One nice thing about having a blog is that I can disseminate information to a broad audience in one fell swoop, and everyone gets the same information, so there’s never any, “Oh, you didn’t tell me that!” nonsense.
Our trip to Dubuque was nice. Weather was gorgeous, the inn was very nice, the spa was relaxing, and our dinner out was…well, it was fine. As a refresher: We decided to forgo the bistro at our inn in favor of the Pepper Sprout on Main St. in downtown Dubuque.
The warning bells went off as soon as we walked through the door. Our reservation was for eight, and we were right on time, but we ended up waiting 20 minutes before we were seated. It wasn’t a huge deal (after all, we had no toddler to get home to), but it was an annoyance. Then we sat at our table for another 10 minutes before a server even stopped by to say hello, and she only stopped long enough to do just that. No drink order, nothing. So it wasn’t until 8:45 that we finally ordered our appetizers (and a scotch for me). Leah had made it clear that she can’t eat garlic, and the server had even gone back to the kitchen to ask whether any of the entrees could be made without. But when Leah’s wild mushroom and three-cheese napoleon appetizer came to the table, you could smell the garlic wafting off of it before the plate even hit the table.
So I ate Leah’s napoleon and my duck confit (both of which were very good), while Leah waited for the server to bring her some bread. The bread arrived, and it was garlic herb bread. You would’ve thought after specifically mentioning the garlic thing at the outset, then complaining about the napoleon, that the server would’ve caught on. No. She replaced the garlic bread with cinnamon apple bread, which contained no garlic. By this time, I was on to my tomato dill soup, which was nice (but I was wondering if I was going to make it through my entree, let alone dessert).
Leah ordered the salmon, and I played it safe with the pork tenderloin. I’d had my heart set on the curried mussels, but it turns out we were there on the last night of the summer menu, and some items were no longer available, including the couscous that accompanies the mussels. That, combined with the way things were going, steered me toward the pork.
Leah’s well-done salmon showed up swimmingly rare inside. She wouldn’t eat it. I had no such qualms, so I ate her salmon and the remainder of the pork Leah didn’t eat. Fortunately, Leah found the pork much to her liking. Our meals must’ve been the last two out of the kitchen, as I saw the head chef up behind the bar with her staff doing a shot of Jagermeister, in celebration, I guess, of the last night of the summer menu?
As we ate, we held out hope that maybe the dessert would offer some small redemption for all that had come before. Alas, ’twas not to be. Two choices: Coconut cream pie and caramel chocolate pecan cheesecake. Coconut cream pie? What is this, Mel’s Diner? We decided to split an order of the cheesecake, and I tried to order a glass of port. Our server had never heard of port, and she spent some time over at the bar, consulting with the tender, before she came back to the table with two bottles of port and a bottle of scotch whiskey(?). I ordered a glass of one of the ports, and it was nice. Leah had a cup of decaf.
Tipping becomes difficult in situations like this. A good rule of thumb, I think, is to determine whether the shortcomings of your dining experience could’ve been resolved with a little attention from the server. The answer here, to me, was plainly “yes.” So I left her just shy of 20%. I also encourage Leah to go online and write up a review of our experience on a site where other diners can see what’s up.