Candlelite Inn Restaurant

The food was bad. And not just bad but falsely labeled. I'm not sure where many of these reviewers were eating but I can only guess that they are either lying or have no sense of taste.

So, we arrive at the Candlelite Inn and the first thing that struck me was how dark it was. I suppose they were going for some form of atmosphere but the decor is ancient, the booths claustrophobic, and it just put us at a general sense of unease.

The hostess and waitress were pleasant enough and we were seated and given drinks without a fuss. Then I opened the menu and I knew we should have left right then and there. The cuisine was a mix of their version of Italian and Tex-Mex. There was also an insert for yet another style of food they were serving but I forget what it was. This is not a good thing for a restaurant to do. But, we had a Groupon so even if the meal was bad we'd gotten a discount; right?

I ordered the chicken parmesan which came with a salad and a vinaigrette dressing. My wife ordered the chicken enchiladas. While we waited for the food we were served chips and salsa. Even though the told us the chips were freshly cooked they had a very stale texture to them. The salsa flavorless and bland.

Soon, the salad arrived; red flag number two. The salad was shredded lettuce, a few cubes of tomato, and a few shreds of what I guess was cheddar cheese. The dressing came in a hair dresser bottle instead of tossed on the salad. With dread I shook the dressing, squirted it on, and tasted it. It wasn't horrible. Needed salt and more herbs but it wasn't too bad. I started to have a glimmer of hope that the meal would be decent or at least edible.

After another short wait the entrees were served. Now, any idiot knows that chicken parmesan contains a minimum of two ingredients; chicken and parmesan cheese. This was not the case. Their version was a dried, grilled (not breaded and fried) chicken breast that looks like it came strait from Costco, was nuked for 45 seconds, and thrown on the plate. Next, a kind of spicy red, tomato-like sauce was placed on the breast and the spaghetti. Finally, a slice of cheap provolone topped the dish. I had two bites and gave up. The flavor was wretched, the texture horrid, and the chicken managed to be dry even with the tomato-like sauce helping it out.

Out of morbid curiosity I tasted my wife's dish of chicken enchiladas with cheese sauce. The sauce was flavorless, the tortillas were flavorless, and the chicken was oddly colored and dry. There was simply no taste to be had except some horrid after taste. It wasn't strong but it stopped my wife after three bites and me after only one.

Now, when we went to pay the waitress informed us she needed a manager to accept the groupon. The manager came up, asked us how the meal was, and seemed genuinely shocked when I explained how horrid it was. To her credit she did not give us a hard time, was very polite the whole way through my complaint, and comped us the meal considering we only ate roughly six bites of it.

Bottom line; this was the worst sit down restaurant I've ever been to. I have never had to give up on a meal before. Save your money and go somewhere the food is actually either edible or they know how to prepare whatever they are serving; preferably both.