Smoked — Restaurant in Columbia

WARNING! THIS IS NOT A 5-STAR RESTAURANT. You will not have a fine dining experience here. You have been warned! I presented in a party of two, and we were immediately seated in a very pleasant, semi-private, quiet corner with a street view. Lovely; and that’s where it ends. SMOKED is just significantly over-priced for no good reason, because the food quality and quantity for the overly inflated prices are less than desirable. Ok, let’s jump into it…the overall ambience of the venue is nicely appointed; but with NO visible wall art. Our entrées were the *special/catch-of the day/ *42$. It consisted of blackened grouper/child palm-sized, over a cilantro purée, mixed into short-grain white rice. The presentation was quite appealing, but the dish/blackened grouper fell flat on flavor/seasoning, was very dry, and the portion-size was extremely lacking. The cilantro-purée, mixed creamy rice was not very flavorful either. In fact, it was all totally inedible. After two bites to-taste, I quickly summoned the server, sent it back, and requested, and received an adjustment to my check. My check total before the 42$ adjustment was 118$ and my guest tipped 25%. We also ordered an appetizer, which took forever to be served, as well as the over-priced glass of red wine/14$, which was not a typical glass-size serving, but much less for the price, which proved quite palatable, given the unappetizing entrée. The appetizer, Sea-Smoked Dip/19$, was just okay. And the pita bread served alongside it, was cold and stale-to-taste. I informed our server, Halie, and she stated that she could only offer us taco chips instead, so I kindly declined, without her even addressing the complaint of the pita bread. She/Halie also made an off-color remark, referring to me as a Sugar Momma, in the presence of my dinner guest, after I informed her that I was paying the check, not my dinner guest, who was a very dear male friend, meeting me from Myrtle Beach… we’ve been acquainted 30 years. We both travel often, so whenever we’re near each other in a city/state, we treat each other out. We ordered the identical entrée, but he is unfortunately insulin dependent, and had driven three hours, and needed food! As we had already waited just on the appetizer/wine/tea for approximately 20 minutes after being seated; he had iced tea as he struggled to partake of the small, dry, flavorless blackened grouper, but could NOT take the awful glob of green slime they termed cilantro puréed, creamy rice. I highly recommend a new/improved chef(s); because it seems the current chef(s) concentrate more on presentation than the quality of taste; additional/new waitstaff, and menu price adjustments. The final thing I would like to add is that water is served in a carafe left on your table, and it’s probably tap, as I didn’t bother to ask, but should have. In any case, after having taken half a glass, I soon discovered lots of bits of disgusting sediment in the bottom of the carafe and the water. I will not be returning, nor recommending. ~Good luck! Bon-appétit!

Griffin Food...

This restaurant would be so much better off if they cut their prices in half (at least) and stopped trying to present as so gourmet. That sets the expectations at a level that I simply don’t think they’re capable of meeting, or will be any time soon. It’s a nice spot, and the drinks are great, but everything else was the absolute definition of “blah.” I paid $90 with tip. I had the 4-oyster “flight” (I don’t know what was on it because nobody told me - smoked salmon, something acidic, and then two salty things - one with cream and one with fish eggs??). It was ok - not worth $28. Entree was a piece of seared fish over a pile of steamed yellow squash and zucchini (not remotely what I would think of for “seasonal veggies” in Fall, and definitely nothing I would associate with fine dining) with a nondescript cream sauce. It kind of tasted like banquet hall food that is pleasantly sufficient - or maybe I’m just saying that because it was seriously indistinguishable from the piece of seared fish with steamed yellow squash and zucchini I had literally just eaten for lunch at my work conference in a banquet hall. For $52 on just the entree, I was hoping for more, to say the least. They took $10 off my $52 fish dish because it wasn’t served with the Brazil nut crust like it was supposed to be. It was just so much cracked peppercorn I was coughing trying to eat it. I didn’t realize it was wrong until I was already done eating and went back to look at the menu and figure out what would have possessed me to order that dish. I hate to say it, but the nuts would not have saved it. They gave me a free crème brûlée on top of the $10 off. That’s my favorite dessert, so I was hopeful. I get it at every restaurant that has it on the menu. This one was too thick, had zero crunch to speak of (not enough sugar or too long in the refrigerator) and it was burnt. All I could really taste was char. The drink was really good, and it wasn’t on my bill either, so yeah, I hate to complain, but even with the comped items, I still don’t think that was anywhere close to a $90 meal, not by a mile. This restaurant needs to do some serious soul searching about what they want to be and present, stop trying to be so high-end, and bring the prices wayyyyy down. I wish I had seen more of the reviews saying basically all that I’ve just said, or I would have saved my money and gone elsewhere. I honestly don’t know how it got so many 5-stars. I hate to say it, because the staff was nice and the drinks were good, and they tried to make it right, but I just wouldn’t ever go back for...

TLDR: For a menu at this price point, Smoked failed in an epic way, across the board. We chose Smoked for a celebration dinner, fully expecting to splurge on this event and am sad to report that this was one of my most disappointing restaurant experiences ever. The good: The restaurant is beautifully decorated. Each room is uniquely, but cohesively styled and makes you feel as if you are not in a large restaurant but a cozy local spot. Two items were delicious - the smoked old fashion and the oysters. I also heard the curry was decent but certainly not worth $30. The server, Savannah, was good. She was clearly trying her best, despite her hands really being tied by the kitchen failings. She was very attentive to our large group and kind along the way. The bad: We arrived very excited for the "newly released" menu that had been heavily promoted on their socials, only to find that item after item was "out of stock". This was the 2nd day of the new menu being in place. How can half the menu be unavailable on day two of a new release? Even if that is the case, you have a paper menu! Reprint it! Ultimately, still optimistic since this restaurant has an "award winning executive chef", I told the server to ask the chef to surprise me and that I eat absolutely everything and gave a generous budget for my entrée. I was given a very basic, very conservatively portioned, very moderately flavored, very budgeted, menu item. Not at all what I expected from a very expensive, boutique restaurant. The ugly: After finally finding items others in the group could settle on from the remaining available menu items and placing their orders, we were told that even more items from the already placed orders were now out of stock. They offered a replacement and those were begrudgingly accepted. Those items weren't delivered with the meals and had to be requested again before receiving them. Empty salt shakers were brought to the table for tasteless meals. One entrée was missing an entire main protein and the person who ordered this was not offered any compensation for this. Someone in our party did try to mention our concerns to management but were all-out blocked by someone at the bar who rudely refused to allow them to speak with anyone in charge. This is putting that interaction lightly. All told, I had high hopes based on the vibe they have worked hard to curate and the menu promoted on social media and their website. Smoked let me down in almost every aspect of our...