Diamond's — Restaurant in Hamilton Township

Honestly I’m very disappointed and frustrated with my experience here last night. My wife and I came here for Valentine’s Day, her parents are huge fans of Diamond’s and have been here multiple times over the years and recommended we go, as we had never gone and always try to do something special for Valentine’s Day. Upon arrival, the atmosphere was beautiful, there were a lot of nice decorations, but the service for us the whole night was honestly awful.

Our waiter took our orders and then disappeared for about an hour and a half (not exaggerating). It seemed like he was only serving tables in the back room, and only our table in the front room, and just forgot about us. After an hour and half, he finally appears, doesn’t comment anything about the wait, but just says our food will be ready in 5 minutes. We are just relieved the food is finally coming, but then our waiter disappears again for about 40 minutes (not exaggerating).

At this points, it’s been almost 2 and a half hours since we arrived at the restaurant, and the only food we’ve received was bread. If it was just a busy night and all tables were waiting on food the same way, that would be one thing. But there were actually multiple guests who kept arriving after we had seated, receiving appetizers, entrees, desserts, and even some leaving, before we received any food or contact from our waiter at all.

Finally our food arrives, a pasta and a beef Wellington. The pasta was actually very good, but my beef Wellington was rare, which is not how I asked it to be cooked. The flavor was there but it seemed like it was rushed out of the kitchen, which is shocking, as we waited so very long, and because I don’t enjoy meat cooked rare, I barely touched it, as we just wanted to leave at this point.

We were finally able to flag down our waiter and ask for the check, and it is only then that he mentions that he had to “fight for my beef Wellington” in the kitchen, as apparently our initial order was taken by a different waitress to a different table, which is why we had to wait so long, and which might explain my raw beef Wellington, as it sounds like it was rushed out after the first one was taken. He did not tell us this happened at all until he brought out the check, never checked in on us as we waited so long, and he was laughing as he said it like it was a joke, making us even more frustrated that us waiting 2 and a half hours was being treated as an amusing situation to him.

My wife and I are pretty low fuss people, but we can’t deny how annoyed we were at the service here last night. For the price we paid, just very disappointing experience overall service-wise. It’s just very unfortunate as we know my wife’s parents love this place, and maybe it was an off night, but we have to say we hated...

Last night 3 friends and I ventured out to dinner for the first time since February. We made reservations for outdoor dining but upon arrival we were told they seated a large party and we were now inside. We hesitated, but being that it was a special occasion- we just went with it.

Our waitress was clearly frazzled. She complained about not being able to breathe under her mask. The mood right away reminded us of the current state of affairs instead of taking us out of it for a moment.

We ordered the calamari, mozzarella sticks, and the seafood antipasto appetizer. We also got bread.

The calamari was flavorless served with the same marinara sauce as the mozzarella sticks. No lemon, no sprinkle of spices, not even a little parsley. The sticks were a frozen product which were flash fried. Two of them had their cheese ooze out before it hit the plate to be served. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t serve you that at TGI Friday’s. The seafood appetizer tasted rancid. The seafood was not fresh and the sauce with its spicy peppers was meant to disguise that.

We got share plates at the last moment after we had each used our bread plates for the apps. We had to ask for our second wine to be opened. We never got water refills. I point this out to assure you whatever expectation you have of this place being on the fancier side- forget it.

From this moment on, I can only talk about the entrees served to my boyfriend and I. I ordered the NY Strip medium and he ordered the surf and turf. My steak was cold and it was delivered to me in such a way that it slid down the plate along with the overcooked potatoes and slimy vegetables. My boyfriends lobster wasn’t loosened from its tail as you would expect a chef to do in a nicer restaurant. It was over cooked and flavorless. His steak was so undercooked it was inedible. His plate was cold too. The saving grace on his plate was the clarified butter. He dipped everything into that so he could eat it. My steak sat there after I took 3 bites. The waitress never asked about how our temps were.

We ordered a tiramisu for dessert. This I have no complaints about!

Over all the prices you’re paying for this experience is outrageous. You’ve got to season food, use fresh ingredients, and have good service if you’re charging $40+ for an entree. We left disappointed and dissatisfied. Would not...

This restaurant has a formal, upscale feel which seems most suited to special occasions. There are old-timey ballads for a rustic atmosphere and very warm lighting, not too dim. There is little natural light even if you go at midday, so it definitely feels more like a dinner than a lunch place, and I'm saying that as someone who went for a late lunch.

The staff were generally helpful and friendly, and happy to give me more time to peruse the menu. They gave a complimentary bread basket, and to my pleasant surprise, actually gave more than enough butter for the bread. Most places I go only give a tiny amount of butter, so it's always nice to have more butter than I need for the bread basket. The bread was a nice sourdough with a good crumb—not too hard or soft.

As far as ordering goes, I was slightly disappointed to hear that they were out of escargot (I was hoping to get the escargot appetizer as well as the escargot and artichoke linguine), but it is what it is. I instead got the four-cheese tortellini soup and a filet mignon with mashed potatoes on the side. I sadly found the filet mignon to be rather dry, and there was only a tiny amount of sauce drizzled on top (more decorative than anything—I think it was A1 sauce?), and there was no pitcher of sauce on the side to counteract the dryness. It was effectively a sauceless steak, which is fine when the steak is juicy, but in this case, it wasn't.

The tortellini soup fared much better, thankfully, and the mashed potatoes tasted amazing. I got a tiramisu cake for dessert. The dessert had an adorable bunny piped on the plate with chocolate. I appreciated the strong coffee flavor of the cake (I don't like tiramisus that are too sweet).

One thing I found interesting was how deserted the place was. Granted, I came rather late in the afternoon, but even so, I hadn't anticipated how deserted the place would be. I did also have to ask for my water to be refilled, which is fine for very casual places, but at nicer diners like this, I would have liked my water to be refilled without me asking, especially because the place wasn't busy at all.

I think for the price, I'd expected a bit more from the food and the service, so I'm giving a solid 3 stars—not bad, but not exceptional. Perhaps I'll come again to try the pasta dishes sometime, or if they manage to get escargot back...