Le Balnéo Inc

Global note :

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• 1/5

Evaluation added on February 27, 2012 by Ben Todd

I don’t even know where to begin. We decided to try Balneo for a family dinner and within the first few minutes, we just had a feeling that things were headed downhill. We were seated in the corner of the restaurant, beside the window, perfectly aligned with the ceiling vent which released a steady breeze of cool air. If this was the summer, it might have been pleasant but being mid-February, we were frozen. They did nothing to correct this. We ordered our dinner and two plates came out incorrectly. Two of us ordered the Smoked Salmon Linguine and were brought a salmon plate and a smoked salmon penne. When we explained that it wasn’t what we ordered, the waitress tried to get us to take the plates because “they were really good”. I particularly didn’t really care too much if I had the penne or Linguine (I was starving) so I took the penne pasta plate. My mother, who loves linguine, asked for the plate that she ordered. 15 minutes later, a plate arrived. Smoked Salmon Penne. We were confused. They informed us that it had something to do with the fact that, because we had ordered from the Table D’Hote menu, we were not eligible for the linguine (strange?) – only the penne. The waitress acknowledged that we did order linguine but said the chef told her that it was not possible. We were frustrated. Our frustrations started to heighten when were then told that the kitchen had just closed (it was 9PM) and there was nothing more we could order. We returned the penne and advised them once again that it wasn’t what we ordered and would just like to have the bill so we could leave. We were of course charged for the meal which we didn’t order and returned. By now the patrons beside our table added to this “fine dining” experience by managing to find a suitable place for the f-word in every sentence. They were loud and abrasive yet the waitress, and owner of the restaurant walked by them several times without even an acknowledgement of their behaviour. When we respectfully asked our waitress to remove the plate that we returned from the bill, the owner got involved and put the icing on the cake. She told my mother in a loud aggressive manner that she “was ridiculous and had something wrong with head” for returning the plates that she did not order, that “there are people starving all around the world and that pasta is pasta – it doesn’t matter if it’s penne or linguine”. These types of comments continued in a loud aggressive manner while she refused to remove the $17 dollars from our bill. Finally she told us that “fine, I’m removing this from your waitresses pay so I hope you feel disgusted with yourselves”. My mother was completely embarrassed and we left feeling terrible at the situation. We were polite, calm, quiet and respectful during the entire exchange yet this women felt the need to raise her voice, point her finger and ridicule my mother for something so simple as getting an order correct – and as we explained to them, if the linguine was not an option on the table d’hote, simply tell us and we would have dropped the table d’hote and ordered it from the menu, very simple – they shouldn’t have made the decision for us and brought out something that we didn’t order. Anyways, I can go on but the point is, the owner’s attitude towards her clients was so off that I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this restaurant close down. There is no way you can last in that business with terrible customer service. It was truly awful and the worst dining experience we’ve ever had.