, it had been reheated and not refired...I was a little surprised to have them reheated (at $38 a plate) instead of a refire, but they were well cooked now and quite good.
I informed the waiter after I'd finished that the round small potatoes had also been a bit underdone but edible, probably because the garnish was rushed by the undercooked scallops. To be honest, the waiter kind of ignored us a bit after this.
The employee that I'd returned my dinner to came back and apologized again. It turns out she was a manager, and she informed us that she was comping my dinner, as well as two deserts of our choice.
The deserts, by the way, were outstanding! My wife had the creampuffs and I had vanillabean cheesecake with a very unique and tasty rosemary caramel sauce.
After dinner, the owner and Chef, Mark Tarbell came by. He said that mistakes didn't happen often, but that he wanted to make sure it was properly resolved, and he apologized and specifically thanked me for bringing a mistake to his attention.
I said that it had, and I was happy, and my wife specifically told Chef Tarbell how pleased she was with manager's response and attitude.
We'll definitely be back to Tarbell's both because of the food (which was excellent, and that they fixed the error quickly) and the customer service!
|