Second Time Was NOT the Charm.....

Well as promised, I went back to the Wine Loft for my Ladies Happy Hour. The evening started iffy, GFM and I arrived at 4:30 our reservation time, and the door was locked for a staff meeting and we were told it would be another 15 minutes. Luckily it was warm yesterday and not the arctic temps we have been having. Well in reality, we waited 5 minutes and the owner came out to apologize and offered us a free glass of wine for our trouble...definitely worth 5 minutes of my time! There were 10 of us meeting for happy hour and we were given our choice of areas to claim as our own. We chose the upstairs because of the ability to have 10 people facing each other instead of spread horizontally across a space. We got our wine (I picked the Fairview Pinotage that I liked so much last weekend) and within 30 minutes all 10 of us were there. We ordered the cheese plate, chartucerie plate, and the backed brie again. When all of our items arrived they also delivered a marinated monchego cheese plate that they promptly realized they brought to the wrong table, but we begged to keep it and they agreed. It all sounds good so far right? Well it went downhill after that....the service was extremely slow....they give you about 10 baguette slices of bread with the cheeses, which is definitely not enough for 10 people! One each??? We had to ask for more cheese a few times and when we finally got it - it was two small platters with 10 pieces on each. Oh well, we made do. The area upstairs was extremely dark, it was hard to see each other, I could live with that, but sometime ambience gets in the way of functionality. The food was good, the manchego cheese was great, the balsamic vinegar they used to drizzle over it was top shelf, AND would have been fab to dip bread into if we would have had any!!! Then it came time for the check. That took about 25 minutes. One of my pet peeves. When I am done at a restaurant, I am done. I don't want to wait around for another 1/2 hour! We got our check and GFM and I were charged for our free glasses of wine! Not a good thing, and after we mentioned it, gave her our credit cards, and they were rung up, it was still not taken off. So the good will in which the freebie was given was lost in the shuffle! Now with two other wine/cafe places within spitting distance of each other, Cafe Caturra and the Barrel Thief, I would suggest that this place needs to pick it up a notch in service. Cafe Caturra has an awesome happy hour: from 3-6 daily you can get $5 glasses of wine and $4 appetizers. The only issue with that is it is hard to get there before 5:00 so you have to drink really fast!! ha I for one, am very partial to the Barrel Thief. I love the people that run it, have had wonderful evenings there and the music, food, and wine are all great. So I have to say I will give the Wine Loft one more try and we will see if the 3rd time is the charm......

One other quick note, after we left there some of us were still hungry and opted to check out Anohka the new Indian place. GFM, KC, and VG and and went and had a great dinner! We ordered the palek paneer, lamb tikka masala, and a very spicy chicken dish (can't remember the name). Plus garlic naan and papadum. It was all great and we were almost licking our plates to get the last drops of the yummy tikka masala sauce. Check it out!

BR and a few other ladies went to Patina Grill instead, we will have to get the scoop from her later........