My mother and I have been regulars at the Ocean Grill since we moved to the Upper West Side six years ago. We used to love going for Sunday brunch or a cosy dinner in Winter. The food is consistently excellent, but the service has deteriorated so much that our dinner there last week could have been our last. We were greeted my a hostess whose hair was so long and unkempt that we wondered what she does when she goes to the toilet. Not to be disgusting, but this was really unpleasant and only makes you think that some of it must be ending up in the food as she walks through the restaurant and into the kitchen. Why don't they make her tie it in a bun, or at least a ponytail? Next, we watched as other tables were served around us, but no-one even approached us with a menu for 20 minutes. We had to wave frantically and almost yell to get the attention of a waiter, who took our order for drinks, but turned out not to be our actual server. When our server showed up, we were told that there were champagne cocktails as part of the special that night, but as we'd already ordered our drinks, it was a bit late to find out about this. We ordered our food, had a delicious meal, and then waited 15 minutes to be asked if we wanted anything else. We finally managed to get the maitre d' to bring us our bill, at which point we discovered we should have been given an amuse bouche - it was on the bill, with a $0.00 charge, but we'd never received it!
more