I know, I know .. Harald is a Viking -theme restaurant, so why on earth did you go there? And on…read moretop of that you are a local! Weeeeeellll, I had been at a Harald (it is a chain) once before with foreign guests and thought to try it again.
When we were seated, I noticed that there was hardly anyone at the restaurant, although it was Saturday evening. The only other people at this large restaurant was a one small group of tourists. Since we only had an hour to eat (we were going to see a movie), we decided to skip the appetizers and just have a main course to be safe.
I ordered a pork plate and decided to have a beer with it. When asked for a recommendation, the waitress told us that they have their own house tar beer. I asked that was it similar to medieval beers like the German rauchbier (smoke beer) or steinbier (stone beer) the waitress told us that it was and that it was "really good". Well, after that kind of sales pitch I thought why not, let's give it a go.
When the tar beer arrived, I had one sip of it and though that wow, this is really terrible, and isn't anything like the old medieval beers. On the contrary, it tasted like really-really-really-really watered down beer with a HUGE amount of sugar added to it, making it taste almost like a syrup. I took another sip and couldn't drink any more after that, it was that bad.
The food arrived quickly after that and the waitress asked us that are we good drinks wise. I tried saying it the most politely way possible, that I had two sips of the beer and unfortunately it was simply undrinkable. The waitress apologized and asked me that would I like anything else with my food and I went with a Krušovice Cerne (dark lager). When the waitress gave me the dark Krušovice, she took the watered down beer resembling sugar-syrup mix (the tar beer) away and apologized once again.
The pork that I had was pretty good, although massively greasy. And when I say greasy, I mean that even in the good US of A diners would notice that this food is particularly unhealthy, and that is saying much.
When it was time to pay, I noticed that the restaurant was trying to charge me for both the Krušovice and the tar beer that they took away. I asked that was this an oversight on their behalf, since the beer clearly wasn't what they advertised it as (well heck, it didn't even resemble beer). The waitress said that their policy was that they will charge for everything no matter what. I said this was completely unacceptable (I never ever say this at restaurants) and she said that she'll talk to the manager if anything could be done about the situation. After a few minutes the manager walked right past our table, didn't stop and didn't want to make eye contact and went to the back of the restaurant. This was a bit strange as we were literally the only people at the restaurant (8pm on a Saturday!!). The waitress came back and said that the manager told her that the 'beer' tastes as it does we will be charged for the full amount. What the h..... yup, this is a tourist trap alright.
I guess it was my own fault for going to an theme restaurant that was completely empty. I dine out about five times a week on average and have done so for the past 18+ years. In all this time I've just had one experience that was worse than this... and that was in 2000.
I know it must be terrible to run a crew of 5-6 prime time on a Saturday and not having anyone at the restaurant, but if the customer is deeply disappointed in the food and/or service, the restaurant should always try to make it right. Even by giving a discount of 30 or 50% (in this case, 3-4eur) they could have fixed the situation. But they decided to go the other way and charge us the full amount, the manager couldn't care less about the situation and they lost two paying customers for life. Looks like they had already scared away the other locals... Just like the other locals, we won't be back either.
