I doubt the bad reviews are "phony." The restaurant is very poorly run. The bar area is filthy. The food's not bad when you can actually get service. One particularly bad experience: we were seated by the host at about 8 PM, but couldn't get service, finally wandered into the bar area to find out if a waiter could help us and we were told the kitchen was "closed." The host offered no explanation, and appeared not to remember even seating us at a table.
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