Diane & I first visited this restaurant two years ago and were pleased with the food, although the service was a bit slow. However, when you’re at the beach, you want to take things easy, so we didn’t mind. This year, we went on Thursday, June 22nd. It was an experience albeit not one I’d like to relive anytime in the near future.

We arrived around 7:30 or so and sat out on the front patio. We were seated by the hostess, who was from Ireland. We had a great time chatting with her about our trip to Ireland back in 2003 (see here for more on that trip). We were visited at our table by a woman server who said our waiter would be around shortly. After a long wait, during which we had time to review our dinner and drink orders, our waiter showed up. He took our drink orders and disappeared for a long while. He returned eventually with a chardonnay for Diane and a lime/ginger vodka martini for me. They were both quite tasty. He took our dinner order, which for Diane was a gorgonzola salad followed by ahi tuna. I ordered an organic greens salad with fresh mozzarella and a thai red curry vegetarian appetizer. The server said that I’d made an excellent choice with my entree.

At about this time, a young couple came in and was seated on the other side of the front porch where we were. This is important to remember, as I’ll get to in a moment.

After a reasonable period, our salads arrived, and they were spectacular. We enjoyed them immensely and awaited our main courses. They arrived after a longer interval, but it was nice to take things slow. Diane’s platter was beautiful but mine looked a bit weird. I’d ordered a vegetarian red curry and this looked like a piece of chicken and some asparagus. Diane called the woman server, who I mentioned earlier, over and we told her this didn’t look quite right. She said oh, it’s the stuffed chicken with asparagus. I told her I’d ordered the red thai curry and she said that if I’d like, she’d talk to the management and just substitute this for what I’d ordered. I said that no, I’d like what I’d ordered. She said it’d take awhile and paused, but I insisted, so off my plate went while Diane kept her platter. She gave me a taste of her food and it was wonderful. Although for ahi, it looked a bit overcooked, with only a smidgen of pink in the center.

Our waiter returned to see what was up and I told him I’d gotten the wrong food. He said that he could have sworn I’d ordered the chicken, although, given that he’d complemented me on my entree choice earlier, I found that a little hard to believe. He then asked Diane how her boar was. A little shocked, we both said that she’d ordered the ahi tuna but he said that wasn’t right. Diane liked the boar and we’d both eaten about two-thirds of it already, so it seemed like we would stick with that. I was getting a little pissed at this point.

My red curry arrived shortly thereafter, and it was wonderful. A little while later, the male server returned and said that the problem was that there’d been a mix up and we’d received the young couple’s main course order. Our waiter said that since he’d put our order in first, he just assumed the first thing the kitchen made was our food. He’d served us their dinner! They’d had an appetizer, but they hadn’t received their dinner yet and it’d been about an hour or so at this point. I felt bad for them but was incensed over what had happened to us.

After refusing dessert or coffee, our bill arrived, with nary an apology, and I went to the men’s room. Diane argued with the waiter about our bill, since first it showed three entrees (the two wrongly ordered ones and my re-entered curry). He’d removed the extra order but there wasn’t anything taken off our bill or comp’ed. I assumed they’d comp our drinks, since that seems like the least they could have done. When Diane asked the waiter about this, he defiantly said that, “well, you ate it, didn’t you”. After more prodding, he took the bill back and they comp’ed us one round of drinks (we’d had two). The owner stayed far away from our table and the woman server kept blaming the young, new staff. She told us there’d been horrible experiences that night and they’d stopped seating any new people, which we observed to be true since we were right by the main entryway. Diane went to the ladies room and while in there, she heard the woman server chew out our waiter as being unprofessional and wrong, but he just kept denying any responsibility.

Overall, the chef was amazing, and the service horrible never recommend anyone going to this establishment. There are plenty of excellent choices to try in Rehoboth Beach, so going back for another potentially horrid experience is definitely off my top ten list of things to do at the beach.