| rev:text
| - I've been wanting to try Don's since I moved to Lakewood 2.5 years ago. The iconic building is beautiful, historic, and hard to miss during my commute downtown from the west side, but I figured I'd save it for a special occasion. My birthday was this past weekend and my parents are big seafoodies. I'm constantly trying to get them to come up to CLE and try new things, so I figured now was as good a time as any to finally check it out ...
Reservation was at 6:30 on a Sunday. The restaurant was relatively empty but had an upscale, welcoming atmosphere with white, linen tablecloths and candles lit on the tables. We ordered a bottle of chardonnay, the shrimp cocktail to share, and a round of salad and soup (lobster bisque and one seafood chowder). They also brought out complimentary bread with herbed butter.
Everything was simply "okay." The amount of lobster in the bisque was somewhat substantial, but the consistency was very oily. Wine was wine. Shrimp cocktail was shrimp cocktail, but came with extra horseradish (yum). Salad was meh, although they did split it without my bf and I asking because we implied we'd share (props). But the most memorable thing up to this point, to be honest, was the free butter.
For entrees, my mom and I went with the freshline scallops, my dad got the crusted walleye (looked good), and my boyfriend ordered the seared salmon (looked a little rare). Again, I wasn't blown away by the food. I actually started feeling a little sick while I was eating my entree, but I thought maybe I was just full or tired (it had been a loooong weekend). So I sort of just picked at it some more and asked for a box. Big fan of leftovers anyway!
Service sidenote: Our waiter seemed a little off -- he flat out didn't answer me when I asked him a question and at one point dropped a menu -- but being a former server, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He also brought me a chocolate eclair with a candle in it for my birthday. It was delicious, much appreciated, and hands down the best part of the meal for me.
The rest of the table also wanted dessert, so my mom ordered tangerine sorbet, my dad got the chocolate mouse, and my bf went with the creme brûlée, which was really good at first but looked a little undercooked and congealed towards the end.
THIS IS WHERE THINGS SHIFT ...
An overall okay experience took an extreme nosedive when we got home. After watching TV for 20-30 minutes, the bf suddenly became very sick. Without going into too much detail, it was very obvious he was suffering from some sort of food poisoning situation that he needed to flush out of his system. After he did and got some sleep, he was back to his normal self.
Sighhhh. I'm incredibly supportive of local businesses and I'm not one to normally be negative, but this was really unfortunate. If the food had been incredible, I miiiight attempt a return. But as much as I hate to say it, we probably won't go back. :\
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)