I was ready to indulge in "culinary expertise at its finest" as The Hunters Club website states. I had a reservation and was greeted and seated promptly. The dining space was beautiful. Our waitress took our order then brought our ambiance (candle, salt, pepper, mirror platter) to the table. Shortly after she asked what we would like to order. There were no water glasses on the table and no drink menu. I asked for a drink menu and the reply was "like wine?". She brought the wine menu and we received water, two slices of bread and a bowl of aioli. The aioli tasted like Miracle Whip and chives. The bread was greasy and might have already had the aioli on it.
We were surprised the wine list had all red wines wine under $30 (which is already marked up the appropriate 30-50%). I'm not complaining of price, just that the wine list is from Walmart plus one option of Dom Perignon. We ordered the Bogle Petite Syrah (one we know we like and is a great value), but had to repeat it to the waiter 3 times before finally pointing to it on the menu. Seriously, there are only 30 wines here and no other petite Syrah. We saw him go to the wine cabinet and pull the original cork from the bottle by hand and fill one glass and half of another. As he went for another bottle we tasted the wine and it was pretty sour. I'll admit I'm no wine connoisseur, but this was pretty bad. We tasted the half glass before he came back. As he filled up my husband's glass, the cork had been pulled through the tin foil at the mouth and was poured through the jagged edges of the tin. Why not get a foil cutter or just remove it? With the fresh wine mixed with the old wine it tasted better, confirming the wine was open a bit too long to serve.
At this point we are on our heels and don't send the wine back. We just move on without drinking it.
At this point we order safe bets like prime rib and filet mignon with side salads. The salads arrived, they were ice berg salad with some rotted leaves. A little too much dressing for my taste but this is personal and most would not think the salad was too bad. We were simply on high alert at this point. A very large tray with six meals on it came to the table behind us and they were served. A few minutes later we realized our food was on that tray dying and was later served to us. My filet was cooked to medium instead of medium rare which is normally fine, but it had an inch of grey around the edge. This leads me to believe the steak was likely very cold when they cooked it, drying out the edges in order to get the center done. Taste was good for what is was. My husbands prime rib was mysteriously seared on both sides. It was medium instead of med-rare which again is fine, but is this left over prime rib that is cut and warmed up on the flat top?
Rice is a little dry but flavorful, baked potato was fine.
At the end of our meal we were a little astounded. We came for an elegant meal as described by their website, but please. The price was great at $68 which I would gladly pay for what I got. This place could be so much more with a little training and avoidance of little mistakes and better service. I want to make clear the staff was friendly and great. It just seemed like they have never poured a bottle of wine before, etc. The ambiance is small but really nice.
We asked for our check and talked about how to help them improve the experience. When the check came, this was the final nail. The comment card in the booklet had already been filled out with "Excellent" on every check regarding the menu, service, and experience. Now I personally hope this was filled out by someone else who didn't sign their name, AND they didn't check or take it out of the check booklet. I don't want to even suggest this restaurant or it's employees deposit copious amounts of excellent reviews fraudulently, but after the dinner service I just couldn't imagine what I might see next! I removed the pre-filled out review. There is no place for reviews on their website. I am here to try and improve a beautiful restaurant with friendly staff who need some training to achieve what their website sells. "Culinary expertise at its finest". Yeah right read more
