130° SteakHouse — Local services in Mérida

Went here for a birthday dinner last night. I will start by saying all the food that I ate was good. My issue is with the service and lack of hospitality and any attempt on the restaurants part to do right by the customer.

First off they had lost our reservation and we were forced to pull up a confirmation email while standing outside of the restaurant.

We ordered an expensive bottle of wine for the table after being told that we were not allowed to have a taste of a different wine that is served by the glass. Having worked in fine dining restaurants I can understand not necessarily giving tastes if bottles are not regularly opened and not opening a bottle just for a taste so I didn’t think to much into it at the time and we ordered a bottle of something more expensive anyway. (Probably what they wanted us to do by denying the taste.) After having a few sips of wine I noticed that there was a live bug swimming in my glass (not the restaurants fault). I asked for a new glass from a server. He took away my 90% full glass of wine and brought a new empty glass. He poured the remainder of our bottle into my new glass and the restaurant made no attempt to resolve the situation by either offering a free glass of wine, taking a small percentage off the bill or at the very least apologizing for throwing away a quarter of my bottle of wine! I would have honestly drank the glass with a bug in it but at the very least would have liked it strained out first! We ended up ordering another bottle in part because we had lost a quarter of the last one. Again no apology or offer to remedy the situation. That is honestly terrible hospitality in my opinion.

The short ribs were served table side and the server struggled with an empty lighter for minutes to set up the presentation while awkwardly standing in the way of the walking path of the restaurant. If you are going to serve anything table side you should make sure you are prepared before showing up to the table.

The final straw for me and the reason I decided to write a review was that we asked to wrap all of our leftover food to go. That included half a Caesar salad, a side of spinach, and the remaining short ribs. Imagine my frustration when I opened the bag of food today and the only thing that they had wrapped up was the short ribs.

Overall there are about a hundred other restaurants in Merida that are just as good and I won’t be returning to spend my money in a place that cares so little about their guests experience.

PS. I was excited to see they had beef Wellington on their menu but upon asking for clarification on the item I was informed it did not come with any sauce which I found very unusual for Wellington. They also describe it as being wrapped in pastry with wild mushrooms. For those that do not know a proper Wellington is wrapped in prosciutto and duxelles and served with a reduction sauce and usually accompanied with side dishes. They are charging high prices for dishes that fall short of the mark.

What we ate. Scallops with bone marrow - fine but underwhelming. Served on a crostini that did nothing to complement or elevate the dish.

Caesar salad - pretty good not much to say. I honestly don’t think they bothered to wash the romaine though.

Salmon tacos - tasty! Salmon was good. Fried leeks added perfect texture. Squeeze of lime added the right amount of acidity for a well rounded delicious bite.

Short ribs - I’d give them a 6.5 out of 10. Had some flavor but needed a proper sauce to elevate the dish. Not very impressive

Creamed spinach - This along with the tacos were the highlight for me. Creamy, cheesy, overall just delicious. Made all the more frustrating because I saved extra and was expecting to have leftovers but they were not wrapped up as...

Here we are again, the culinary professionals, and we decided to celebrate another one of us's birthday at 130 Steakhouse except this time it wasn't the impressive showing we had on the previous occasion , I'll explain: We ordered Mojitos all around yet they were not very good, flat taste and missing some sweetness, waiter said new bartender. Then we ordered a Rib Eye Top which did not WOW us as last time, not as flavorful and just OK, we were VERY disappointed. Then came the Rib Eye which was good, except both meat items were not hot so where were they? They sit out too long on the kitchen table? Not good. Another thing was the waiter asked "even portions all around?" yet I as a woman was served a tiny piece of both meats which both of my male partners commented on. This is not OK, sexist or what? Dainty ladies don't eat more? Fix this, it's rude to be made less of. Ordered the Esquites which were hard corn and just OK flavor. Desserts were the Lemon Curd that once again had a perfect meringue over a very forgettable and totally lacking lemon flavor curd, no citrus bang at all, you might as well just serve the meringue since the curd is not worth it, neither is the crust which is so hard and way too thick. The Fudge is not fudge first off, this is a very dry chocolate cake with a mousse filling and a condensed milk kind of chocolate frosting and while the mousse is ok, the cake is awful with a large dry crumb. Also, ordered a Sangria which was NOT sangria at all and the waiter explained that "in Yucatan" Sangria is something else, really? So the rest of the world has a different concept? WOW, your other drink is the Sangria while the Sangria is yet another one that is sour tasting and unpleasant. Go figure. Tonight was a very noisy place, loud children and people bringing their own wine which is almost unheard of in other places. Waited quite a while for the waiter to appear, he was pleasant but very slow service. Group of women came in taking flash pictures which left us unable to see for a while and 2 months later and the restaurant quality is lessened, how sad, fortunately for us there are many other restaurants out there. We thought we had found a steakhouse to keep. And you'll say we're picky and yes we are but we know when things are done right and a place works and...

Bad experience. 4 of 6 didn't like the food. Six adults (5 Mexican Nationals & me). Our reservation was properly handled. I liked the artwork in the place. The wait to place our orders was much too long. Steaks are priced in the menu by the Oz. but not sold that way. I wanted a 4oz. Porterhouse, medium rare but they would only sell me the 38oz. vacuum-sealed steak! $88.00 US! What! I've never heard of that. I'm supposed to take home 34ozs. in a doggie bag?! OK, give me a N.Y Strip - SAME THING! 35oz. I was the last to order and we are all hungry! Give me an eff-ing hamburger! (I know, I ordered a hamburger in an expensive Mexican Steakhouse :( 45 minutes later (agiain too long of a wait) our food starts to come. Not all at the same time mind you. But not too far apart. Four of the six of us complained (among the table) about our dishes. The Dr. who loves tongue said his was over-cooked. His wife didn't like the flavor of her octopus. She has eaten it prepared Yucatan style all her live and this was not to her liking. My wife complained that her dish (I don't recall the issue) was and my ridiculously large hamburger was not appetizing at all. All I tasted was salt (I ate it the way it came from the kitchen). My big potato wedge fries were good. The chocolate desert was good too. The other Dr. and his wife shared a T-Rex rib which they were happy with. Four of six dislikes is not a good record and we are not a group looking for things to complain about. To add to my fun after I paid my - almost $100 US share of the bill with my Visa card. Two days later someone tried to use my Visa number to buy Ugg boots from a California store. The Visa company caught the unusual activity and denied the purchase. I can't put this on the restaurant but it is the second time my Visa card was compromised after I used it in a restaurant in Merida over three consecutive years visiting. It may be staff, or it may be something that happens up the chain - through international fraud rings. I don't know. The cancellation of the card does cause a lot of trouble for the cardholder (me). Last word - I found the Freddie Krueger carving claw to be a sort of childish gimmick. Serve good food in a reasonable way and you won't...