Sunday, March 6, 2011

Restaurant Review: The Reserve on L

I'd been to The Reserve on a number of occasions for parties and special events. This time I went to use my What's the Deal voucher for dinner with a friend.

We arrived for our 7:30 reservation around 7:10, and went to the upstairs bar while we waited. We came back downstairs to find there was only one "table" available which was really a sagging couch and an Ikea table. The seating situation wasn't really conducive for eating but we went with it.

My friend and I ordered a salad and 4 tapas. I was a little concerned because our waitress didn't write anything down and had to clarify what we ordered twice. I'm somewhat of a picky eater so my orders typically require me to request meals without certain foods.

We ended up getting the greens salad for starters, it was ok. It was basically a garden salad with a bunch of green beans on it. Next our waitress brought out the Shrimp on garlic sauce (why it's not called shrimp in or and garlic sauce is beyond me) and the taquena w/ guacamole. Both of those were very good and I'd highly recommend them. After that we had the chicken sliders and a side of fries. The chicken was pretty bland but the sauce and pineapple salsa saved it, the fries were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside just the way I like them.

After that course we just sat and waited for our final course the shrimp penne pasta which is apparently one of their signature dishes and is much larger than their traditional tapas. While we waited, the other waitress working on the main level finally brought out the water we'd asked our waitress for since before we'd even ordered our meal. The other waitress took up our plates and asked us how was everything. I told her good but we still had another course.

Finally our waitress came back and was like oh you have something else? I politely said yes and reminded her about the shrimp penne pasta with no mushrooms (the dish I had to repeat twice to make sure she didn't put mushrooms on). if she'd written it down, there wouldn't have been a problem, just saying. Needless to say, she'd forgotten to put in the order but blamed it on being delivered to another table, yeah ok. I said whatever and that I'd just take it to go.
Overall, The Reserve has a nice vibe to it. The food is pretty good. If our waitress wasn't so scatterbrained the rating would have been a solid 4 stars.

Honestly, I doubt I'll be going back anytime soon, unless it's for drinks and more of those tasty taquenas.


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