| rev:text
| - Good food. Comically bad service.
This will be a long review, so to summarize:
1. Waited 30 minutes to be seated.
2. Did not receive the food I ordered (sea bass ceviche)
3. Some of the food I ordered and did get was not as advertised (tuna ceviche and branzino)
4. Got food I did not order (mac and cheese and fried calamari)
5. They were out of some items on the menu (oysters)
6. Staff were confused and unapologetic
I made reservations for 8:30 PM on a Thursday. The staff at the front desk looked up at me every 10 minutes saying it would be just another minute. I was finally seated at 9:00 PM with no apology.
Copacabana by Sea is an all you can eat, made to order, seafood restaurant. They start you off with a seafood chowder and rice, and then allow you to order 3 items off of the menu at a time. Waiters also walk around with grilled fish and shrimp on skewers which are not on the menu.
I decided to start with 3 orders of ceviche - sea bass, tuna, and salmon. The salmon ceviche arrived within 5 minutes. It was good, but the flavours were overpowered by the vinegar. After finishing the salmon, I advised the waitress that the other 2 orders had not arrived, she looked confused (which became the theme of the night) and said she would look into it. In the meantime, she took my next order of branzino, grilled calamari, and black cod.
The grilled calamari arrived, followed by the tuna ceviche. The calamari was excellent. The tuna ceviche was once again overpowered by the vinegar - it also came with the wrong ingredients as part of the fish salad.
The next items to arrive were the black cod, which was delicious, and lobster mac and cheese and deep fried calamari, which I didn't order. The calamari was bland and no better than the pre-breaded and frozen stuff you can get at Costco. The lobster mac and cheese on the other hand was excellent - cheesy with large chunks of lobster.
I advised the waitress about an hour into the meal that I had still not received the ceviche and that I believed the the table to our right had received our branzino as they looked surprised when it arrived at their table. She had a puzzled look and said she would look into it. She also took my order for pan seared octopus and panko fried oysters. They were out of oysters...
5 minutes later I saw a waiter arrive with my branzino (a whole fish which is grilled and cleaned at your table). The wait was finally over! Except that he turned and gave it to the people seated to the table on our left, who had gotten there 15 minutes ago and still hadn't had a chance to order their second round of food. Once again, my food was stolen and I could see the thieves enjoying what what rightfully mine.
The waitress arrived with my order of octopus, which was good. I once again told her that I was still waiting for the branzino and the ceviche and she said that she would look into it.
10 minutes later, a plate of fish that looked like it had been attacked by a cat arrived at the table. The waiter apologized for the appearance and assured us that it was fresh branzino and not someone's left overs. For the record, when a waiter introduces a food by explaining that the shards of fish remains are not from someone else's plate despite what it may look like, it doesn't inspire confidence. He told me that while the fish is usually cleaned at the table in front of guests, he did it at the grill because he thought it was undercooked. I decided to try a bit of the ripped apart carcass only to discover that it was dry and overcooked. I am now confident that I ate reheated leftovers.
The meal ended with grilled pineapple, which is always a good way to end things.
|
![[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)