Taverna Raw Bar & Plancha — Restaurant in Hudson

Unfortunately I have to give a bad review to Taverna. First time last night, was looking forward to it all week, especially after hearing so much hype from others. However I was VERY disappointed in the quality of the food. I ordered the salmon tartar which came with their « homemade guacamole ». My husband ordered the lobster poutine. Surprisingly it came quite quickly, under 15 min, which was suspicious given the time it would take to make fries, prepare fresh lobster, and prepare a tartar…. My guacamole was BROWN. Like muddy green brown. Looked like it was 4-5 days old. I asked 2 servers if it was supposed to be like that as being a guac addict, i know well that not only is guac supposed to be VIBRANT GREEN but also brown=not fresh. First server basically brushed me off saying yeah yeah. 2nd had a worried face and went to ask the chef. (points to her) She returned saying yes, as it is mixed with a brown tamari sauce….. It didnt taste bad, salmon was fresh, however after googling « Guacamole with Tamari sauce », my suspicions were validated : GUAC IS STILL SUPPOSED TO BE GREEN! So not only do I believe they literally lied to me, they served a customer days-old brown-ass guac and tried to pass it off as « its mixed with brown sauce ». Husband also had 4 pieces of shell in his lobster poutine… Went home -60$ out, very hungry but no appetite. The only positives was that young 2nd waitress and my wine was chilled. Never...

Don’t get me wrong we love this restaurant, but…… Last night we were two and booked a table for 18:30 We got there and were seated right away, we ordered a glass of wine each and ordered a dozen oysters to share, to me a dozen is 12 not 11 is which we got, ok a little mishap, not a big deal. After the oysters (which were excellent) we ordered our main meal, we told the server that we are both are going to have the seafood pasta dish each and share the iceberg blue cheese salad wedge. My wife’s main dish came, only one pasta dish and the salad, the server said they would come back with a dish so we could share? (But we ordered one each) Who goes into a restaurant and shares a main dish and a salad? (Perhaps teen agers, maybe) We told the sever the error and they apologized for the error, I was looking at my wife’s seafood pasta dish which consisted of Clams Mussels, Calamar and small scallops and pasta it looked great and she said it was seasoned very well, mine came abut 10 minutes later, first thing I noticed was there were no mussels and 8 out of the 10 clams were not open, also the taste was very bland. I was wondering why the servers were not really paying attention to the customers in the restaurant, but then I noticed the servers and other staff were fawning over two people sitting and eating at the bar, seemed to be a big distraction, I think they were the owners. I will think twice about booking...

Though all the food for our table was prepared very well, I left the restaurant hungry had to make a sandwich when I got home. I ordered the Black Cod, and though it was delicious, there were only two bites of fish. It was not only me, but the entire table who thought my meal was miserly.

When my plate was delivered, I mentioned to the server that my portion was very small, but she gave me some mumbo jumbo about this cut of fish being so expensive. Yeah okay, but serve enough to call it dinner, not an appetizer. Charge me more if you have to, but don't send me home hungry. I paid 36 buck for fries and few brussel sprouts. What a major rip off. I should have refused it, but was happy to be out in a resto again, no matter how small my meal was.

On the other side of the coin, the fries were good and the three brussel sprouts were nicely seasoned.

Also thought it showed a lack of courage from the chef for not following through and making the server do his bidding.

Would I go back? Yeah maybe because it is close to home, but not likely. If I did return, I would order some oysters, a burger and beer and move on. Too bad because we were so excited to have a new...