Holiday Bar — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

I felt like giving zero stars, but I gave one star because of nice staff, location and good music.

Minuses: Out of 11 eaters only one or two liked the food. There was no flavour, not even enough salt. The place is very expensive so you have some expectations for the food - which are not fulfilled.

The prawn pasta (26€) smelled horrible, it smelled like fresh bag of cat dry food made of fish. Really strong odour, the whole table could smell it. There was a whole prawn placed on top the dish and it was dry and flavourless. The prawn meat mixed in the pasta was super rubbery. All the prawns tasted old, they tasted like freezer. We were hungry so we asked salt so we could enhance the food flavour a little bit (the male waiter asked should he bring pepper as well). "YES, bring everything!". With salt and pepper the pasta noodles were at least edible. The female waiter offered to bring new dishes - which we didn't feel comfortable accepting, because it was quite obvious with all the problems with all our dishes that new ones wouldn't be any different.

Drinks: drinks were very expensive and it felt like an amateur made them. Many of the drinks we tested had no balance in the flavour. Some of them were quite bad, some ok. Many of us started with a cocktail that had watermelon, rosé, Kyrö pink gin and thai basil. Unfortunately the drinks we got were missing the thai basil and had cranberries in it instead. It was horrible. When we asked about the missing thai basil the waiter said "well, the drink maker has some artistic freedom" ??? What the hell - so the drinks on the list are not what you necessarily get. The one who made the drinks didn't probably taste them. It was this watery drink with too much dry and sour ingredients in it. We asked the waiter for sugar and then everyone poured sugar in their drinks to balance the flavour. We were offered nothing to compensate the missing / changed ingredients.

The staff was nice, although the main waiter seemed like she didn't know how to handle a situation where eaters say the food and drinks were bad. She asked once in the middle of eating, got the bad feedback, didn't ask anything anymore at the end of the meal, she just came and took away the plates in silence - Which made us feel a little uncomfortable on top of paying too much...

The place is a joke, their menu a scam. The great location guarantees there'll always be people regardless of what they do - so they don't. Drink selection very limited, and what they have, consistently overpriced. When I went there with some people, there was nothing on tap and the only lager was sol [!] and only one IPA. 16cl rosé (a good one, yes but cost) 15 €, a white 14. Some of us hadn't eaten anything so unfortunately we had to order something from the small and uninviting menu, once the kitchen opened at five o'clock. I was told after ordering and paying, that the "food" would take 40 minutes in coming, which it did. Of course I wouldn't have ordered anything, had I known that when making the order. The menu is divided into 3 sections: small, medium and large. I took a medium one: tomato sliced up and swimming in a pool of olive oil (and presumably anchovy that I didn't taste). Don't really see how that takes 40 minutes in making. A friend took a LARGE one. A wild herb gnocchi. It was a very small green mess on a plate. Unfortunately we didn't take a photo, but it was quite sad, and not any larger than mine. Also swimming in sauce that couldn't be eaten without a slice of bread or a bun that wasn't included. Mine cost 15 € the other one 20. One would expect to get something for that price to tie hungry people over for a half an hour but didn't. The other terraces by the asa around the market square aren't much better. Go just a little bit further and...

This was a weird one: There were two people who saved the whole experience with their service (three if you count the guy who prepared the oysters). For the life of me I cant remember their names, but this on guy had a huge afro and the person was a woman from asian decent. The guy told us to ask if were missing anything and seemed to be on top the situation. The woman we saw, was clearly trying to serve every customer to the best of her abilities but theres only so much you can do if you dont have the food ready :D

We waited about 30minutes for our appetisers and one hour for our food (we definitly werent the only ones and our wating time was one of the shortest ones). As I leaned to check what the head chef was doing I heard him ask the DJ (or whatever, cause for the 2-3 hours we observed the guy he was pretty much just on his phone) if he wanted anything to eat. No problem, but if you have a house full of hungry customers, you should be more aware of what your saying concerning the food.

The food was hella good though, like i mean...