Sea Change

Reviews 4

VI

Vicki Tam-Anderson

I have to start out by saying that we first went to Sea Change January of 2012 and had one of the most memorable meals in absolutely the best way possible. Our server gave great advice, everything we ate tasted out-of-this-world fantastic, every portion of our meal (from the appetizers, to our main courses and sides, our wines, and dessert) was fun and enjoyable experience, and we made it to our show at the Guthrie with comfortable time to spare. I was very eager to go back for another meal and share this gem of a restaurant with others. Just a few weeks ago (December 2012) we went back with people from out of town with the expectation of showing them one of the best restaurants in the Twin Cities. We left the restaurant hours later feeling embarrassed and very disappointed. To begin, our server (someone different than the first time) pushed us to order more every time he approached the table. From asking about cocktails multiple times when we had already declined to pushing starters when clearly we were hesitant to order any, it was rather aggravating. (I will concede that the oysters my husband and I ended up ordering were fantastic and the best thing we ate that night.) After we ordered our forced starters (another member of our party ordered the shrimp cocktail to share, which I didnt try, though they looked tasty), we decided on a bottle of wine and our main courses. Our wine came out first and after a quite a while, our appetizers. Between the appetizers and the arrival of our main courses we had enough time to finish our first bottle of wine, run out of water at the table, and ask for seconds of bread because it had been so long. It was a relief when our dishes finally arrived. Wanting to try something different (I had the ever popular artic char last time) I had ordered the cobia and took it in stride when I saw the very small pieces of fish on my plate. I knew that portion sizes were on the smaller side at the restaurant, however, I also expected each of those bites to be worth the wait and the $27 price of the plate. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The flavors were fine over all, but my dish was down-right cold - especially the fish. My father-in-law had ordered the same dish and also had cold food. By this point, however, we didnt want to add any more time to get our food back. Also, with our out of town guests, we didnt want to cause a scene. Everyone else was pleased enough with their dishes. Once our main dishes were dropped off, our server disappeared. He did check in once to see how things were, but then didnt come back again until we were nearly done with our main courses to ask if we wanted another bottle of wine. Great timing. He came back much later to drop off dessert menus even though no one at the table seemed remotely interested in dessert when he first asked if anyone cared for dessert. It should have been no surprise to him when he came back fifteen minutes later to discover that no one wanted dessert and only the check was needed. It pains me to say that we wont be going back to Sea Change for a long while, if ever. Our completely opposite experience eleven months earlier leaves us even more disappointed and frustrated. Dinner with our next Guthrie show will have to be elsewhere.

A

A Private User

A couple co-workers and I decided to head this way after seeing the positive reviews. The service was pretty good, I had a little water spilt on me at the beginning of the meal, but other than that the staff tried their best to make us happy. Unfortunately that could not overcome the strange smell to their water, or mediocre to horrible food. Ill work my way from meh to offensive. The bread and drinks were actually pretty good, if I were going to consume nothing else I would go back. The pork buns were, well not the kind of pork buns I would think of as the bun was not soft from being steamed but rather crispy, but they tasted fine. The beet salad would have been better if the beets were freshly roasted, these tasted like they were roasted a couple days ago and waiting in the fridge. The Tuna Poke tasted mainly of mayonnaise, which drowned out any flavor of tuna that could have been there. The grilled octopus was the worst though, everything else I couldve consumed (besides the water) without being offended until I tried this, the worst octopus Ive ever tasted hands down. The taste was off, the texture mushy, no char on the outside, like they braised it and finished it in a saute pan. The waitress tried to make things better for us, when we asked for bottled water she provided us with house filtered water, however the glasses or the water still had the same off smell. She removed The octopus app from our bill in an effort to help as well. Im just glad we waited until we received our appetizers to order, or rather not, mains. Maybe we are just a few people too used to the quality of the food that we eat in New York, but Id say thats probably not the case as we caught a cab over to a pizza joint after this, we were turned off to sea food at this point, where we had some acceptable pizza and water that tasted just fine.

AL

Alexa Pulliam

Awful! Its the only word I can use to describe this "restaurant". We made reservations and showed up a bit early and were more than willing to wait for our table if it wasnt ready yet. They said it was fine and ushered us to our table. 20 minutes later, we were greeted by our waiter. He took out drinks and walked away. Another 15 minutes later we got the drinks we ordered. After placing our food order, we waited another 35 minutes for the food to arrive. When it finally did, all three of our dishes were room temp. I expressed my annoyance to the server and he apologized. I refused to have mine warmed up because microwaved salmon wouldnt be worth the $29 I spent on it. One of the other dishes we did warm up and it was a hot plate and the food was still not warm. We got our bills, paid right away, and the server LEFT OUT CARDS UNATTENDED AT THE WAITER STATION!!! We were right next to the waiters station and at least 3 people had access to our cards at any point. After having to wait for an hour and a half, terrible service, terrible food, and an unsympathetic manager, we still had to pay full price for a meal we didnt eat. NEVER go here. There are plenty of other wonderful places to go within walking distance of the Guthrie. Dont waste your time or money.

A

A Private User

My wife and I decided to try it out for lunch last friday. We both remembered liking it when the Gutherie had first opened, and the restaraunt was under a different name which I cannot recall. When we walked in we found the host to be very rude. No hello or how are you, we were greeted with "do you have a reservation?" in an overly sardonic way. Even though there were maybe three tables in the whole restaraunt that were occupied. After our warm welcome we were seated and given waters. We looked at each other and decided that we would be better off taking our bussiness elsewhere, as we both had a bad taste in our mouth within a minute of walking through the door. Our waiter was very nice and seemed to understand when we told him we were going to move along. We left him a few dollars and walked out. The water was ecellent though.