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| - This is a real oddball place with some very good elements, some very weird, and unevenly trained staff.
Let me start by saying the steak is exquisite, perfectly aged, among the best I've ever had. It's a nice room.
With that in mind, they had to work really hard to earn anything less than a 4 or 5 star review from me. But, unfortunately there were a slew of negatives, for instance:
1) They were out of 70% of the menu items I attempted to order (if not the dish itself, a key component of the dish.) For instance, after looking at the menu online I was dying to try the morcilla with sea urchin. Guess what? No sea urchin. No prawns either. (I can actually understand that to some extent: if you want things to be super-fresh, and you're nowhere near the ocean, you may be out of seafood items from time-to-time, even quite frequently.) Still, when I tried to order a side and was told "that's out of season" I wonder why it's even on the menu, unless for some twisted reason the chef wants his diners to experience disappointment.
2) While our waiter was extremely professional, helpful and competent, some of the runners were not adequately trained. For instance, after the waiter had talked us into sampling the West Coast oysters, the runner showed up at our table and announced: "Here are your East Coast oysters." When we said we thought we'd ordered West Coast oysters she said: "No. They're from the East Coast. British Columbia." There were other, similar blunders.
3) Even though the place was half empty, and we had a reservation, we were made to wait.
4) All the mains are cooked very very slowly, for a very long time. The result is excellent; not suggesting they change that, just that it creates a very odd atmosphere to be sitting for a very long time after your appetizers with nothing but empty clean plates in front of you, and you look around and everybody around you is sitting at tables with empty clean plates in front of them. At least serve bread or something.
One other thing worth mentioning: this is not a good option for a solo business traveler. Although it looks like from their online menu you can order steak by the pound, you really can't. (Like you can't say "I want a 1 lb. steak" I don't think.) They are bigger and meant to be shared.
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