RUIG — Restaurant in Utrecht

We (a group of three people) arrived at the restaurant at 8:30 PM and were shown to a table by the staff. The tables were sticky, as were the drinks menus (there were only menus for alcoholic beverages—there was no menu for soft drinks on the table). At 8:45 PM, we fetched the food menu ourselves, as we were deliberately ignored by the staff, even though we tried several times to get their attention.

Ten minutes before nine, we finally placed our order: two burgers with a small salad and one large salad. It should be mentioned that the small salad was a special request (it was not on the menu), which the team kindly accommodated. The small salad was brought relatively quickly, but only after the waiter realized there was no cutlery on our table and brought some over.

At around nine o'clock, the large salad for one person in our group arrived—again without cutlery. Here too, we tried to get the staff's attention to get some cutlery—unfortunately without success.

35 minutes after placing our order, we asked about the two burgers and again requested two sets of cutlery. There was no response as to how much longer it would take. Fifteen minutes later, we still had not received any feedback from the staff.

We then went to the manager to express our dissatisfaction, as these wait times of about 1 hour and 10 minutes in an almost empty restaurant are unacceptable—especially when you receive no information at all from the waitstaff. His response was that he didn't know the burgers were supposed to be served with the large salad. He offered us an additional drink as an apology, which we declined, as it did not really solve the problem.

The burgers arrived just as we were complaining. We also had to get the sauces ourselves. We ended up eating the burgers because we didn't want the food to go to waste, and we paid for our meal.

Conclusion: the food is not...

Only went for the bistro section as part of the after business hours drinks (borrel). While they have a reasonable amount of beverages available (tap and bottled), it's not exceptional or extensive. The food/quick bites are just the run of the mill Dutch fritters (bittergarnituur) and only cheese souffles for vegetarians (and maybe some veggie balls, not sure), no vegan options. The bar and bistro were way overcrowded. You have to scream to be heard and bar personnel was bogged down. They should control the amount of people that can be there at...

Despite the whole of Netherlands being football crazy the manager accommodated a few of us South Africans to watch the first half of the rugby on Saturday.

Drinks are quite reasonably priced with a good variety. Food is well priced as well and actually quite good. We haven't had many great food experiences in Netherlands but this definitely went beyond expectations.

One small note could be to be a bit more attentive to your customers, but this is a typical European thing so I suppose it's...