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| - My husband and I were excited to give AZ88 a try before the show we were seeing at the Scottsdale Performing Arts Center. They don't take reservations so we decided to arrive early to get an outdoor seat. There was none available so we opted for a table close to the window. We were seated about 4:50PM. The show we were going to see started at 7:30PM. Not sure if they were having an "off night" but the service was BEYOND slow. We didn't leave the restaurant until 7:20PM. When our waiter was at the table, he was very nice but he took forever to get questions answered and forgot to bring us our hot sauce.
We started off by ordering 2 appetizers and a bottle of wine. The appetizers arrived at the table before the wine. Ironically we felt we were going to be rushed because of this. The water chestnuts were great; the shrimp cocktail was nothing to write home about. The fries were also great.
As for cocktails, we both ordered the English Garden and it was terrible! It was supposed to be comprised of St. Germain elder-flower liqueur, Hendricks gin, and fresh cucumber. I tasted absolutely no elder-flower liqueur. It tasted like gin with poorly muddled cucumbers and had a very gritty texture; not worth $30 bucks for the pair. The waiter noticed we hardly touched them; when we said they weren't up to par he apologized, removed the 3/4 full martini glasses from the table, and nothing was done after this.
At around 6:15PM, we placed an order for the Golden Gate Cake, an Espresso Martini and a coffee with a Bailey's kicker. They did not arrive at our table until 7:00PM and they forgot cream and sugar for the coffee. Since our show was starting in just 30 minutes, we were hardly able to enjoy our drinks. My husband was able to flag down someone and ask for cream and sugar for his coffee but by 7:15PM, they still failed to bring it. At this point he had already poured the Bailey's into the coffee but it was still so black and bitter that he wasn't able to drink it. The dessert was described as a butter rum cake but it was super dry and just tasted like pound cake that was a few days too old. The Espresso Martini was redeeming but not quite enough to make us want to come back. We were hoping this would be our permanent before show destination but between the slow service and poor drinks, we will be looking for another place in Old Town.
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