Restaurant Sælhunden — Restaurant in Esbjerg Municipality

Æv!

We returned after a wonderful lunch experience out-of-season, hoping for an equally wonderful evening.

At first we're ignored by a waiter rushing around the half empty restaurant. He's then directed by another server to help us find our seat, which is done through hand gestures. He then proceeds to throw the menu cards on the table, practically running out of the room. The place is nowhere near capacity.

We order and overhear a neighbouring table, waited by the same server, saying that he's angry at them. The server is loudmouthed and clearly pressured by having to converse in English. You can hear the man 'shout' "YA" several times, which breaks up the cozy mood. He also dumps plates on the table with bangs, slams the wine cooler door and is generally not pleasant.

The food arrives, and honestly, we were disappointed. Two small fish filets, one steamed and one fried, on a large piece of unbuttered barely fried bread from a bag. Served with a handful of shrimp, bagged lettuce, a single halved cherry tomato, a dollop of thousand island dressing in a single use bowl and a slice of lemon. All of which is drizzled with a sprinkling of chewy fishrow. This serving was stretched to cover a large platter making it feel like a cover up for decreased portion sizes. This cost us 235dkk or 32eur. I have had more, better and cheaper elsewhere.

I'm sad we didn't have the hyggelig evening we hoped for, and I don't think we're coming back. I sadly think that Sælhunden are living off of former glory and...

The restaurant’s setting is nice and cozy, but at the same time cramped. The service was average, very cold – though I suppose that’s quite common in Denmark.

The starter, a shrimp cocktail, was decent, I’d rate it 7/10. But what was absolutely terrible was the steak. Tough, chewy, impossible to eat, completely bland, and certainly not cooked medium rare as I ordered. The vegetables weren’t al dente but burnt instead – 2/10.

The fish – dorade – was very average, lacking in flavor, though at least it was fresh, 6/10.

At the end, I was offered not to be charged for the starter, which was a gesture from the waitress, but honestly – when I leave half of my main course untouched, I’d expect that to be taken off the bill, not the starter which was fine. The house wine was good.

Finally, the waitress even “argued” with me about what a medium rare steak should look like. Judge for yourself.

Overall – I definitely do not recommend this place. Food at higher prices, even for Denmark. If you’re visiting the town, choose a...

I was more than pleased when I stayed here before in the downstairs room but on my last visit I was given the upstairs room and I did not like it one little bit.||||Why?||Bathroom was not en-suite to the bedroom and you had to go downstairs to use the bathroom beside the stairs (although a bathrobe was provided) it was not handy.||Difficult to find a hair dryer in the room - had to get help from the reception to hunt for it.||The bathroom was the place where water-boarding was invented by the CIA. This was a wet-room that flooded to the point of coming up close to having the water go out into the hallway! All sorts of debris floated up to the surface. maybe there was a problem. There was no space to leave your wash bag except the floor and then you had to rush out of the shower to rescue your wash bag from the tidal wave of debris and water!||Bathroom Fail - sorry.||||I would stay here again but ONLY on condition they book me the downstairs room which...