It was my plan to experience Darien Social tonight. I read their OmNomCT preview (OOPS, and earlier version of this post said review - it was a preveiw), I studied the menu while salivating on my keyboard. I knew I wanted shrimp and grits. But, alas, it was not meant to be.
Thirteen minutes we sat at our table with no service. I know this because we stopped at CVS to pick up a prescription on the way in - it was time stamped 4:50. By the time we left after being ignored for so long it was 5:05. So that's actually 15 minutes, but let's assume 2 minutes were spent walking the 50 feet between CVS and the restaurant and finding a hostess to seat us.
You read that right. We had to find the hostess to seat us. In fact, there's a sign when you go in the front door that directs you to walk to the back, wave to the chef on your way, and find a hostess. When we found her she didn't have menus so we stood there while she went into the main dining room to get them. Then she sat us near the window by the bar. Not sure why - we passed a bunch of empty tables and booths on the way. "These are my favorite tables" she said. So there we sat...for 13 minutes. We read the menu, my husband got up to look at the vodka selection and he was unnoticed by the staff. He sat back down, we waited, nobody brought us water, he expressed his displeasure, still no one acknowledged us, we waited a few more minutes and that was it. We were out of there.
On the way out my husband turned to the busboy and told him why we were leaving and he just said “oh.”
Oh?
So we went to The Goose one block down. We told them what happened and they were very nice to us. They even brought us water. The restaurant was practically empty but we still got great service. Crazy, huh? The beet and goat cheese salad just plain rocked. Red and yellow beets with baby spinach leaves dressed in passion fruit dressing (passion fruit or pomegranate, but I think it’s passion fruit) with beautifully crisp fried goat cheese patties that really should come with everything in life. Dentist with beautifully crisp fried goat cheese patties? I’m there! DMV with goat cheese? Sign me up. I might even consider a stint in the Middle East if crisp fried goat cheese was in the mess hall. Love that salad, have I made the point?
Halfway through our meal the other couple in the restaurant started having a fight. They were raising their voices, him more then her, and totally oblivious to the fact that they were in public. At that point my husband and I just busted out laughing. For the first time in two weeks we get one hour out of the house to enjoy ourselves without the puppy and this is what happens. You just gotta laugh. Or you’ll go nuts.
So the Goose wins! And Swizzles because we hit it on the way home. Fruity pebbles on plain yogurt rock! Ha. That’s punny. \m/
-HH
UPDATE - A comment to the Darien Social Facebook page was deleted. And an email sent to them through their website has gone unanswered. So that's that.
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2 comments:
Yeah, super bad you had that experience. We have yet to go but keep meaning to try it out. From what we learned about them and wrote about in that preview, we expected really amazing stuff. Urbanspoon and other review sites are littered with good comments about the food and bad comments about service. We want to go and try it out, definitely, but we'd love for it to be good.
Glad, though, that The Goose was great! Kristien wants to steal your salad, BTW. Go goat cheese! :)
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