| rev:text
| - 2 stars= food
1 star= service
One of those places where first impressions are everything.....the Barrymore FAILED, miserably.
A reservation was made far in advance for a birthday dinner, and was reinforced with the hostess upon arrival but no attention was taken to it after that. We were also completely IGNORED during our meal by our server and the manager that was trolling the dining room. So here goes...
Happy hour at the Barrymore includes bottles of wine, so we bought one because the bartender was not hospitable to offer a cocktail. The hostess wished me a happy birthday and guided us to a plush booth in a room of 3 parties of guests = a total of 10 guests in the dining room, including us. It was romantic and inviting.
Once we were seated, the waiter arrived and noticed we already had a bottle of wine, picked up the bottle and stated, "Oh I see you have wine already, you must have gotten here for happy hour." I was a little taken aback by his comment, but I let it go. He suggested some appetizers (the two most expensive ones), announced the specials, and offered sparkling or still water. He never offered another bottle of wine, mind you our bottle was 3/4 empty by now. A couple of minutes passed and a female server arrived with bottled water: glass bottle of Evian, nice ($9-nice we later found out).
Another 10 MINUTES passed, while watching our server walk back and forth pass us, in addition to a suited man strolling the dining room, then our server returned to take our order. By this time, we were ready to order everything, appetizer and dinner, so we did. We decided on the octopus that came recommended, and I chose the salmon entrée. Noted in the menu as "pan-fried with crispy skin," the waiter warned me that the Barrymore cooks their salmon to "medium" and I was fine with that, in fact, I prefer it (I was later disappointed). The other entrée we ordered was the squash curry. The waiter tried to upsell it by asking if we wanted to add shrimp or lobster. I didn't see that option in the menu anywhere, but whatever. We also opted for the creamed corn w/ lobster side dish, as recommended. I asked for bread before he left. Again, no attention taken to our now empty wine bottle or if we wanted more.
A few minutes later, the same female busser? arrived with bread and butter. During this time, I noticed the suited man again strolling the dining room and watching each table. He didn't seem to engage very much or engage with anyone. He stopped at our table earlier and noticed our wine had not been poured for us, so he graciously refilled our glasses and left the empty bottle on the table without any conversation. WEIRD. The octopus appetizer was delivered to the table by our server and he announced what it was then left. Again, NO OFFERING OF MORE WINE OR DRINKS. The octopus appetizer was excellent. Octopus wasn't chewy at all, perfectly grilled and the vegetables were very tasty. We thoroughly enjoyed the appetizer, every last bit of it without any attention from our waiter. He never returned to see how it was or if we were satisfied. He did manage to bus the empty plate. The female busser? again returned and cleaned up our table, then reset it for dinner.
After about 5-7 minutes, it was quick, dinner arrives and is brought to the table by the female who I am now sure was just a food runner. She was by far, the best person working there and I can't understand why she wasn't waiting tables. To recap, two more tables arrived during our dining period but one table also left leaving a total of 5 tables and now 14 guests in the dining room for our server. As we enjoyed our meal, I started to notice that the salmon was NOT cooked to medium, as previously announced. In fact, it was so dry that I had to spoon the sauce from the other meal we ordered in order to make it appetizing. The vegetables that accompanied the salmon were excellent and full of flavor; lots of colorful baby carrots and potatoes. The squash curry was good but REALLY lacked salt, it was very one-dimensional, and the vegetables were so finely diced that they resembled something you would use for a breakfast hash. It was also missing couscous. For $25, my salmon was oily and overcooked (and farm-raised at that); while for $22, the squash curry was disinteresting and unpleasant to look at. We completely finished our meal and were NEVER checked on by our server or the manager. Where does that happen? and why??
We were so unsatisfied that we had to bring it to the attention of the house and had a chat with the manager. He apologized and blamed it on the 20-person party they had on the cocktail patio. I didn't understand that or accept it. He offered dessert, I wasn't interested. He did comp our appetizer from the bill but I still feel it wasn't enough. We came for a special occasion and it was bad. We weren't treated with care or hospitality. The Barrymore left me bewildered. I won't be giving it a second chance or recommending it
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