Von's Bistro — Restaurant in Ottawa

It started out as a lovely brunch - the food after all is perfectly good, and it is a nice little restaurant in a lovely neighborhood. My daughter and I each ordered the basic breakfast, and a shared a very small apple crepe each. Not that it's anyone's business, but this is far less food than a normal supper with a desert. Apparently however the server did think it was her business, because when she came to clear the table, she said in a very loud voice, "0h my you guys must be full!" (we look nothing like guys, but I digress). We awkwardly smiled her but didn't say anything as we were surprised by the inappropriateness of the comment. A bit later she came with the bill, which was accompanied by another very loudly spoken comment, this time: "Are you guys going for a walk now?" (We still don't look like guys, but I digress), to which I answered, looking her straight in the eye, "Why do you ask that question?" "Well", she said, still very loudly and clearly oblivious to her faux pas, "I couldn't believe it when you ordered all that food - I'm surprised you managed to finish it all!" My daughter looked at her and said "I'm pregnant." I think the server got it at that point, as she didn't utter another word about our eating experience. Neither did she finally say something appropriate such as "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry I made those comments, and congratulations!" No. She just thanked us for paying the bill. Never mind that the portions are notoriously small at Von's, and especially never mind that it's no one's business what a customer chooses to order. What really bothers me about this is the inherent body-shaming, the judgmental attitude, and the low-class, high-volume comments designed to induce guilt. For all she knew, one of us could have been a cancer patient out for a first celebratory meal. One of us could have had an eating disorder. Maybe we were trying to cheer ourselves up due to the recent death of a family member. ALL of which is, in the end, irrelevant, because a server should never make unkind comments like that to the restaurant's...

Hey folks, just wanted to give some feedback on the fish with mango/ poblano sauce.

It was unfortunately one of the worst cooked fish I've had in the past decade at a restaurant.

The fish was rubbery, the sauce was bitter and surprisingly bland, you've managed to make fingerling potatoes indistinguishable from boiled russets etc. White fish is not very hard to cook.

The people I was eating with seemed to have decent meals, the steak looked good, the fries looked good.

I would recommend you guys rethink the dish in some way. Not only was it not good, I don't see a situation where it would be good - it seems really poorly imagined. I don't think it was a particular chef's fault, just a poorly designed flavor combination and cooking process.

Obviously this is just some guy's opinion. I'll delete the review once I get a reply comment, no sense keeping such a low review online over one meal, I just wanted to let you guys know that dish was not good.

Didn't see an e-mail contact on your website, so I figured I'd leave the...

We (a table of 3) tried to take our mom here for a nice birthday dinner before a movie and were extremely disappointed by the service we experienced.

We placed our order and after nearly an hour of waiting we went to find our server to tell her we were running out of time to make it to the show we had bought advance tickets to. She assured us the food would be out soon.

After an hour and a half of waiting we informed the server we would need to leave without eating. She went to get the manager who instead of apologizing for this terrible service angrily tried to get us to pay full price for food we would not be able to eat. We refused and left hungry.

At no point in this experience were we told to expect a wait beyond the usual 30-40mins for a meal. The fact that the manager refused to acknowledge any problem with this service and made us seem like we were the problem was extremely disturbing. Clearly they have no idea how to run a restaurant.

Needless to say we will never be returning to a place that treats its...