Dustin took me out on our first date night after the baby. We had a sitter, I took over an hour to get ready, there was a shower involved - the bar was set high.
Dustin surprised me by taking me to see Kathy Griffin at Caesars Windsor, he also made reservations for Nero's. Oooh, fancy steakhouse! I had the scallops starter, and it was delicious, Dustin had some salad. For a main course I had the barramundi. Now reading the description I expected it to be as delicious as the appetizer - "Potato crusted Australian Barramundi: Braised fennel, green beans, tomato ragout, artichoke emulsion, black olives." Well when my dish finally arrived, only and hour and 30 minutes after we ordered (and way after the people at other tables had sat down and left after eating) I took that first bite expecting heaven, and blech! No one mentioned the intense spicy mustard that held the potato crust in place! That was a deal breaker. I know that had the menu mentioned the mustard, I would not have ordered this dish. They really should mention the strong flavors in the menu. Even with the mustard ruining the fish, the other stuff was good and i was determined to make the best of it. Since Dustin likes strong mustard, we would split fish. Dustin gave me half of his salmon, and I tried to give him half of the Barramundi from hell - it wouldn't cut in half. It wouldn't cut . . . .it was still raw in the middle. I waited an hour and a half for RAW fish, and this was not sushi tuna! This is where it really started going down hill.
It then took 5-10 minutes (or what seemed like forever) to flag down the waitress that had been ignoring us all night. Finally we caught her attention and told her the fish was raw, I then took this opportunity to tell her I didn't like the mustard, and she suggested she bring out a second salmon. Well the second Salmon (from the show night menu) came out really quickly - too quickly. Did she take someone else's fish? Have they been screwing up all night and had extra laying around? Well this second salmon was cooked, and edible, but the risotto on top was a brick of rice. Not a good replacement.
We ordered dessert and finished our meal. The manager came by and let us know that they would not be charging us for the raw barramundi, or the replacement salmon since I didn't eat any.
We will not be going back here. There were some positives, but they were greatly diminished by all the negatives of the night. I mean, maybe the waitress didn't realize we were trying to see the show. And since we ordered a bottle of wine, maybe she thought we were there to linger and she could count us as the easy table. I don't know what her thinking was, but she should have asked, not assumed. The poor service combined with the disappointment of the entrees really convinced me that this was a sub-par restaurant playing dress-up! read more