I met some former co-workers at Alley Cat tonight at Alley Cat. I love Zach Bruell's other restaurants, especially L'Albatros and Chinato, so I was looking forward to trying his latest venture. Lets just say I wasn't impressed.
The place was very busy. We checked earlier in the week and they didn't have any reservations open so we took our chance hoping to get a seat on the patio (they don't take reservations on the patio). No tables available, but we were able to get a table inside which was great, but It would have been nice to have been seated somewhere other than across from the men's room.
Our server and the gentleman filling water and bread were very attentive. I ordered the grilled octopus, too bad I didn't read the reviews first because it was a mistake. The sauce and garnish were great but the octopus itself was over-cooked. Now that I read the other reviews I wish I would have said something to the server, but now that I think about it he didn't come back to check on us so I didn't even have the opportunity to say anything about it. Strike one and two.
We finished our meals our server cleared our dishes and asked if we wanted anything else. We were busy talking so we said not right now, but after a few minutes our server came back with our checks. Once we got our checks we commented to one another that we would have liked to have stayed for another drink, but it seemed like he wanted us to go We were only there for about 1.5 hours so it's not like we were lingering, but we just decided to pay our check and go. A missed opportunity for an additional sale. Strike three.
They're new so I'll give them another shot, but they better get their act together overall, and on this menu item...seems like a lot of unhappy octopus diners.