Bailey's Restaurant

Bailey’s Restaurant
185 Lombard Ave
Tel: (204) 944.1180
Fax: (204) 944.0449
Email: feedback@baileysprimedining.com
http://www.baileysprimedining.com/

April, 2011


As much as possible, I try to pay multiple visits to restaurants prior to publishing a review, especially if my review is less than favourable. I always try to give benefits of doubts and not rate poorly unless it’s absolutely deserving. Many of the places I visit are mom and pop establishments. If Earl’s loses a few customers, no big deal, but if a small eatery loses income, it could spell doom. However, as much as I want to give a restaurant a fair shake, I also want diners to get the best for their buck. If a restaurant consistently gives bad food or service, I don’t want people to waste their time and money visiting.

Bailey’s Restaurant entrenched itself in the Exchange District 40 years ago and has been a business/theatre crowd fixture since. I visited Bailey’s seven times in recent past and each time, I searched for something good to say about it—I finally found a couple of things:

1. The bacon and cheese burger tasted pretty good; and
2. The bartender did his best to serve me well.

The sirloin burger is a generous-sized sandwich made from deliciously fresh vegetables, a thick patty of beef, and a neatly toasted bun. Although the patty is slightly overcooked, the nice combination of sauces re-injects moisture into the sandwich. The burger comes with your choice of fries, a cup of soup, or a side salad.

The salad of mixed greens comes with a variety of the usual dressings, including the house specialty, a raspberry vinaigrette. I love raspberries but the sickly-sweet dressing doesn’t show much of its vinegar side; instead if reeks of raspberry jam. The delicate taste of the greens are completely lost in this sweet mess of goo.

Bailey’s seafood chowder tastes almost as sweet, and not in the good sense of sweet. A great seafood soup derives its sweetness from the wonderful meats, shells and bones of the sea. You taste the essence of the ocean in great chowders but this one tastes obviously sugared for sweetness. The sparse little shrimps swimming in the cream add nice texture but the main ingredient of the soup is pollock. I love pollock, honestly, but it’s not crab—and everyone knows it. You won’t find many people who’ll be fooled by this obvious attempt at imitating crab chowder. The soup also claims to have clams and scallops but I’m hard-pressed to find either snapping around.

My visit today comes over the lunch break. Downtown restaurants recognise the need for most diners to dine and depart from lunch within the span of an hour. Today’s soup took over 40 minutes to arrive at my table and the burger took over 50 minutes to come. I certainly don’t expect ladling a bowl of soup to take almost ¾ of an hour to prepare and no burger should take 50 minutes to slap together. I’m certain today’s bartender feels bad about the delay as his prompt attentiveness is much appreciated.

I can’t say the same about past service I received from Bailey’s. At best, I received sporadic service from Bailey, including downright bad service from a rude, derisive and condescending server with a parlour trick of tipping the glass with the bottle while he pours the beer. Imagine yourself as a customer getting your hand slapped out of the way because of a parlour trick.

Back to the food, here are some of the substandard fares that Bailey’s put across my table in the past:

• Cardboard-thin and terribly well done (ordered blue) New York steaks;
• Dried and overcooked racks of lamb;
• Paper-like veal in veal scaloppini;
• Pasta with chicken in a tasteless white sauce.

I don’t mean to be overly harsh but I have never walked out of this restaurant with a satisfactory experience. Bailey’s has been an institution for four decades and I can’t understand how they stay in business. With all the exceptional establishments in this city, I can find better almost anywhere else.

0/5

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