We had heard about the change from Oceanview Bar & Grill into OV Bistro, so we were drawn to Montrose to try out what we hoped would be a great experience. We read several reviews and were convinced even more.\r
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The actual experience we had was good and also bad.\r
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On the good side of the page was the food in general. We had drinks, appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts. The appetizer list, though not extensive or inspired in terms of its range was nonetheless good. We had the combo seafood tartar and some beef scewers. As I said, they were not inspired but very flavorful.\r
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Salads were better, and we felt we on trail of a wonderful food adventure. The service was quite nice and sure-handed.\r
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Entrees were very good as well. We ordered a beautiful steak with blue cheese and meatloaf of all things, both of which were surprisingly good. Nothing on the menu is particularly original or uncommon, but smallish portions were worth the bucks because the quality was up there and delicious.\r
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Then, unfortunately, the wheels came off the evening. The band began to play. It would appear that OV Bistro also serves as a halfway house for extremely loud and equally bad bands. Whe I say loud, I mean so loud that in the restaurant section (the band is in the bar), we could not hear ourselves across the table without shouting.\r
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The hostess, whom we were informed was the owner, sat at a booth alternately drinking, leaping up to try to hush the band and snapping her fingers furiously at waitstaff to indicate that they should take care of customers walking in the door.\r
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We ordered desserts, but probably shouldn't have. These were freezer fare and nothing more. The pounding music in the form of God awful covers of music that rapidly became science fiction in its extreme cheese-i-ness pounded on.\r
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We shouted our thanks to our server who was very good and wandered into the bar to observe the train wreck of bad music, rednecks and booze. The bartender, who we became convinced was a homeless man with zero grooming sloshed drinks around to a crowd which, contrary to the restaurant crowd in the ""bistro"" part of the place, looked like what you's expect at a truck stop.\r
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To recap: Good food. Good service. Horrible, distracted management. Frozen desserts. Atmospere like a boiler factory. Raucous bar crowd like Barstow on a Friday night. Bartender that literally looked like they closed the local homeless shelter.\r
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The food's the thing, but our experience at OV Bistro showed that the only thing worth shouting about happens in the dining room once the bad lets loose! We won't be back.
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