Hooded Merganser Restaurant — Restaurant in Penticton

Tldr: unsatisfactory experience from start to finish.

Sadly, our experience here was honestly a terrible one. It was the beautiful views and acceptable 4.1 rating on Google that brought our party of 7 here but the entire experience from start to finish was subpar.

The hostess at the front seemed preoccupied on her phone for most of the time. While waiting for our table, when we asked her about where the best place to park is and details about the hours of parking, she had no clue. When we were seated, we had asked 2 other people, both of which said they'd get back to us after asking their colleagues. They never did.

How does an entire staff not know anything about details on parking, especially at a restaurant that won the Tripadvisor "TRAVELERS' Choice" award? Disappointing.

Since we drove in seperate cars, we were not impressed by the communal lack of knowledge, which also set the tone for the rest of the evening. While our waitress was a nice lady, service was slow. We were left parched for most of dinner as our water cups were small and water refills did not come by nearly enough. Twice there were even floaty bits in the water. There also must have been some covid protocols about not being able to leave a jug of water at our table because they didn't allow this when requested, but oddly every other restaurant seems to do this without asking.

As for the food, it was all-around mediocre, at best. Not disgusting, but does not warrant the price tag. I suppose you're really paying for the view. In which case, it's still too expensive given there are other options we could've and should've gone to that had the same views.

Lesson learned: look at the most recent reviews and not overall score. Clearly a lot of the newer reviews have not been good and seems to be in line with what we experienced (bland tasting food, undressed coleslaw, slow...

We went to the Hooded Merganser Restaurant for my husbands birthday. After an incredibly difficult year in our lives we were really excited to go out for a lovely lunch. The atmosphere and view is always terrific. We ordered the Chili Prawns and the Baked Brie and the Hood Calamari and a glass of wine and a martini. We were advised that they were out of Brie and to order the Spinach Dip. We sat for 1/2 an hour waiting, even though the restaurant was fairly empty. No drinks, no food. I finally flagged down a waitress and she said are you the ones that ordered a martini and we said yes. She said sorry the Bartender can’t find the Vermouth. Instead of offering another drink she left. They must of sent someone out to a liquor store? The drinks and the food arrived at the same time. A first for us. The martini was so small it matched the tiny dollar store olives. The Chili Prawns were lovely so I let my husband eat them all. The Calamari was long strips instead of the curled baby squid we are used to, the Aoli tasted overwhelmingly like lemon zest? You couldn’t even taste the Calamari, the Spinach dip was tasteless and the bread was covered in butter and rock hard, it wasn’t sliced all the way through so we had quite a struggle to get off a slice, we were sawing away with no results. Pretty much ripped up the roof of my mouth. Someone came by later to offer us a free dessert for my husbands birthday, so we opted for the lightest of the three choices strawberries with canned pineapple and homemade ice cream. The ice cream must of been freshly made as we were just contemplating leaving. The Ice cream was runny and tasted like 100% sugar, so we left it. I usually only write rave reviews but this needed to be shared. All the staff were clearly very young and untrained in customer service...

5 star atmosphere. 5 star service. 1 star food.

Location, atmosphere, decor, view are all world class. Service from Wendy was top-notch. Unfortunately the food was probably some of the worst we've had anywhere in the Okanagan.

Everything was very underseasoned and bland.

For appetizers we had the octopus and the lemon pepper ribs. Octopus was cooked nicely but under seasoned. Served on a weird carrot puree that tasted like baby food. Ribs were fall off the bone tender but the only flavor profile on them was lemon so we had to add a lot of salt and pepper to make them palatable.

For entrees, I wanted to order the lamb but was told they were all out (at 6pm on a Tuesday) so had the mushroom canneloni and my wife ordered the braised chuck flat with ratatouille. Chuck flat was dry and had zero seasoning - just tasted like boiled beef. Sauce was not ratatouille at all but just pureed tomato with chunks of carrot and zucchini. No eggplant, no peppers, no spices, no garlic, no vinegar, nothing resembling a ratatouille and worst of all, no flavor other than stewed tomato. Mushroom canneloni was small, and very bland with the filling just minced dried mushrooms and ricotta. Again no spices, garlic, or flavor. Wife was so put off by her dish that she sent it back after 2 bites. I was hungry so ate my canneloni anyway after adding salt and pepper to make it somewhat edible.

What a terrible shame to have such a beautiful gem of a restaurant with world class location, view, and ambience, yet to have food prepared this poorly. A good chef in a place like this should have a better understanding of flavor profiles and depth.

It's also telling that they never seem to reply to any of their reviews (at least not any recent ones)... makes one wonder if they...