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| - Búzios has been on my to try list for quite some time. When I saw a Groupon for it, I bought one and planned to have dinner here on the night I was going to see Penn & Teller at the Rio.
I had a reservation for 6:30 and I was promptly seated in an almost empty restaurant. There was one table occupied and one person eating at the seafood bar. I had looked at the menu online, but I took some time looking there, changing my mind, and then ordering. I was brought a bread basket, served water, and brought an iced tea quickly.
I ordered a jumbo lump crabmeat cocktail, the miso Chilean sea bass, and the 7 layer chocolate cake for dessert. The lump crabmeat was the best part of the meal. The crab was tasty and the cocktail sauce they brought had extra horseradish to mix in. I really enjoyed this appetizer.
The sea bass was disappointing. It was on the menu under their "House Signatures" section of the menu. It's described as sea bass with a house made miso glaze. What I got was more of a miso gravy than glaze and it wasn't appealing. When I tasted it, I wished I had ordered the plain sea bass. The sea bass was moist and very hot (temperature). The entrée comes with two sides and I chose cole slaw and garlic fries. The fires were good but they had absolutely no taste of garlic. The cole slaw was OK.
When it came to dessert, I had asked my server if the cobbler was warmed. He said yes. I asked him if it was already warm and he said no. I ordered the cobbler and asked that it not be warmed. About 3 minutes later, he came back and said they ran out of cobbler. I opted for the 7 layer chocolate cake. I wonder if they really were out or if the cobbler was indeed kept warm and he didn't want to tell me that.
Service was spotty during the night. Empty Sweet 'n Low packets were not removed from the table until I put them in the empty crab cocktail glass. Iced tea wasn't refilled as quickly as many restaurants of lesser cost, and the table was not properly bussed. The waiter didn't remove the bread basket and bread plate before he brought the dessert. After I had taken a few bites of the cake, a bus person came by and removed those items.
And then there's the Groupon. The fine print says not valid with any other..... including Total Rewards. That means, they don't give you the TR pricing. It's not that much of a loss to the customer and it shouldn't be that big of a deal for Búzios either. $1 more for the appetizer, $3 more for the sea bass, and $1 more for dessert. You got $5 more out of me for using a Groupon. Was it worth it to you? Also, the Groupon states that an 18% service fee (note they can't say gratuity anymore because of IRS rules) will be applied to the bill prior to discount. I somewhat understand this, but my server got cheated a bit because I normally do 20%. Not that much difference but hey, I'm getting back part of the TR pricing I couldn't have.
Finally, reservations were made through Open Table. At any other restaurant, as soon as I check in, Open Table says I have 100 points. As of this afternoon, my Open Table points are "pending".
This apparently is the way Búzios operates. Don't be business friendly with the customer. Instead, challenge them and nickel and dime them every step of the way. Groupons normally are sold by new companies to drive traffic and make a name. The other reason is to help failing places. Since the Búzios Groupon is an ongoing seller, I can only imagine that they're struggling to stay alive.
What a mistake it was to come here!
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