Night out left a bad taste

I am totally astounded by the difference that can be experienced between the Star's review of a restaurant and my own experiences.

My daughter selected the Caffe d'Italia as the venue for a meal out to celebrate her recent birthday. I was slightly concerned as a previous visit a few years previous to Mondial was disappointing. However having looked at the 4* award from the Star's reviewer I was persuaded to return.

What a disaster. The service was non-existent.

Ten minutes was spent waiting at the empty bar for staff to come and serve us, a further wait at the table for 25 minutes for a waiter to take our wine order which he then forgot and we had to re-order, waiting 45 minutes from placing our order for our starters to arrive and finally waiting over an hour for main courses.

What was even worse was the fact that when the main courses arrived they were both incomplete and inedible. The people at the table next to us had been waiting two hours and requested the restaurant call out for a Chinese meal to be delivered.

The birthday celebration was totally ruined. In future I will only go on word of mouth.

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