Evelyn and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day at the Wildfire Restaurant in Georgetown this year. It was also our 24th Wedding Anniversary. Our reservation was for 6:00.
We started off with some Champagne (of course) - Domain Chandon, CA, Blanc de Noir. The wine list was ok I guess. They featured Texas wines. I guess it is nice to support local winerys but I much prefer California wines. Call me a wine snob if you will, but if you don't believe that CA wines are the best in the USA and some of the finest in the world, then you truly have my sympathy. I don't have a problem with a restaurant faeturing local wines, but they can at least offer a nice CA wine list. Wildfire does not. But we liked the Champagne well enough to stick with it throughout dinner.
We both started out with salads. Evelyn chose the Bacon, Spinach salad and I chose the Brussel Sprouts and Beet salad. Both salads came in bowls filled with chopped up vegetables. A pathetic presentation. It would have been much better to present the salads on plates. But at least the salads tasted good.
We then jumped into some appetizers - Calimari and Pork Belly. Both of these dishes were nice.
One problem though. I also order a bowl of Gumbo - it was a special for Valentine's Day. And I do love a good bowl of Gumbo. But sadly, they ran out. You have got to be kidding me. Dinner service started at 5:00 and they had already run out of a special? Real good planning there.
For entries, we chose a Salmon dish and a Seafood Feticini dish. The Salmon was descent but the Feticini was somewhat bland. The menu favored beef, but we were not in the mood.
The Service was ok, but the staff is highly automated - very little flexibility. I was checking out some of the other tables and noticed that when someone ordered a glass of wine, the wine was delivered in a little pitcher. So apparently, the Management does not trust the Staff to properly pour a glass of wine? How about some wine training for the Staff? When I order a glass of wine, I want to see the bottle itself. Give me a break.
We decided to pass on dessert - we had enough.
So all in all, it was not a bad meal. But the staff needs training. The chief needs to get his stuff together. And the wine list needs work. This place will have to greatly improve before the get any more of my business.