Bad Restaurant Review

[ollie]

I think the foodies here will enjoy this. The Mill restaurant in Ottawa is an institution of sorts. I've never been there but everything I've heard about it has been bad, and yet they still remain in business. I am almost tempted to see just how bad it is after reading this. Anyone ever been to The Mill?

Grist for The Mill: '... the worst restaurant I have ever reviewed'

Anne DesBrisay

The Ottawa Citizen

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Inside this former gristmill that predates Confederation is a riverbank

restaurant everyone who lives in Ottawa knows about and anyone who has ever

taken a bus tour to Ottawa has likely visited. It is a place that calls

itself "one of Ottawa's most important landmarks both for its' (sic) history

and for it's (sic) fine cuisine."

It wasn't hunger for the newfangled that brought me to The Mill. I knew well

enough this roast beef and steakhouse would be serving "nostalgic" dishes.

Comfortably timeless in an appealingly gnarled-around-the-edges sort of way,

staffed with charming career waiters who deliver thick slabs of rare beef

and who can shake up a dry martini as readily as a Shirley Temple. I went to

this iconic restaurant, I suppose, looking for the Ed's Warehouse of my

Toronto childhood.

At least that's what I was hoping to find on my first visit. I went a second

time with as open a mind as I could muster. I made a third and conclusive

trip just to be certain I could safely tell you that The Mill is the worst

restaurant I have ever reviewed.

Where to begin? How about with the greeting. There isn't one. The first

thing you see are tacky paper signs, informing you of the proper use of

coupon books (No discount on the table d'hote) and The Mill's commitment to

the Kyoto Protocol. Yet a third notice warns against drinking while

pregnant. If that doesn't make you feel welcome, try having to go looking

for a host to seat you. I did just that. Twice. Three times I've been

invited (by a distracted, harried man) to hang up my own coat on racks at

the back.

The Mill's Kyoto commitment must explain why our table is in darkness. For

15 minutes we can't even read the wine list, until a waiter shows up to

light the table lamp. At another meal, at a different table, half the light

bulbs above our booth are burned out.

The "fine cuisine" has infantile names. There's the "I'll Never Get a Cold"

prime rib (with garlic), the "Touch of Heaven" or "3 Is Not a Crowd" prime

rib (three colour peppercorns, see?) and the "Queen Neptune's" chicken and

shrimp.

Other dishes just seem nasty and confused. Who wants a starter of "baked

baguette stuffed with chicken and cheddar cheese, egg and onion, served

chilled"? Or "sweet and sour pork with red onion and baby corn served with

dutchesse (sic) potatoes"? Or a breaded chicken breast "stuffed with salami

and mozzarella cheese, topped with a light Maple au-jus, served with rice."

Maple and mozzarella? Really?

The Wild Game Special (no discount cards on wild game either) has a starter

of ground buffalo meat balls baked in a "red Currant and Tomato sauce

(sic)." Who dreams that up?

The shrimp in the cocktail are water logged, unseasoned, flavourless. The

soup of the day tastes of base and looks like plate scrapings. The escargots

are mushy, livery tasting, coated in what could only be jarred garlic. The

"horseradish lemon and orange zest sauce" with the coconut-crusted shrimp

seems to be no more than horseradish blended (unhappily) with marmalade. And

the $16 "appetizer combo" is a cocktail glass of the same flaccid shrimp

surrounded by rock hard, stone-cold, over-battered, over-fried,

mostly-squidless calamari. Scattered around the so-called squid are sticks

of fried zucchini, one-quarter vegetable, three-quarter breading.

We ask if the salmon is fresh. Our waiter seems confused. "Well it used to

be fresh, but now it's frozen. Everything's frozen here." (I'm not making

this up.) We ask for clarity on the ingredients of the soup for the sake of

my companion's allergies. "I wouldn't risk it," replies our waiter. "Could

you check with the chef?" we ask sweetly. "He's gone home," we are told.

"He's made the soup and now he's gone home." It is 6.30 p.m., midweek and

I'm about to order a $29 rack of lamb and the chef's gone home.

The main point of The Mill should be the roast beef. I've tried it twice

(three times if you count the roast beef "Wellington style") and it is

flabby, tasteless and, in the case of the "Touch of Heaven" prime rib,

further debased with a hellish gluey brown sauce welded to its surface. A

single, sorry, grilled-to-death portobello mushroom rests on top, like a

spray on a coffin. You can smell the powdered base from across the table.

A breast of duck suffers from another glutinous mushroom sauce. The long

grain and wild rice seems to have been cooked in a saline solution. A side

of asparagus (ordered a la carte) is carelessly tossed on top.

The filet mignon is a partial success. The meat is spilling out of the limp

bacon skirting and requires more chewing than you'd expect from tenderloin,

but it has a pleasant grill flavour and doesn't come with anything you want

to scrape off.

Carrots and broccoli round out every plate, every visit, dinner and lunch.

The carrots are undercooked, littered with raw garlic, and suffer the tired

look of vegetables prepped hours before and left to soak.

At lunch, the soup tasted like cream of MSG. We followed this with the roast

beef "Wellington-style" which comes well done only. Why was that? Well,

because it's wrapped in pastry and baked. "Actually," our waiter whispers,

"it's the chef's way of using up leftovers. But I shouldn't say that." (I

kid you not.) The whole ensemble, from the sorry pastry with the rock hard

edges, and the slabs of grey meat and bits of mushroom within, was

outrageous in its dreadfulness. This for $18.95.

The dessert menu is a laminated booklet with photographs of colourful edible

oil products. I asked if any dessert is made in house. "No, we buy them, but

then we fancy them up." Three words: chemical, artificial, soul-less.

On average, the Mill marks up its wines 300 per cent, about 100 per cent

more than most restaurants do. A nice bottle of wine may be the only way to

swallow this food, but then it will add significantly to the bottom line of

a Mill dinner.

And the service? Orders were confused, side dishes forgotten, plates removed

at whim, a bill was received that included eight items we never ordered. The

service wasn't rude. It was just banquet-hall amateur.

One last thing: the washrooms. They smell of old train station. At our first

visit, two stalls in the women's room were "out of order;" a third was

missing a lock, a fourth a privacy wall. Plaster is peeling, the soap

dispenser leaks. Two weeks later, at my final visit, nothing had changed,

been cleaned or repaired. The "Out Of Order" signs just looked tired.

You get the sinking feeling that nobody here cares, that this is a

restaurant attempting to make as much money for as little effort as

possible. Really, truly, I can't warn you away enough.

[AD]

WOW! That was a great read. I've always wondered about that place but I will never be going now.

Hilarious!

ad

[Ms.Huxtable]

Thanks so much for posting that Ollie, that was on my list of places to go to, but now I think I'll pass.

[voodoolady]

I've been to the Mill! It was years ago, 1999, I think, for my graduation dinner with my parents and Dinghy. I don't remember it being as bad as this review, but I do remember that it wasn't as great as I thought it would be.

I just remember being really disappointed!

I guess the fact that we never went back speaks for itself!

[Freak By Night]

That restaurant gets my worst review ever:

"Eight thumbs down".

Seriously though, I ate there many many years ago and it was excellent. It has changed hands several times since then.

[Dr. J]

Wow that's one wicked review...and based on 3 different visits. Wonder if the restaurant will attempt any kind of rebuttal.

[AdamH]

Wow that's really bad.

Can I add to this list then the Lord Elgin? We went last week and it was terrible, if only because you'd think a nice hotel would have a nice restaurant.

[bouche]

I went there in probably 1999. I didn't have a bad experience, but then again, I hadn't become a real foodie at that point. My tastes and expectations have changed since then, so from that read, I'll steer clear of the Mill!

[PalacePrincess]

somebody should go there just to see if their experience matches up with this review!

[MarcO]

that really was a great reveiw!

I love that ...... "the Chef went home".

"Everything's frozen here. But it used to be fresh!"

Please let us know if the restaurant responds. Or if the owner drowns himself in the Rideau, whichever comes first.

[ollie]

Yeah, the waiter character is great. His lines are almost too good not to have been written.

"Actually," our waiter whispers, "it's the chef's way of using up leftovers. But I shouldn't say that."

[Blane]

I used to eat buffet brunch there in the mid-90's and quite liked it. However, all you can eat scrambled eggs and fruit slices for 7,99 is pretty hard to fuck up.

[SteveThe Owl]

Really, truly, I can't warn you away enough.

Rarely have I ever read a review like that, with the possible exception of a few movies adapted from video games.

Never been there either, although I'm now thinking of going for the sheer entertainment value of the staff.

The service wasn't rude. It was just banquet-hall amateur.

and

"I wouldn't risk it," replies our waiter.

It's like a sitcom where the entire cast is played by Ashton Kutcher and Adam Sandler! You really can never pay too much for that kind of entertainment!

[TomFoolery]

The Mill is down off the River Parkway between the Chaudier bridge and the one Wellington dumps onto.

I watched CBC news last night and they did a spot on this review. They made sure to refer the interviewers to Lapointes to verify that they bought their fish fresh...

I never really had much of a hankerin' to go there. No matter what the Mill would say to refute the article, I can't say that I'll ever go there by my choice.

[AdamH]

I saw that CBC bit and thought it was funny that the owners said that they'd had a few cancellations, but plenty more new bookings to balance it.

People are booking dinners there are supporting the owners? No, they want to see for themselves how bad it is.

Chances are if you go today it will have shifted itself up to "mediocre Sysco supplies on a plate" status given all the publicity. In the end this will be a good thing for them.