Golden Spoons Review: Calypso Grill
(CNS Foodie): When I go out to eat, I’m super critical. But let’s face it, serving is not rocket science; a good personality will get you a long way, and if you have common sense, you’re in the money. Add a little time management skills and you have the perfect dining experience. Well tonight I went to Calypso Grill, a Cayman Staple (so they say), one of the best (so they say). I beg to differ.
After being seated, I waited for my friend to arrive, but in that time I also waited for a server. My friend arrived and after we had a nice catch up conversation, we realized that the server hadn’t even been over to us yet.
About ten minutes after being seated, she whizzed over with the overbearing “Specials” board, tossed it on the chair and told us, “If you have any questions, let me know,” and sprinted off.
Ahh, excuse me … What’s your name? Hi, how are you tonight? Would you like a cocktail, a glass of wine? Nothing like that came from her mouth. She literally dropped off the list, stormed off, came back a minute later, asked us if we had questions, if we were ready (which we were not) and left.
The whole interaction with her was terrible, down to every detail. I mean, what kind of server doesn’t even introduce themselves to their tables? By the way, she had three in total that I saw: our 2 top, another 2 top and a 3 top—hardly a busy section.
And the food …
Mediocre at best. The plating is atrocious. The sides are exactly the same no matter what you order — and they are terrible! A handful of shoestring fried potatoes with some tasteless steamed vegetables. This place is busy, so they obviously don’t care about creativity or plating — bang it out, turn and burn. I get it, but I can’t fathom how anyone in this industry would come here and think it’s amazing.
Back to the steamed vegetables. Is it really that much more time-consuming to at least humour the customer and put a bit of effort into anything? A little butter, oil, some garlic, or maybe just some salt and pepper?
My friend had the catch of the day ($30) and I had the ginger tuna ($36). It’s just a shot in the dark, but I guess the extra $6 was for the ginger soy glaze and a dollop of seaweed salad on top of the slab of tuna. Unbelievable! To top it off, we didn’t have any wine with the meal because the server didn’t bother to check on us until the food was almost finished.
I’ve never gone to a fine dining restaurant and not had a glass of wine with my meal, ever! I watched her closely, and she had so many opportunities to check up on us and see if all was okay, but she never did.
“Do you ladies want dessert?” the server asked, and we said, “Sure, we’ll take a look.” She walked away and a minute later she flew over and threw the obnoxious dessert board on a chair. “There you go!” she said, and walked off.
I avoided the sticky toffee pudding for dessert since I know that’s legit and always a crowd pleaser. Instead I had the ‘millionaire shortbread’. The presentation was okay — a little whipped cream with a few blueberries, a strawberry and piece of kiwi on the side and the shortbread and ice cream to follow. The shortbread was covered with caramel and chocolate sauce on top. It was enjoyable, but nothing I’d think about and want to go order again. My friend just had ice cream and there’s not much to say about that; it was fine. She ordered an espresso and when the server dropped it off, she put it in the middle of us. I guess she forgot who ordered it.
Bottom line, there are so many better options out there. The food tasted fine, but that’s just not good enough for “fine dining”. The service was terrible, the table was lovely and comfortable, but it was extremely noisy and the tables around us were not impressed. My martini was the highlight of my experience.
Our tables were so close to each other I could reach out and touch somebody. It’s a shame this place gets packed every night and the real gems of the industry are just half full.
See readers’ comments on Calypso Grill here
Category: Dinner, Golden Spoons Review
Tables are so close together outside that I could not get into my chair, the person behind it at the next table took up all the room! And very noisy.