Tag Archives: great wine

Hillside Winery and Bistro

On our second winery visit today, we knew we were going to stop and have lunch. My treat! Don has made me a beautiful small secretary desk and  I was saying thank you.  http://hillsidewinery.ca/wineshop/products?wine=54

We went in to the Tasting Room and I sampled 3 whites and 3 reds. The white I personally liked was an unoaked 2010 Pinot Gris and Don bought a bottle to serve with our guests this weekend. The red that I thought was awsome was Pinot Noir.  The one white wine they talked about (and didn’t sample due to small stock left) was a beautiful Muscat Ottonel ( I had some with my lunch).

We went to the upper deck for lunch with a view that was unbelievable. There was no one in the Dining Room at the time we came  and opted to go upstairs and including the two of us,  it became 25 in total upstairs. I order my wine and Don ordered his cold drink and we ordered our lunch. Now let me be very clear here,  at this time there wasn’t 25 people sitting.

Don ordered the Confit Duck Leg “grilled cheese” Sandwich with a beet salad side. The sandwich had Camembert, cherry relish and carmelized onions and was, according to Don, fabulous  I sampled his salad and really enjoyed it.

I ordered the Roasted Chicken Ciabatta which was bacon, lettuce, tomato, Gruyere Cheese with a maple aioli and the side was a spiced carrot and apple soup. What  I didn’t read was the “spiced” part and it was too spicy for me. Don ate it instead.

I should mention we waited 40 minutes from the time we ordered before we asked another server where our lunch was. Our own server never showed his face and if he did walk through the room, he never even so much as made eye contact with us. He did, however, finally come and tell us the kitchen was completely over whelmed  with all the orders. Hmmm…

Lunch over and I ordered coffee, Don ordered tea and a chocolate pot de creme with 2 spoons, please. Coffee finally came (10 minutes here…so okay maybe they made a new pot…should have said something). We drank our coffee/tea and dessert never did come. When I could catch his attention, I asked for the bill. We paid the bill, got up to leave and another server came running out with the dessert. Sorry, too late!

We go downstairs and I went to the Ladies Room. This, of all places should be sparkling clean, garbage emptied and smelling clean. Sorry!

As we were heading to the parking lot, a gentleman came out and we found out he was one of the owners. We relayed our reaction  to what had taken place and we did promise to try it again.

Please, when you hire new staff, for the sake of your business and their wages/tips, train them.

The customer is the one who advertises for you for free if all goes well. Yes we will be back but only because the owner asked us to.

 
Okay, so

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