April's dinner was at Araka in Clayton. I personally wasn't too thrilled about the restaurant choice, as I haven't had very good experiences there in the past. But twas host Tyler's choice, so let's roll with it. I think there was again around 10 of us in attendance. We did have a nice table set up for us and were seated on time. The restaurant itself is beautifully decorated and very high class in appearance - the bathroom even wows. But sadly, the restaurant reminds me of a Monet painting: at a distance, the setting looks beautiful and inviting, but when you take a closer look, it's kind of a mess.
First disappointment was the menu. I should have counted but I honestly think there were no more than 8 items to choose from, and nothing sounded all that great, especially for the price. And the menu we were given didn't match the menu shown on their website. Just as an example/warning, the online menu shows four pizza options, and in the restaurant there was only one pizza choice. In addition, our wine recommendation from Jackie Olinger was not on the restaurant menu anymore. Our server excused these errors by saying that the dinner menu had just changed that day, but I'm looking at the site now, 3 weeks later, and the menu has still not been updated. So many people like to look at restaurant menus online beforehand, this is a simple thing that can be easily updated.
Moving on, as we placed our orders, we found some things were no longer available as the restaurant ran out of ingredients - one being spinach. I can understand this to an extent, but spinach can be easily acquired from any one of the many grocers in a 5 mile radius of the restaurant. I ordered a salad and pizza.
Next up - let's eat....or maybe not...let's wait...and wait....and....wait. It took forever for us to get our food. And this has happened to our group before on a trip to Araka. I was seated at 7 p.m. and didn't leave until around 10 p.m. and that was without having dessert. I'm not sure why there is always such a wait....especially because the restaurant is never full.
The food at Araka is of high quality, but due to a lack of variety, and all these obstacles that seem to arise any time I patronize Araka, I'd rather go to any number of other local restaurants with just as, if not better, food. I have a feeling this is why Araka is always sparsely occupied. The only area that was hopping was the bar, which was packed by the time I left. This must be what is keeping Araka in business. Our server did a decent job... I almost felt pity for him, almost like he was used to the complaints and so much of the restaurant problems were out of his control. I've also heard many others complain about service at Araka, so I hate to go on and on about this, but maybe we'll inspire improvement. They have the bones for a good restaurant: quality food, beautiful ambiance, but stops short after that. So unfortunately for now, I'm going to rate them with 2 out of 5 spoons. What's your take on Araka? Let us know - rate and post comments below!
I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner at Araka. Araka is one of those restaurants that changes its menu quite often. I prefer to have a favorite that I can always get every time I go to a restaurant so I don't really like that. However, I understand that they want to have a limited menu and still keep it fresh. While the menu was limited, there were several things that I wanted to order so I was fairly pleased with the selection.
ReplyDeleteI started with a ceasar salad that was fairly unremarkable except these WONDERFUL croutons that were actually delicious chunks of potatoes. DELICIOUS! And really creative! Everything that I ate was absolutely delicious: truffled mac and cheese, pear sorbet, salted shortbread. I was really pleasantly surprised.
While we did have slow service, I really ended up liking our waitor. All of the waitors there (in my experience) seem to have the same low key personality. The restaurant was very accommodating with special requests. Furthermore, when one member of our party complained that the temperature of his pasta wasn't hot enough, they fixed him an entirely new plate of pasta rather than reheating his existing plate. That is good customer service! If I could rely on my selections being there the next time I visited Araks, I would add it to my regular rotation. But, every restaurant isn't for everybody. I think you can rely on good quality food for sure!
THE GOOD
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed a new addition to the menu, the truffle mac 'n' cheese, it was soooooo delicious!
As always, the Amish Chicken melted in my mouth.
THE BAD
Service was extraordinarily slow and our server was not very attentive at all. Some food sat and got cold waiting on him to deliver it. I was very displeased with the service, which was a first for my experiences at Araka.