Murrieta's West Coast Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Calgary

I had high hopes for this place as it came highly recommended from my friend, but when we went there in April for her birthday, it was a big disappointment. First of all, when we ordered our drinks, my wine never came and the server never came back to check on us. We waited for 15 minutes as we wanted to toast my friend, and finally I gave up and went to the bar and asked for it there. They were nice enough to give it to me no charge, though it wasn't a full glass as it was the bottom of the bottle. I would have rather paid and had a full glass with proper service. Then we had to wait quite awhile to have our order taken. I understand there was a private party in the big room, but it was a lot longer than I'm used to waiting at any restaurant. Then came the calamari, which was actually quite good. Definitely the best part of the meal, the only good part. I should mention the music was so loud I could hardly hear the server or give instructions for my dietary restrictions, and the live music hadn't even started yet! Finally we received our meals, quite awhile later, and they were all disappointments. Not one of us were totally happy with our meal. Let's start with mine, the salmon on fries. I have food sensitivities so wanted something simple without a lot of unknown seasonings I'm sensitive to, so I asked for salmon but instead of with the noodles and broth I asked for plain with fries as I didn't see plain rice on the menu. They put the overcooked, flavourless salmon (not even a lemon) on top of a bowl of fries (so I couldn't even cut my salmon with my fork). This I would have been embarrassed to serve at a fish and chip restaurant. When you are cooking fries from scratch, they need to be blanched ahead of time and cooled before refrying. This is a basic skill. If you don't, you get limp burnt fries like are pictured. I say this from a lot of experience. Next was my friend who got the salmon dish on the menu. It was cold. Noodles, broth, cold. She said it didn't taste good either and sent it back. Both Caesar salads looked like they had been mixed 2 hours prior and were all soggy. I spent 2 years making salads at Milestone's, so I know what they should look like when fresh. Next up, the beef; not a whole heck of a lot for the money. Don't get it if you're hungry. Then we had the pasta with just butter, tomatoes, cheese. Not even a real sauce. Still had trouble finding a server. They kept rushing past us. We were able to grab a hostess for a group picture though, so thank you to whomever you were. We talked to the assistant manager and complained, especially me and my friend about our salmon dishes, but he never even reduced my bill, so I paid $7.50 for fries that belonged in the garbage, and that's when he took my salmon to wrap up as I was done. I waited for my salmon and we tried to get our bill and pay for basically 1 hour. Plus I tried for over the hour to get the rest of my salmon wrapped up. The assistant manager disappeared with it and I didn't see it for a long time. It seemed the servers were more interested in all the suits than to bother with a table of women celebrating a birthday. Getting a server was nearly impossible and you felt like you were imposing every time you had to wave one down. Later on I flagged down a server because I really needed to leave and asked about my salmon. She had no idea where it was. She came back later and said they were making me a new one. An hour later they brought my old one. Where had it been? It became cat food. So really, the calamari was great, the live music was great when it started, but everything else from start to finish was a poor experience. I worked in the restaurant industry for 5 years on both sides of the restaurant, and it's like they lacked the basic skills to make good food and were just trying to make it look fancy with a half a baby bok choi. Please master the basics first. I was at Joey Barlow today for another birthday and received exceptional service and the food was hot and delicious. Needless to say, I don't recommend...

HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE honestly from start to finish was a mess. We go in with a group of 4 and get seated in the lounge, take note that there was no more than 10 people in the ENTIRE restaurant. We order our drinks which take about 20-30 minutes to come which was honestly a start to a bad experience. We're all understanding at the fact that our server may have had other tables that she was helping, mind you two of the people in our group in the serving industry so again we're very understanding but 20 to 30 minutes for a drink in an empty restaurant is not acceptable. Once we got the drinks we looked through the menu, that we were told had just come out today, and let me tell you they should probably switch back to their "Old" menu.

I originally wanted the brisket, but was told by the server that they didn't "have enough room in the oven" to put the brisket in so therefore we weren't serving it today and then went on to blame it on the fact that they just came out with a new menu today, I brush past that and got Lamb spaghetti instead which I was told by the server comes in two portions, the appetizer portion and the regular portion so I went with the appetizer portion hoping for just a half sides of the spaghetti. We also get gnocchi, Brussel sprouts, and muscles. upon receiving my "spaghetti" that took a total of 30 to 40 minutes to arrive In an empty restaurant, I saw no pasta- what I had gotten was a tiny skillet with meatballs. I was extremely upset after being completely misled by the server. The meatballs were lukewarm. The muscles were extremely cold and also had hair in it, we were looking around the restaurant for the server for a very long time as she didn't check on us throughout the entire experience. We finally got a hold of our server told her about the hair and she responds very casually "oh, sorry " takes the plate & doesn't say anything. A couple moments later a man in a suit came out, introduced himself as the assistant manager, apologized for the situation, and asked us if we wanted another set of muscles or anything else because of the incident. We said no then he asked us about dessert and INSISTED on us getting a dessert so we have a look at the menu and collectively we agree to try the carrot cake. And that's honestly where we went wrong, we should've left after the hair. Once again 20 to 30 minutes go by, server comes out with a little circular ball that appears to be a cake pop on top of a cookie we're very confused and she explains that the cake is under all the icing. Needless to say it wasn't great. We get our bills, again, after waiting very long time to even get the servers attention, and our surprise the cake was split amongst the four of us. One of us mentioned this to the server as we assumed after being forced to get a replacement for the muscles that this would be covered she then responds "oh the muscles were taken off" and also goes on to say "sorry I'm not management. I can't really controlled what's taken care of and what's not" thinking that was an adequate response as to why we were paying for the carrot cake that we were forced to get by the assistant manager after having hair in our cold muscles. Overall, the experience was horrible, the food wasn't great, it was very overpriced for less than mediocre food, the server wasn't accommodating or polite. I would never come back to this restaurant or recommend anyone go there. We left...

I found the service to be very slow. When we sat down it was quite a wait for her to appear to ask if we would like water. While we were waiting I was looking over the menu to see what I think I would like to order and what dishes I might need to get more information on as I am a Celiac and can't consume wheat, barley or rye. When the server finally did come back to our table with water I asked her what items were gluten free, and she seemed genuinely annoyed with this inquiry. Don't get me wrong I know that going gluten free seems to be trendy right not but I was not asking for fun, I have an auto immune disease that wreaks havoc on my body when gluten is consumed. Would she have been annoyed if I told her I had a nut allergy? I didn't find her to be very helpful in explaining the menu options that would be safe for me. She told me pizza and pasta. I mentioned I was looking towards the Buttermilk Marinated Chicken Supreme, I did see it included perogies but I was hoping she would offer a substitute for maybe a rice or potatoes based side, but all I was met with was "No, you couldn't have that." I was a little taken aback by this as I have been to numerous fine and casual dining establishments since my diagnosis September 2010 and have been accommodated quite well. I inquired if the pasta in the Quinoa & Snap Pea Sauteé was actually pasta made from Quinoa or was it gluten free pasta with Quinoa as part of the dish. I was informed it was Quinoa pasta. I thought I would give that a whirl as I have heard of Quinoa pasta but have yet to try it, I was quite excited actually. My fiancé ordered the Buttermilk Marinated Chicken Supreme however after sometime our server came back to inform him it was no longer available. Should she have not known this BEFORE she took our order? She didn't even bring him a menu to review again for another selection; he had to do it from memory. Also the guest of honour was informed that she could not have the crab cakes she had ordered as an appetizer as they too were unavailable. The server than brought bread to our table and as she set it right in front of me she said "I know you can't have this.' Gee thanks for the reminder. It was after the appetizers were done and our plates were cleared that another guest asked why I didn't have any bread and I explained I was a Celiac that is when they said they saw on the menu that Gluten Free rolls and flatbreads were available. I obviously missed this but the server should have offered this to me, it wasn't news to her I was in need of gluten free options! Fast forward to the presentation of our entrees and to my disappointment I found the server mislead me on the contents of my dish. I did not have pasta made with Quinoa, but Quinoa in the dish itself. I was extremely disappointed as it is rare for me to enjoy pasta when I go out, and this turned out to be a time when once again I would not be enjoying a real pasta dish. I also found the dish to be extremely salty but decided not to mention this to our server as I didn't want to be perceived as a problem guest like I was made to feel when I asked about gluten free options. I only ate about half of my dinner as the salt content was something I could not handle. When she came back to ask us if we were interested in dessert I was more than happy to order the Flourless Brownie to fill the void my dinner left and I must say the brownie was the highlight of my...