Discussions

Ok so here is the thing, oh and forgive me if this topic has already been covered (I'm sure it probably has)  
 
I have lived in Brandon for close to 2 years now. I enjoy eating out (like most do) and I am a firm believer that some of the most attractive things about eating out are that its a chance to get away from the regular crap that me or the missus cook up at home, soak up some atmosphere, drink over priced wine, receive good customer service and not have to worry about the dishes afterwords.  
 
Unfortunately the romance between myself and eating out is well and truly dead and buried.  
 
I am now resigned to the fact that the bland crap that I cook up at home is better than anything that Brandon's "fine dinning establishments" (I use the term loosely) have to offer.  
 
It is insane,  
 
Go to one franchise restaurant in particular in Winnipeg and you get great service from a polite, funny, "I have a clue" type of server. You get a steak that is cooked the way you ask for it to be cooked and you get a glass of wine that doesn't taste like it has been sitting in an open bottle for about a week.  
 
Go to the same restaurant in Brandon and well... here is a story for you.  
 
I finish work late one night so rather than cook or have the wife cook we decide to go out to this restaurant. As a rule we don't go to this restaurant anymore because this restaurant here in Brandon is crap but hey I won a gift certificate from a draw at work so what the hell, its free (well discounted $50). Now it's a Wednesday night around 8pm so we figure it shouldn't be too busy (the service and the food gets even worse when they are real busy). So we sit down at our table and our server comes over. Pours our water, I tell her I don't want water but she pours it anyway, takes our drink order then walks away. She comes back to the table, 15 minutes later, with our drinks. "Are you guys ready to order?" well I would f#*king hope so love we've been sitting here for the last 15 minutes!! all this time she hasn't told us what the specials are. So the missus asks....  
 
"whats the specials?"  
 
the girl responds  
 
"Sirloin with Crab and scallops in a red pepper sauce"  
 
being a fan of sea food she decides to have that and I order blue cheese filet along with a couple of starters.  
 
The starters come out in good time and they are ok....... just ok not great (fine dinning my a--)  
 
by this point its about 8:30pm and here comes our main  
 
as our server approaches the table I see what looks like a porter house on one of the plates. UH OH. The server put down the wifes plate and the looks at the other plate looks at me then walks away? erm..... hello? during this period the wife is dissecting what is on her plate, the crab turned out to be shrimp, whatever, she likes shrimp but this is a good indication that our server has no clue what she is doing. She cuts into her steak which she asked for medium rare and its pretty much still alive, its blue.  
 
our server come back...... this is a doosie.... she asks:  
 
"You ordered the blue cheese right? However I have this"  
 
she presents the plate with the huge ass steak on it. She then goes on to say:  
 
"would you like this instead"  
 
"Erm (pause) nooooooo, I would like the steak I FREAKIN ORDERED!!"  
 
she walks away before the wife gets a chance to challenge her about the uncooked steak on her plate. 2 minutes later she comes back with the manager (we didn't ask for the manager but that would have been our next request so she got 1 thing right!)  
 
The manager apologizes about the "mix up" and offers to get the correct meal cooked right away (well duh) we show him the steak on my wife's plate and he apologizes about that also and offers to cook her up a fresh meal as well. "Yes that would be nice, thank you" (we are being very understanding).  
 
He then goes on to tell us our meal will be free. We think this is fare.  
 
So.........  
 
20 minutes pass it's now 9pm ish. Here comes the manager with out meals. I asked for a loaded baked potato and I got butter but never mind. The food is here. again the wife looks at her plate and everything looks familiar. hmmmmm! she moves the scallops of the top of the piece of steak and guess what! The steak has the same incision she had made previously to check if it was cooked properly. I was furious by this point. Rather than wait for our hopeless waitress to come back I got up wondered over to her and demanded the manager back over to our table. While we waited for him we put on our jackets. He comes over and we show him the steak and explain that it is the same plate of food. I challenge him on the fact that he said he would have a FRESH plate made to which he said, that is what he asked the chef to do.  
 
He asked us if we wanted it cooked again? erm yeah we just put our jackets on because we are cold! no we don't want it cooked again thanks for wasting over an hour of our night. All we get is a sorry that we have let you down speach. No "come back again and we will give you a free meal" no gift certificate nothing. That's great customer service right there!  
 
We had macdonalds for supper that night!  
 
 
and it's the same everywhere else. How can the food at a franchised business taste totally different in a different city? it is supposed to be exactly the same.  
 
I watched a program about franchised food chains and it stated that the whole point of being part of a franchise is that you can go to, lets say, MacDonalds in Brandon and get a big mac and go to a MacDonalds in London England and get a big mac and they taste and look exactly the same! I guess this concept must have skipped the franchised food chains in Brandon.  
 
It is my opinion that there is not enough direct competition in Brandon for establishments to really care about the quality of the food or the quality of their service. If you want to eat out your just gonna have to put up with the crap otherwise, what you gonna do?  
 
If anyone knows of any hidden gems in Brandon where the food is actually good please let me know as I am yet to find it!  
 
Rant over!