Ali Vafi's garden — Restaurant in Municipality of Rethymnon

The place seems to be more suitable for drinking rather than food. We arrived after recommendations we saw, mostly excited about the pictures from the look of the place. The place certainly looks interesting but that's more or less over The service claims to be of a high standard but not really successful. As soon as we sat down we were offered water (ask if you want filtered water or a bottle of mineral water) And also set the table nicely. The salad came really small with weird ingredients. A lot of vegetables were not put and instead they put in the salad a boiled egg, strips of yellow cheese. We got aside individual vials of oil and vinegar and it was nice. We also ordered chicken breast skewers, which unfortunately arrived uncooked. When the waitress came to ask how it was going - we told her it was not cooked enough (in chicken it can be very dangerous compared to beef) She came back later and said she asked the cook and he said it was the kind of part of the chicken that was high in fat so it was pink and not white as coated with roasted chicken. And yet it was strange that only parts were pink and everything else in white as expected and also the taste was not good. Although we said it was not terrible (and just did not eat) but if it is a self-respecting place we expected them to offer to replace the dish. Then we ordered the check and they did not have a machine for paying by credit card so we had to go with the waitress to the checkout counter at the bar and also there a number of cards did not pass - probably a communication problem in the machine. So in the end we paid in cash. The atmosphere is nice and maybe for just drinking it can be nice. We drank draft beer and it was good. Next to us sat a noisy bunch with babies and dogs and every 5 minutes another friend came and almost everyone who entered the place approached their table with hugs and kisses so they made a lot of noise. In short, as tourists, we enjoyed more the authentic restaurants that are nearby within the alleys of...

Atmosphere was very nice, quiet with an internal terrace. That was for the good part. (That’s the 2 stars)

Service was excruciatingly slow and poor. For a salad and couple of sides, we had to wait over 30 minutes. Same for our coffees, although ordered as soon as we arrived, took 20 minutes to come. Not particularly pleasant experience with the server.

Regarding the food , well, it’s the first and only time we went to a greek restaurant that had no tomatoes, which automatically removed a lot of options from the menu (special mention to the comment when asked if there was a possible replacement of the tomato by something in the same dish “what’s the point?”. Additionally this was only mentioned to us after ordered rather than when giving us the menu. Taking into account the wait time between visits from the service, it made the whole sitting a painfully slow experience.

Food was relatively pleasant, but nothing special or extraordinary.

The only part that went fast was for getting the bill, which was overpriced for the quality of the experience. Every other place we went to during our trip (over 10) was better.

I personally would only come back for a talk around a coffee for a slow morning or afternoon, definitely would not recommend if you’re only there for...

Nothing to do with Crete. Very tired waiters waiting for the season to end. Even they tried their best to be nice and polite. A mutated Greek salad with capers a salty to death feta cheese. Greek salad with cherry tomatoes and normal tomatoes. No paprika no olives . Supposed pickled onions that you had to dig in it to find them. No salt and pepper in the tables No olive oil. The waiter was coming with an almost empty bottle of olive oil to drop it in what we had ordered. Waited 45 minutes for my plate when the place was not so busy when all the rest of the table was eating and since it took so long I thought would be something special . It reminded everything but not a Rooster and the mashed potato was far from a mashed potato. 4 stars only for the service since they really looked tired and they did all their best to be gentle and polite. After all was not a nice experience and didn't remind a cretan...