Bayview Restaurant & Lounge

Recently, for BF’s mom’s birthday, we went out to eat at a restaurant on the water.  Sounds lovely, right?  Except for the gnats that ate us alive… there are plenty of non-smelly bug repellents which the restaurant could have employed to dissuade the bugs from feasting on their customers, but… it became clear shortly that the restaurant could care less about their customers.

We arrived a few minutes before our reservation and were asked to wait a minute for our table to be ready – no big deal, except when BF & I headed to get a drink at the bar, they could have told us it would literally be 60 seconds; our drinks weren’t ready yet before the hostess pointed to our table.  Honestly, we walked right by our table on our way to the bar, and the table was as ‘ready’ as it was when we were seated.  I didn’t understand why we weren’t led straight to our table; it was missing a few place settings but that wasn’t corrected until 15 minutes later, after we were seated, after our appetizers came out, and after I requested a few extra settings.  Uh…

We ordered two dozen baked clams as a starter, and these came remarkably quickly.  Literally, 5 minutes after we’d ordered them.  Unfortunately, I had two that I deemed fishy – not fishy enough that I’d spit it out and be rude like that, but fishy enough that I stopped eating and decided it wasn’t worth possibly getting sick.  BF didn’t heed my frowning face and whispered statement “I think the clams are bad,” and ate more than I did, and had some issues later.  But his stomach is also a lot more sensitive than mine, and he is no stranger to those kinds of problems post-meals (which is why I can’t take him to Indian places – he ALWAYS gets sick).  In any case, he didn’t think they were “that” fishy… but clearly, in the end, I was right!

Fried calamari; this also came quite quickly, along with the clams.  Soggy, and I definitely did not want another bite.

After we’d finished our appetizers, the plates were cleared and the wait began.  I swear that I had to ask two different people for bread before we got any… AFTER our appetizers were done!  In addition to which, we waited easily an HOUR for our next course.  No one came by to check on us nor tell us that the kitchen was backed up (if it was?) or anything… it was just being ignored for an hour.  I don’t play that game. 

BF and I opted to each order what we wanted and “share” – a common theme with us at this style of restaurant, one of us will order a pasta dish and the other will order a meat dish.  It works such that the person who ordered each dish usually eats more of their own dish, but both gets a taste of the other, which is nice for trying lots of stuff. 

(Please note that I don’t believe in sharing, so let this be a testimony to how much I love this man.) 

I ordered the veal francaise and risked it when I chose broccoli over green beans, though honestly, mushy green beans < mushy broccoli, in my world.  Mushy anything is bad, but… well, there you go.  I found it a bit odd that I was given a choice of rice or baked potato as my starch, but I shrugged and picked the potato since I don’t like rice that much… although I guess the rice would have nicely soaked up those lovely lemon juices. 

My veal was fine, tasty enough, though it wasn’t quite veal-ish and was very heavily breaded – it could have been thinly pounded chicken, the breading was so thick.  The broccoli was actually cooked properly – still crunchy but definitely cooked through – which pleased me so much that I ate all of my broccoli first.  (Funny note: BF’s mother asked me how I liked the food; not wanting to be rude, I said “The broccoli was really good,” to which she responded, “Oh, I didn’t like it! It wasn’t cooked enough, I like my broccoli mushy” which goes to show you that it really is personal preference.)  The baked potato was fairly standard.

BF ordered the rigatoni alla vodka, which worried me insomuch the menu description listed it as an ‘orange cream sauce’ – which doesn’t sound appetizing to me at all, but I tried to push my fears down and see orange as a color descriptor rather than an ingredient.  Though those worries were proven unfounded – didn’t taste any orange in there at all – the pasta was cooked beyond al dente for sure, and the sauce tasted like a plain red sauce that had cream added to it to achieve the orange color.  Huh.  Well, BF found it alright – he didn’t like it, per se, but he did find it palatable enough to eat. 

Overall, I was really disappointed with the place, after other members of the party had told me that the food was good there.  They didn’t find the food that night to be good, either, so it wasn’t like I was being overly picky or had too high expectations.  The service was terrible and slow – the waitstaff was clearly incredibly young, probably their first job ever while school is out, but it’s inexcusable that we were routinely ignored (if they’d kept bringing us drinks, the tip would have jumped significantly!), no one explained why the food was taking so long, and our table wasn’t set properly, which took forever to correct.  We didn’t even get bread until after our appetizers arrived- and only then because we asked for it.  I don’t like going to restaurants to be treated poorly.  Seriously.  If I wanted to eat mediocre food while being treated poorly, I could go back in time and date my ex-boyfriend again.  Come on.  As a restaurant, you don’t want to be compared to the ex-boyfriend.  You want to be the one on The List, the one I want to cheat on my boyfriend with. 

Yvo says: I wouldn’t go back if you paid me.  Or if BF’s family had another function there, but I’m hoping they don’t.
not recommended

Bayview Restaurant
25 Van Brunt Road
Broad Channel, NY
718-634-4555
http://bcbayview.com