Today, I looked forward to celebrating my friend's 25th birthday at Portobello. There were many times when I walked by that I wanted to try them, as the sign is bright red and the whole place just looks so classy when lit by candles.
But sometimes, life is full of plain old let downs. The visit was disappointing to say the least. Of the food between what my boyfriend and I got, the best part was the lukewarm tap water... which tied with their (supposedly "made in house") hazelnut cheesecake because it tasted store brought. That was about it.
Let's start with the main, my boyfriend's main was better than mine... he had pork medallion that was nothing special and nothing notable but just OK. The gnocchi I got tasted like it was cooked in a sauce made from Campbell's canned soup! Not that I'm dissing that stuff but I sure as hell don't need to pay $16 and I didn't need to add the amount of salt I did just to give it enough flavour to boost it from "bland" status.
Now that we're on the topic of soups, the carrot soup tasted like a mush of carrots cooked in copious amounts of water. I hate to repeat the theme of BLAND here, but alas, I must. Not only that, the soup was served at barely warm levels. I mean, if you're going to make me soup and serve it BLAND, at least heat it up for me so that when I add (lots) of salt, it will dissolve at a reasonable time frame.
As I've mentioned, the cheesecake was OK. Nothing special. It was part of the 3 course meal (senior's diet plan) that my boyfriend ordered.
The most disappointing part to me, was the service. Not only did they spill water on the birthday boy. But they also refused to split the bill for a larger party. Then when we asked if we can pay certain parts on credit card, the waiter said "NO. No splitting bills. It says on the menu you can't split bills". My friend tried to explain we're not splitting it but trying to pay parts on certain bills. Now I don't know about you, but I've gone to lots of places in my life from crappy little corner places, to your neighborhood pubs, and large chain restaurants, and I've NEVER had a problem with paying a portion on one credit card and the remainder on another. Needless to say, Portobello has its own rules that it's sticking to. And that rule is to not accommodate at all!
When we looked at the bill closely (because now we had to do math worthy of 20 accountants just to figure out our payments) we noticed they put the tax on top of the gratuity. That doesn't make the gratuity 15% anymore. It makes it into 17% +. That's like 17% more than they deserve for the kind of service where they slowly brought out one plate at a time, spilled water on my friend, failed to keep our glasses filled, failed to give us adequate seating room and started to collect plates before everyone was finished their meals!
Finally, it cost my boyfriend and I $61 to experience such a horrendously disappointing dine out.
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