Boathouse Restaurant

We had not been out in a while and were really looking forward to enjoying a meal in the sun on this gorgeous boat house along the Maida Vale canal.

Our waiter informed us that because lunch service was nearly over, that there were no meat dishes available at that time. I responded by saying, that suited us just fine as we are both vegetarians.

My boyfriend ordered the eggs benedict which he orders often when we go out and on various menus it states if it comes with ham or smoked salmon or neither, this menu didn't specify. We both assumed that since we had informed our waiter that we were vegetarian he would have told us that the eggs benedict was with ham. When it arrived we said that we were so sorry but we were expecting the dish without meat. The waiter was really abrubt with us and said that he could not ask the chef to make another one, so my boyfriend had to go hungry while I ate my pasta.

When I went to the toilet, I asked to speak to the manager and told him what happened, but he was surprisingly aggressive saying that it was our problem and that eggs benedict always come with ham, he said it wasn't the waiters problem that he didn't listen to our comments about being vegetarian. I was quite shocked by the managers lack of customer service skills, and told him that my ex used to be head chef at Soho house, and that they always made it clear whether the eggs benedict had meat or not on the menu.

When I returned to our table I heard him loudly go up to the pass and tell the staff how how Australians come over here thinking they know everything about food etc, etc. I am NZ but I guess he couldn't tell the difference.

Following that, the waiter came over and denied that we mentioned being vegetarian to him. And when we went to leave he was standing at the door waiting for us with a print out from wikipedia stating what eggs benedict were! We found it all very confrontational and upsetting. I would never eat here again and recommend to others not to. We went home feeling really harassed by the staff.
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4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Sunday, August 16, 2009