very bad experience
Friday, September 28, 2007
My girlfriend and I moved to Seattle about a year and a half ago and we have had the luxury of experiencing for the first time all of the amazing eateries that the Emerald City has to offer. The one type of restaurant we hadn't found in our first year perusing the city was a great steakhouse. Needless to say, we were eventually pointed in the direction of the Metropolitan Grill.
After arriving on time, we sat for about 20 minutes before meeting our big, goofy, and pretentious waiter named Bruno, and being shown to our table. I tried to put myself in the position of a waiter and imagined that working at "The Met" is probably like making the NFL if you are a football player, at least in Seattle. Perhaps it was because my girlfriend and I are quite young (28 years of age) or perhaps because it was late at night, but we received extremely poor service -- certainly no interest in the waiter's part on earning 15-20% gratuity on a $200 meal. I was still chewing on my last bite of steak when the burly curmudgeon suddenly appeared and whisked my plate away from under me.
I ordered the New York strip and my girlfriend, the Filet. The cuts of meat were very average, and the filet was particularly bland. On the cost/benefit scale, the quality of food would have been worthwhile at the $15 price point, not $60-70.
We both left the restaurant wondering what all of the fuss was about and concluding that next time we'll just visit Outback where we could have similar quality steaks, have respectable service, and save about $150. I suppose I should have said something about the waiter taking my plate away before I was finished but I just wasn't in the mood for confrontation. Besides, its much more rewarding to write a comprehensive review online from the comfort of my couch.
On a positive note, we enjoyed a fine Chilean Malbec, but then "The Met" had very little to do in the creation of the bottle.
Pros: nice wine selection, Joe Torre went there once
Cons: Bruno the waiter, bad service, average food