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| - I don't even know where to start other than saying that my experience here was absolutely awful. Bear with me, this is going to be a long review because there is a lot I need to warn you about.
The decor in the place is upscale but done with cheap materials like laminate floors and tables. It requires one to ignore the terrible location and Hallmark store across the way to truly enjoy the ambiance. One must also try to ignore the staff, who are dressed like they are either working the streets or living on them. It's never a good sign when the (few) patrons are dressed appropriately and the staff is not. The "Whorestess," as we dubbed the hostess due to her painted on jeans and ginormous silver snake skin shoes, walked us halfway through the place then started to giggle and exclaimed "Oh my gosh! That table doesn't even exist!" and then hiked us back to the hostess stand to find one that did. She then tried to seat us about 6 inches from the stage and pianist, even though the place was pretty much empty. We asked her for a table that wouldn't require asking the musician to pass the salt, and got a table next to the bus stand where a group of hooched and scruffy staff were playing grab ass and comparing notes on their tips from the night before.
Ordered the cheese fondue, which they made table side. Very uncomfortable having a ditzy waitress standing at the table cooking when you're trying to have a conversation. She gave us a play by play of what she was doing like it was some public access cooking show. Very weird. At one point, she cranked up the heat, dumped in some wine and lemon juice and then disappeared for the first of many times. She eventually came back, continued the show with the little bit of liquid that hadn't evaporated and put the fondue in a huge pot that was well above eye level, which made it very difficult to eat and kept us from seeing that there was nowhere near enough fondue for two people (you can only order for couples) and that the fondue was burning and crusting all over the pot. Because there was so little fondue in the pot, it got very hot very quickly and I ended up burning my mouth. The fondue was served with stale bread (sliced, not cubed), brown apple slices with stems and seeds, broccoli florets with dried out brown edges and "roasted" potatoes that were dry and practically frozen in the middle. The serving was appetizer size rather than enough to be an entree for two people, so my husband kindly let me eat the fondue and grilled out when we got home. Other tables seemed to get better portions, so it seems they aren't measuring the ingredients and you just have to hope that you don't get a stingy server.
We'd also ordered the $7 asparagus appetizer, which the menu said was baked. The pathetic little pile of limp asparagus was actually fried and incredibly greasy and so tough I couldn't bite through them.
Finished up the meal with chocolate fondue, which actually tasted pretty good, but wasn't really fondue. It's just chocolate sauce (Hershey's syrup, maybe?) in a raised bowl with a votive candle underneath to give the illusion of being a fondue. For $11, I'd skip it and go around the corner for some chocolates from Art Mart instead.
In addition to the bad service and terrible food, the atmosphere was also pretty unpleasant. There is a pianist which you'd think would give it an upscale feel. But that's contradicted by the TVs all over the place playing baseball games. It's almost as if they looked around and said "Oh my gosh! We don't want this place to be classy - better rock the ESPN and have everyone show up to work in wrinkly polo shirts and torn, dirty jeans!" It is also marketing itself as a bachelorette party destination, meaning that halfway through our dinner, a large group of drunk women with plastic penis necklaces got seated next to us and pretty much ruined any shred of a nice meal that may have remained. The place is pretty small and the tables are all fairly close together, so be prepared to get to know your neighbors whether you want to or not. We also got treated to the lovely acrid odor of a server burning a fondue to a crisp and nonetheless serving it to the unhappy looking couple two tables over.
Overall, this was a very negative experience from start to finish. Basically, it's an over decorated off campus Kam's that's making a half assed attempt at food service. I would highly recommend that you avoid 88 Broadway, which shouldn't be too hard since it's in a dead mall.
88 is also responsible for getting Bill, the friendly harmless homeless gentleman who is a fixture of downtown Urbana, banned from Lincoln Square Mall where he often goes (went) to escape the elements. So yeah. In addition to running a craptacular establishment, these people are also assholes. See http://illinoishomepage.net/media_player.php?media_id=16581 for details.
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