Brian L

Review of The Russian Tea Room

Heard great things about the restaurant from a loc...

Heard great things about the restaurant from a local and decided to check this place out for brunch. Unfortunately, both the service and food failed to deliver and the recent negative reviews were spot on.

The service was actually great at first when we were seated as the table was pulled out to allow us to seat and take off our coats comfortably. But for the rest of the time. The service was super disappointing as no one checked in with us to see how our meal was, we had to ask repeatedly to fill our empty glasses, and frankly, we saw our server twice. Once to take our order and another to give us our check. I felt that this was unacceptable given that the restaurant was relatively empty and it the menu prices weren't cheap.

We started off with the pastries and it was probably the best part of the meal. Both of them were flaky and hot which was good. I wouldn't go for the basket at $18 as you can pick your own for about the same price.

Our mains were a bit disappointing. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't anything special either. For the price of the food, I expected more in terms of the quality and taste. For example, the brown toast which came with the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon was hard like cardboard, the potato slice was burnt, and the salad that came with the truffle quiche had a bit too much acid.

But what really got to me was their orange juice (I highly don't recommend ordering this). Prior to ordering the juice, we asked whether it was freshly squeezed. The waiter said "Yes" enthusiastically so we ordered it without checking the price (our fault). The juice came out really quickly which I found suspicious as freshly squeezed juice should take a while to make. So, I took a sip of this drink and knew immediately that it came from a container. I was going to say something but the wife wanted to keep it as she was really craving a juice with her meal so I just left it. I expected it to be about $6-$8 but I almost fell off my chair when I saw that we were charged $12!!! That is ridiculous for carton juice - even for freshly squeezed juice I would argue; I forgot to take a picture but it came in a standard tall clear water glass.

Anyway, we paid and there wasn't a thank you from anyone as we left. If there were 1/2 stars I would give it 1.5 for the history/atmosphere of the restaurant, the pastries, and smoked salmon. Other than that, there's not much that's good about this place and would definitely not come back. I would not recommend this restaurant.