Disappointing Night Out

It's been a little while since Mel and I went out to a restaurant that is not a chain restaurant. Mainly because of the gift cards that my girl's soccer team got us as coaches gifts (Thanks Girls). So we have been to Carabba's, On the Boarder, and Logan's mostly. So two nights ago, 7/23, we went back out to one of our favorite places, Hop Cat.

It didn't start out well. When we got there it was seat yourself. That was fine. We spotted a table in the back corner that would have been perfect for two people. The only other tables were for larger groups. It was dirty however with the checks from the previous diners and empty glasses and crumbs. So we stood by the table waiting for someone to clear it off. It never happened, so after 5 minutes of standing and waiting we took a larger table. Then we waited another 5 minutes for someone to come around and give us menus and water. The dirty table was still dirty. We ordered our appetizer first along with our drinks.

We ordered the Buffalo Rolls. It was roasted chicken with a buffalo sauce inside a wonton wrapper and fried. Basically it was a buffalo sauced chicken egg roll. Also in the filling looked to be cream cheese. It was a nice start. The buffalo sauce had a nice heat but wasn't so hot that Mel couldn't eat it. The dipping sauce was like a blue cheese ranch that they serve on other sandwiches. It was a nice offset to the buffalo sauce without the overpowering taste blue cheese can have. The biggest complaint was the texture of the filling. It was as if the chicken was put through a food processor. It was mushy and kind of mealy and really needed a textural contrast. The crunch from the crispy wonton wasn't enough. But it was a good start. 

Unfortunately the service was again poor. The waitress only brought up one plate, so Mel went and got another one. And our main plates came out five minutes after the appetizer did. Not good timing at all. So we had our appetizer plate on the table, eating it, as our entrees were sitting on the table as well. 

For our mains Mel ordered the Porter Braised Beef Sandwich, which is reviewed in a previous post, and I ordered the fish and chips. Since there wasn't a picture of the sandwich I took one.

And here are the fish and chips

The fish is cod and it has been beer battered and fried. It is served with a house tarter sauce and crack fries. The batter is generally crispy and flavorful. This time it was a little on the greasy side. Cod is a pretty mild tasting fish so it is all about the batter and seasoning to add flavor to it. The tarter sauce is fairly standard, although it does have some other spices in it. The fries were also a little on the soggy side. Usually they are crispy. I have had this dish before, and the fries were crispy and the fish perfectly fried.

Again, back to the service. We ordered another drink. Our server screwed up twice on them. Once I can understand, twice is inexcusable. Also, that dirty table remained dirty for nearly 45 minutes after we arrived. However that is not the worst part. The worst part is that I got food poisoning after eating there. So I narrowed it down to the fish or tarter sauce. At 3 AM I got to know my toilet really well.

So over all this was an extremely disappointing outing to Hop Cat. The service was unusually bad and the food made me sick. I still like Hop Cat, but it will be a while before we go back.