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Review content:
My wife and I visit Austin from New York every December, and we always set aside one evening for dinner with my sister and brother-in-law. They select the restaurant, always one of their favorites. They have frequently raved about Mars (in both locations), so we chose that for dinner on Dec 29. The evening began when two of us ordered martinis. The glasses were half-full (it was slightly more than a shot, really). We asked the waiter if this was the standard pour. He gave the glasses a perfunctory glance, and said that it was, and then added some confusing comment about total amount being affected by the way the ice is shaken. (When we walked past the bar at the end of the evening, all martinis were poured to the top of the glass). Then my wife then took a sip of her ginger ale, which was flat. We called the waiter over again. We tried to be light-hearted and self-deprecating, calling outselves the "table with bar troubles," but he responded with a curt, "It came from a can." He returned, and unceremoniously dropped a new ginger ale on the table (it was a bottle, not a can, and it was hot, which would certainly affect carbonation when poured over cold ice). As for the food, we had an excellent Thai Bouillabaisse, but all our appetizers were served on the cool side of room temperature, and the meats on our Tandoori mixed platter had no apparent spicing or characteristics one associates with Tandoor cooking. Overall, he food was acceptable, and we made the most of the evening (good company makes up for a lot), but the most distracting part of the evening was our waiter?s demeanor and attitude (after the first plates were dropped, he said ?I hope the food tastes good to you,? with a touch of weariness and condescension). Though he always had a smile fixed on his face, it was apparent he didn?t care about our comfort.
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