Cute but a Little Disappointing.
Written: Jul 27 '04 (Updated Jul 30 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Food and Presentation: |
 |
|
| Ambiance and Decor: |
|
|
| Quality of Service: |
|
|
|
Pros: The lime lemonade was excellent.
Cons: Mediocre food, slow service, uncomfortable seating.
The Bottom Line: I would not return here, nor would I recommend any of my friends come here.
|
|
|
| castlesnthesky's Full Review: Republic |
I recently decided to try out Republic after walking by it time and time again and after hearing many things about it...both good and bad. I figured it was time to get my own opinion of the place. So I snagged a friend and headed over there for dinner.
We walked into a somewhat chaotic environment right inside the door. People were milling about by the bar, some people were seated nearby at tables, and a group of about eight people were standing with a bewildered look on their faces, seeming to not know what to do next. Finally after a few minutes of standing there a hostess came up to the newly entered patrons and found out how many people were in each party. She informed my friend and I that there would be about a fifteen minute wait.
During our wait we walked over and had a drink at the bar. I was quite please with how quickly we received our drinks. I drank a vodka tonic and my friend had a glass of white wine. Both drinks were satisfactory. Almost exactly fifteen minutes later the hostess called my name to be seated.
We were led to the back of the restaurant where there are long tables with benches. Each of these tables seats about twelve people. Which if you had a large group would be a very good thing. But when you are eating as a party of two this can result in you sitting uncomfortably close to strangers. We were lucky enough to get a spot with nobody else next to us. Fairly near there were two business women dining together who were seated directly next to an elderly couple. I assumed they were all eating together until the older couple got up and left. One of the women breathed a sigh of relief and muttered something about how uncomfortable the seating arrangements there were.
I ordered the noodle salad($7). It was a dish made up of cold wheat noodles, bean sprouts, carrots, peanuts, mint fried shallots, and a peanut sauce. I have had a similar dish other places and loved it! I made sure to verify with the waitress that the sauce was somewhat spicy and she said that it was. When the dish arrived it was presented nicely, but upon the first bite I was highly disappointed. The sauce was far from being spicy, in fact it was extremely bland. There were an overabundance of sprouts filling about one third of my bowl and I felt not nearly enough noodles. The corner Chinese food deliver in my neighborhood has this same dish and it is considerably better for half the price.
My friend ordered the grilled beef($9). This consisted of rice angel hair noodles, thin slices of beef marinated in soy and galanga, lettuce cucumber, pickled carrots, daikon, and peanuts. Once again his dish was nicely presented, but we were slightly confused by the absence of noodles on the plate. We quickly found them nestled away underneath the meat. There were about 4 bites of them. In my opinion a restaurant that claims to be a noodle shop needs to serve a larger portion of noodles to earn that title. The taste of the dish was good, but the beef was a little bit tough.
The highlite of the meal was the lime lemonade($3) that we drank with dinner. It was a very lightly sweetened, tart drink. It was very refreshing and had an all around fresh, natural lime and lemon taste to it.
We opted not to have dessert there as we had seen a couple people nearby who had and they looked very standard and unappealing.
Then came the grueling ordeal to get the check. We didn't see our waitress for about ten minutes once we had finished eating. We asked the busboy about it and were met with a blank stare. Finally out waitress came back and it took about ten more minutes to get our change and leave the restaurant.
Overall I was very unimpressed by Republic. The food was mediocre at best, service was slow, and the seating was very uncomfortable. I would probably not go back here again.
Recommended:
No
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Best Suited For: Trendy Crowd
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
castlesnthesky
|
|
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 2 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.