Cora's 1850 Bistro — Restaurant in Hawley

I always give new restaurants I try the benefit if the doubt when it comes to certain things. However, taste is not one of those things. We ordered the Giant Pretzel, Rajun Cajun Pasta, Chicken and Waffles with Maple Walnut Butter and a side of Linguine. The giant pretzel with the beer cheese was delicious. It was soft baked and the cheese was creamy. That's pretty much all that was good from there. The "rajun Cajun pasta" was so subpar that I regret spending $25 on it. The shrimps were seriously overcooked and I'm not sure what type of cajun they put in there but it needed a LOT more of everything. The chicken and waffles were ordered with the butter, but when we got it, it had syrup smothered all over the dish. The chicken was drowning in it. We asked the server and she was very confused about anything on the menu and found out that what we got was the "butter." The menu at the restaurant says butter where the menu online calls is a syrup. Either way, it was gross and cost $23, which is $20 too much for this meal. Also, I've never been served chicken and waffles without hot sauce or with asparagus on the side. I'm not sure if the underwhelming and bland food is due to the very undiversified area this restaurant is located in or if they honestly believe this food tastes good. I've had a lot of various and diverse meals before and I'm shocked at how high of a rating this place got. It was gross and costs way too much for food that we barely touched. I honestly believe that the people who gave this place 5 stars based on taste have not tried good, flavorful food before or just don't have tastebuds; but I'm going...

Never have I had worse service in my entire life. I’ve worked 4 restaurant serving jobs and would NEVER leave without leaving a tip but the service was so horrendous I didn’t even pay the bill in its entirety. Food came out extremely slow. Some was good. Some was ice cold and borderline gross. My mom asked to cancel her order as she wasn’t feeling well and it took way too long to come out. Instead of telling her that wasn’t possible, our waitress just plopped a to go box with her lobster in. She told her she didn’t want it at all, and the waitress rudely basically said too bad. I tried the lobster, it was the worst I’ve had in my life. Mushy and not very warm. We told her and she took it off of the bill. My aunt tried taking the rest of her steak home when a server, while helping another table, yelled at us and said we couldn’t. (It was all you can eat but we weren’t made aware you couldn’t bring your first portion back.) after that she told us to get out and as my aunt only ate a couple crab legs, we shorted the bill accordingly as we were told by two servers that there was no manager on duty. We called when we got home and asked for a manger and were put on the phone with one, meaning they both lied to our faces about there not being a manager in. Literal worst place I’ve been in my life. Best thing I can say was the pretzel was very good....

There were 6 of us, and we had 3 orders of stuffed mushrooms for the table as an appetizer. The mushrooms themselves were very tiny. I don't even think they were the size of a quarter! The stuffing cap was huge, pasty, and had no flavor, no color; not to mention the stuffing cap was so large it didn't stay on the mushrooms! The mushrooms were overcooked, so much so- that they lied flat in the dish, with no upright sides! In all my years of culinary, I never saw anything so atrocious! There was a white sauce on them that was also pasty and had no flavor. I'm a retired caterer, and I would have never served these to my customers! We also ordered broccoli soup that seemed to have no seasoning! My friend ended up with a thick cup of broccoli paste, while mine was normal soup consistency! How does that happen? Never mind making it out of the kitchen to be served like that! I guess neither the chefs nor the waitress caught that mistake! It was ridiculous. For our entree, we had the king cut prime rib that I thought was just ok. I've made and had more tender and flavorful prime rib elsewhere. I had asked for medium rare, but it was medium at best. I was not impressed with this meal at all. The service was good with an attentive waitress, so I guess they have that going for them. Needless to say we...