My husband made a reservation to celebrate my birthday; when we went we liked the atmosphere the menu, and the view. Unfortunately our dinner & celebration was ruined by the miscommunication of the server.
We ordered the first course that the server recommended to us which was Goat cheese Ravioli, then ordered the Shiitake mushrooms flatbread ( it was delicious). Then Topher brought some old cold bread and uneatable bread with butter( It's a shame for this well known restaurant to serve like this bread. At the time of ordering the entree i asked the server (Topher) if we can have the oak filet (with sauce on the side because my husband doesn't like Teriyake sauce) he confirmed no problem, and to have the potatoes without the bacon, he replied that it's prepared with the bacon; the server did not give us other substitution until i asked him.
So it was obviously that we don't eat pork. when i ordered the flounder for myself , Topher did not mention the meal also is served with bacon.
When we received our course, my husband 's filet had sauce so we callled Topher our server and let him about the sauce, he did apologize and took it to the Chef and less than five minutes he brought the steak to us which i assumed that the chef just washed out the sauce put it in another clean plate and send to us. Anyways i did not liked how the steak looked and when my husband tried it he did not like the taste at all.
We put the steak to the side and i asked my husband to share t he flounder with me; our server were passing by and said ""anything wrong with your food"" i replied that we did not like the steak, Topher apologized and asked us if he can order something else from the menu, my husband replied that he will go with the flounder fish while eating we discovered that there is some small pieces mixed with the sauce; we stopped eating and waved to Topher to come to our table, when he came we asked if the small pieces are pork and confirmed it.
We were really upset and told him how come we asked not to have smoked bacon with the other meal and you never mentioned to us that the flounder also has pork;
his reply was that he thought it was only one person not eating pork and made us feel like it was our responsibility to tell him that both of us.
I strongly believed and shared with my husband that this server has no serving background and definitely is not professional, all what he cares about is just to take the order run through and get paid. i understand that the restaurant is busy but every guests deserves the best service especially in California Grill.
After few minutes the manager approached our table (his name is Gary, he is bold and in his 50's or 60's) and apologized for the miscommunication; i replied that's the worst service we experienced; we've been to Victoria & Albert and other upscaled restaurant and always the server has to make sure to communicate with customer especially after requesting no pork on the other meal; the manager looked very upset after i expressed myself and then left to come back with the desert menu saying that of course we won't charge you for the two courses.
I never imagined that we will get this very low class, awful service from California grill. My birthday was spoiled, we were so excited and looking forward to celebrate that night.
We were very very disappointed with our dinner experience: very bad service. And from what i have noticed that the high volume of business is wearing off the service staff as well as management, it seems like they just love to make money but doesn't care about service.
we won't go back again, and i will make sure to share this experience with all our friends.
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