Porterhouse Grill — Restaurant in Howick

My partner and I ate here 24th August 2017, first time and last time. Service was terrible from the beginning. We waited 15 minutes from the time we were seated before going to the bar to order drinks. No one came over to us or the table of 4 beside us to take drink orders. We bought a bottle of Merlot for myself and Heinekin for my partner, this did take sometime to get to our table. While looking at the entrees and deciding what to order we were bombarded with service, 2 different waitresses every few minutes. We presumed the kitchen wanted our orders quick smart as we were one of the last couples to order. I ordered Tuna Titaki which was nicely cooked, flavour was ok, nothing to rave about. My man ordered Steak Tartare. It was chunky, NOT finely diced, had sinew running through it, no seasoning what so ever, lacked any finesse and creaminess in flavour. It was like eating a raw steak out of the fridge with no preparation. Not once did a waitress come over and ask how our entree was. When out plates were taken, we showed the waitress the big chunks of tartare and she took it to the chef who then passed on apologies, admitted it was chunky and offered to make another. We declined as I had finished my entree and no one bothered to check in the first instance. For mains I had the Prime Rib (scotch fillet on the bone) medium rare, garlic mash and a side salad that was priced from the waitress as a $1 extra. The steak was cooked nicely but it stopped there, the garlic mash was grey looking and lumpy not smooth and creamy as I had asked the waitress before ordering, the salad was unappetising and the balsamic vinaigrette on it looked more like a thick gravy. Not a pleasant put together meal. My man ordered the Lazy Aged Sirloin medium rare, it came out BLUE! It was seared on one side only and the inside was completely raw and un-edible. He had fries with aioli, the aioli was not aioli it was awful. Again we waited for someone to come and ask how our meals were, we looked around a good half a dozen times to try and get someone's attention, and no one was interested. There were 2 staff members at the coffee machine talking and making coffee for each other yet not one looked our way. There was plenty of staff working, over half a dozen in a less than busy restaurant. When the waitress finally came over to clear out plates we showed her the raw meat, explained no one bothered again to check how our meals were and would she pass that on to the chef and to management. The chef sent his apologies and offered to recook it. We declined as I had finished and we had had enough of the terrible service and food. For a couple who are prepared to spend a lot of money in a restaurant, the service was 1 out of 10. Management did not come over to talk to us and neither did the chef. We paid for the drinks and food we did consume, not for the food that was sent back. There was no complimentary anything offered, we did not feel looked after at all the whole night. I would NOT RECOMMEND to anyone. Try Angus Steak House in Fort Lane, perfectly cooked steak a great environment and...

• it's been brought to my attention that my review may not have been as... balanced ...as I'd wish. I've therefore voluntarily elected to amend portions of the original *

I rated Porterhouse low. It wasn't due to the food or the service which was great but the raucous coming from another table was beyond awful.

My dinner companion had the Scallop & Sirloin whilst I had the Ceasar Rump.

I'm usually somewhat suspicious of rump but in this case it was tender & cooked well.

The noisy table... Where do I begin? It was a large group of 20 or so. I'm guessing some kind of Christmas dinner but noisy... Very very noisy... Did I mention that it was noisy?

There were several women at the far end who were constantly shrieking with laughter. Ordinarily that's not bad but after a continuous hour, it was pretty annoying.

We weren't able to have our own conversation over the noise. I noticed several diners leaving with pretty sour expressions and complaining to the manager didn't do anything... What could he do really?

When paying for our meal, the manager did wipe off our drinks. My dining companion later suggested that an offer of drinks during the meal might have been more appropriate but I'm ambivalent about this. Personally. I think a small discount (say 10%) might have been more suitable.

I'm almost disappointed that my (semi-serious) suggestion to turn the firehose on them wasn't taken up.

So a good meal but terrible environment. You can tell when things are bad when you have the urge to approach the table and thank them for ruining an otherwise good meal.

-- X --

ADDENDUM

We were offered to relocate tables but being mid meal, this was not attractive... Further the noise (decibel & frequency) was such that there was nowhere within the premises to escape it. Perhaps the premises next door?

Several attempts were made by staff to quiet the din which lasted all of 30 seconds. The only thing that quieted them was feeding them. Unfortunately by that time we'd almost finished. Thankfully we exited well before they started up again after dinner.

in fairness, I have in the past enjoyed excellent meals, service & atmosphere at this establishment. So this is definitely a one off. That said, it remains the worst dining experience that I've had on 5 continents (far surpassing the outback pub which served the 95% raw "baked" potato).

I don't blame the restaurant for this scenario although they must bear some responsibility for 20 people ruining the meals of the 40-50 other people in the restaurant.

Moving forward, how to deal with unruly customers? Feeding them is only a temporary fix. I think an area that could be partitioned off would go a long way towards...

I rarely leave reviews, but my recent experience at Porterhouse Grill left me so disappointed that I feel compelled to share. Upon arrival, we were excited for a nice meal, but unfortunately, the service was nothing short of frustrating.

We’ve been to this restaurant a few times, and the food has always been good but the service could be better usually but this time was by far the worst. We sat down and waited over an hour just for appetisers, which never came, is simply unacceptable. I understand that Valentine’s Day is a busy night, but we were not the only table to have waited this long, each table I spoke to had been waiting close to an hour too. When we politely asked the “manager” twice about the delay, we were told that booked tables would be served before us—even though the last booked table arrived nearly 45 minutes after we did. They ended up receiving appetisers as we still sat there after our first conversation with the manager. This was incredibly frustrating and felt like a complete disregard for our time.

What made it worse is that no one ever informed us beforehand that there would be such a long wait being walk ins. Had we been told this was how service would be that evening, we could have made the choice to leave if we wanted to go elsewhere. Instead, we were left waiting with no real explanation, and it was only after asking that we received an unsatisfactory answer.

Then the second time we tried to speak to the manager, he saw us walking over and then promptly left the area. This level of avoidance was unprofessional and only added to the poor experience.

At that point, we had had enough. We ended up paying for our drinks and left without eating anything at almost 9pm when we were seated at 7:30pm. It’s one thing to have a busy night, but it’s another to treat customers with such disregard. The food here has been pretty good in the past, and that’s why we’ve returned, but after this experience, this will be the last time we come back. To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. If I could give 0...