Poyo + The Sprout Restaurant — Restaurant in St. John's

A lot of room for improvement.

What distinguishes between a good restaurant and great restaurant? The answer “Details”.

Let’s start with something good. I went along with one of my friends to this place to find out if this positive anomaly of a place justifies its place in this horrific culinary desert. To start with we had a server who seems genuinely happy to be where she was and it reflected in her disposition but that was the last of the positive factor and it was all downhill from there.

The place .

The vibrancy with which it invites you from outside just vanishes from within. Seem’s like the place was put up in hurry without any thoughts given to the aesthetics, layout or design. Yes it seems spacious but cold, we stepped in from a foggy St. John’s streets to find in ourselves in a ‘Charles Dicken’s’ run-down tavern.

Food

When you are stand alone of your type, you need to set the bar so high that anyone who dares to come up to your completion should shudder with meeting the standards you set for your food. My sympathies are with the chef who is catering to palates of folks whose greatest culinary undertaking stops at ketchup, no wonder you see positive reviews out here. These people don’t know any better; but that's where you as a chef come in. Stop putting a million things on the menu and getting every single thing wrong, instead put 7-8 things but make it outstanding. Vegetarian food which you need not be bland, boring and outright disgusting, if you find the vegetarian dishes from the Indian sub-continent too exotic then that a page from ‘Palestine’ and ‘Morroco’.

What we had..

Apple Burger… Dry and uninspiring Pad Thai – An insult to culinary high post of ‘Thailand’

When you know your serving room is cold, you don’t serve food on cold plates and especially ‘French Fries’. Educate your staff so that they know what are you putting in your food, that’s where the cut from pages of offering down to selected few comes handy, let your server taste every single thing on offer to make them have an opinion of what you make. It’s a bad sign when she stands there scratching her head and makes a statement “I don’t know what is gone in it but I heard it is good”…. REALLY????

Look, I commend you folks for setting up this for people who want good choices but you need to pick your game up. Make your food exciting, flavourful and a celebration of life as it should be, turn the place to make it a home away from home.

What makes me the authority to write this post ???

Let’s just say, I have been to more countries than all the number of dishes you have on your menu card and I have tasted quite a great food to know what qualifies and...

I had such high hopes for this restaurant. I had heard about it and as I was passing by decided to stop in a get some take out. the restaurant was ok, but the service was terrible and the food was less the adequate. I ordered my food to go and told them i would sit in the waiting area and wait for it. about ten min later I saw the girl come out and lay two take out cartons n the counter then leave and go back behind the counter. i sat up and when she came out I made eye contact with her and she walked back to the back of the kitchen leaving the cartons on the counter. I assumed it wasn't mine and sat back down. almost ten min later she looks at the food on the counter {you don't pay until you get it} and calls to me that my food it ready. they are the same cartons that had been there the whole time. she tried to convince me that they went but the food was stone cold and I know the cartons hadn't moved. the food was cold and gross and I am insulted by her trying to tell me i'm wrong when Id been looking at them for ten min. I will NOT be going again.

the food was honestly not great quality. the chic pea burger was not seasoned at all and had no char on either side so it had nothing but a terrible mush texture that fell apart and squeezed out of the bun the second you took a bite. the falafel .. same thing. no seasoning but very overcooked. served with olives and a sliver of fruit and limp spinach {probably from sitting on the counter for ten min} just made the whole thing look awful and taste as good as it looked. the only really edible thing was the potatoes which were season but slightly burned. really...

Very disappointed in my experience at The Sprout last night. I had heard they offer safe gluten free meals. I ordered gluten free as I have Celiac disease and require a strict gluten free diet. At first they brought me out a sandwich with bread that was clearly not gluten free. I questioned it and was told they made a mistake and gave me regular bread. They re-made my order gluten free, which took another 20 minutes or so. They brought me my meal which I was told was gluten free. Unfortunately, I was incredibly ill after eating at the Sprout. So very disappointed that I had this experience in a restaurant that claims to be gluten and vegan friendly. I rarely eat out as the risk of cross contamination is to high in most restaurants but decided to try the Sprout as I had heard they can accommodate SAFE gluten free meals. I will never be back and I will certainly not be recommending this restaurant for my gluten free (celiac) friends. The Sprout may be a option for someone choosing to eat gluten free but definitely NOT for anyone with CELIAC. Very sick and incredibly...