Now Or Later Restaurant — Restaurant in Des Moines

We decided to go here tonight, based off the stellar reviews this facility has received as of recent. Right from the onset I kind of wish we would have chosen a different place to eat. We showed up tonight with four adults and a three year old. The staff tried to seat us at a SMALL 4-top when there were clearly availability at a six top and multiple open tables that could have been merged together had another bigger party showed up. Now mind u a 4-top if we had a young baby wouldn't have been too bad, but with appetizers, five meals, wine, and drinks, this by no means would have sufficed. When asking if we could move to a different table we received a bit of an attitude about the table switch and were however directed to an open 6-top. No specials were given, and we all decided to sit down. About five minutes later, our server, who was lacking in the customer service skills came up to take our drink order. After the four adults ordered water (due to diets and feelings on soft drinks) our clearly chain smoking waitress totally disregarded us as "water drinkers" and clearly assumed a poor tip was coming. (I'll confirm this belief here in a minutes) She brought back our waters and just wrote us off after that until it was time to recheck on our table. After we ordered two appetizers and an entire bottle of wine, our waitress attitude completely shifted to "oh they are gonna spend some money here" and tried to save any remaining tip she felt was owed to her. Now right on the sign this place is stated as a steak, seafood and Italian restaurant. I proceeded to order the steak and lobster meal, with a side salad. (Seeing this order our waitress yet again decided to put in the extra little effort that she could muster because we were spending some real money tonight.) When the entire table sees the personality coming back in sections based off the order we are sending back (all of us with out own restaurant experience)this is a problem. Anyways. I order, my side salad as I always do, requested no onions or tomatoes on the salad. These are not pre packages salads and are made to order, except mine came with the onions and tomatoes. Not being able to stand the taste of onions on my food I proceeded to give my salad to my three year old and sat there waiting for my next course to come. As my child was finishing up the salad that I had gifted her the waitress came back and advised me that it was noticed that my salad was wrong and offered to make me a new one which I rejected (because let's be honest, you don't send food back at any restaurant and request a new one - we've all seen the movie waiting, and we all know that those things in the movie really happen.) Plus, with my already "picky" order I didn't want to be "THAT CUSTOMER." I thanked our waitress (who was by this time in full customer service mode) and advised I was okay and will wait on my steak and lobster. Steak was ordered medium rare, as any decent steak should be, and it came out heavily on the rare side, but was as tender and flavorful as any sirloin steak I can remember eating. I was starting to think this was looking up. THEN CAME THE LOBSTER. Now by no means am I expecting lobster like we recently had in Caribbean... I mean really in Iowa, but I do expect a place with SEAFOOD as a specialty on their signage to be able to cook a decent lobster. That was far from the case. The lobster was TOTALLY over cooked, to the point where when trying to PULL a piece off the tail, I had to literally twist it off as pulling it was not going to get the job done. It had the consistency of fishy rubber, and after two bites (on from the edge and one from the center) I put it aside. Our server saw that the most expensive option on their menu was clearly not being eaten, came up and asked me if it was done. Once I showed her the amount of PULLING I had to do to get a piece off of it and taking it back to show their cooks/manager we did receive a 20$ credit on our bill. So with that being said, everyone else's food and price was top notch at our table. Service and...

Was passing through the area and saw the numerous reviews that praised the food. Got in at a perfect time and was seated immediately. Staff was very attentive, and quick to get orders, refill drinks and get anything if we needed. The atmosphere was cozy, with plenty of room at the table for a party of two, although it was a bit dated. Food was average though. Tried two of the house specials and was just disappointed. The food wasn't bad just kinda bland, but for the price and portions it's a good bargain. I think if we had just stumbled across it, it would have been fine but seeing all the reviews and it was like I want to taste what these reviews portray. The onion rings were bland but had a good crunch to them and huge portions. Not sure if bread comes with the meal but they didn't give us any, but they did ask but in a way that made me think it cost extra. My Tuscan chicken was fine, meat was moist but just kinda bland and the rice super oily. We also got a pasta dish which had some odd meatballs (not sure if it was sausage based or maybe veal but didn't seem like beef in more traditional meatballs.) sauce was fine but tasted like it could come from a can so nothing special, and pasta looked like ones you would get from the store. Again nothing bad about it but just had that homemade vibe but not when it came to the food. Taste is subjective, so give it a go, but I should have taken into account the area I was in (searched places with 4.5+ and had an Applebee's and Subway show up too). Didn't mind our meal and could see myself going again if I lived here locally but wouldn't go out of...

There is a different 'soup of the day' here throughout the week. I try to stop in when the potato soup is being featured. It ranks somewhere in my top 5 favorite soups list. The chicken drummies are good, however they are on the plain side. If your looking for "hot-style" wings/drummies I would Not recommend these. You only get 6 to an order, so if you're looking to share, take that into consideration, because it's definitely just an appetizer. They do have quite a bit of meat on them though compared to some other places I've had wings/drummies. (Slightly larger than Dominoes drummies)

Updated: I'm dropping my rating down a star after tonight's meal. The soup and potato skins were absolutely amazing. The potato skins are the main reason I come here. Best I've ever had. They're not so much 'skins' but more like potatoes cut in half with Grinder meat and cheese. But my entrée was a little lack luster. I had the fried Walleye with wild rice. The fish was good, but it was excessively over-breaded. After a couple minutes of de-crusting the filled it was extremely delicious. The wild rice was not the greatest. I think it was forgotten about at some point, because it was very lumpy/clumped together and had glue(y) like texture to it.

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