Diamonds Steak and Seafood — Restaurant in Howell

I understand Valentine's Day is like Black Friday for steak restaurants, but we had a miserable experience at Diamond's Steak and Seafood last night. I'll save any reader the trouble and say to avoid this place, but if you want to know why, feel free to read below.

Getting Seated: Awful experience Either something malfunctioned with the online reservation system, or this restaurant is incompetent at managing reservations. The first red flag was arriving early for our reservation and not being seated more than twenty minutes after the res time. The second red flag was that people with LATER reservation times were seated BEFORE us, even though we checked in before them. Same party size. Third red flag: a dressed-up couple, who reserved their seat in early January, was asked to sit at the bar corner seats or lose their reservation. The fourth red flag was that they didn't clean the table before we sat, and we had to request our tablecloth with fresh food stains be changed.

The Serving: Confused, slow, and overworked Obviously a busy night like Valentine's Day is going to have longer waits for food and drink, and we're not in a hurry. The staff were clearly working hard (understaffed, maybe?) and disoriented by what I assume is a special holiday layout with extra two-tops for couples. But we basically never saw our wait staff after our rushed initial order. People brought us what we ordered (and what we didn't order), but they weren't our waitress and we went thirty minutes without anything more than water.

The food: Might as well have gone to Outback Steakhouse (and saved the money) Course one and two were brought out one on top of the other, which felt like a "hurry and get the hell out of here" gesture when we're trying to begin eating course one. I'll start with what we liked. The crab cakes and spinach artichoke dip were tasty, and the lobster tails were well-seasoned. That's about all worth mentioning. The salads were watery and the Caesar dressing tasted only of anchovy juice, not remotely of a traditional Caesar dressing. For the main courses - I would bet my mother's beating heart that their "Wagyu" (no mention of USDA certification, no mention of the cut of steak) is plain Jane, garden variety, chewy, gristly beef. Their filet mignon was small, and though ordered cooked medium rare, came out charcoal black on the outside, tasting like they found it at a Palisades butcher after the Los Angelos fires. And I was disheartened that the chefs chose to go "low-sodium" with their meat and had to ask for salt to play make believe that I was really eating a ninety-dollar steak.

The drinks: I agree with another recent reviewer that the ice chips in the cocktail is crazy. And with the wait for next rounds so long, the drinks really were water. The wine was fine.

"Unforgettable night" indeed. But what else is to be expected from a steak restaurant with sports TV...

We have been dining at Diamond's on special occasions ever since moving to Howell five years ago. Sadly our most recent visit was likely also our last.

The evening started out fine. We went early because we had our baby with us, and were pleasantly surprised to see the restaurant was only half full. Our server was friendly and welcoming, but a bit inattentive. It was a hot day and we quickly drained our water, and never received more. My husband had to ask three times for a soda refill. The server admitted that was a weak point for him. Understandable, but frustrating since the restaurant wasn't busy.

I ordered the walleye on special which was very good. No complaints. We both paid extra for the brussels sprouts only to have them be giant chunks of sprouts that didn't seem fully cooked and were really rough to eat, not the usual yummy sauced and shredded sprouts we are used to. The caesar salad I paid extra for, while good in flavor, didn't have much of it because only about three leaves had any dressing on them.

My husband ordered the tips and added scallops. The tips were so charred on the edges that despite being medium rare, tasted mostly burnt. The two scallops he received for $12 were two different sizes and the larger one was not fully cooked. We let the server know and they sent out another, still underdone in the center. I mentioned to the server we would prefer to just have the one scallop removed from the bill, but he insisted they wanted to try and make things right. The manager came over and spoke with us as well. The third scallop was definitely done, like ultra crispy done, but arrived at the same time as our dessert (pot de créme special, which was also delicious, but really needed fresh whipped cream, not Rediwhip) and was so insanely salty, it was also inedible.

This visit followed a previous mishap at a visit prior where we treated my in-laws to dinner and had a tiny stick of charcoal served to my MIL alongside the rest of our juicy, full and gorgeous looking tips. Our server was appalled and quickly rectified the issue and offered us a free dessert. Although frustrating, that issue was handled properly. With this issue, I instead left with a bitter taste in my mouth at having spent $120 after tip on two people and feeling largely cheated and unsatisfied.

I guess the pandemic really hit the Adam Merkel restaurants hard, because our last two or three visits to Cello have also not been up to par, and I just can't stomach paying that much for a meal I could have prepared better at home.

Truly a shame as we used to be proud to take visiting family members to either restaurant for a fine dining experience right in our very own quaint little downtown, but in the future we will go the extra mile to Bourbon's...

So…. Went to Diamonds tonight. Could not have been more disappointed. The only positive point was, the food was good. Service was mediocre at best. We had family from the UK and they were not familiar with how restaurants menus work. So when we were not ready to order ASAP when our server was ready. She said she would give us a few minutes… Apparently a few minutes is like 20 minutes before she finally came back. We were going to order a starter, but by the time she came back we decided to just order our meal. Table of 4 and initially only two meals came out delivered by a young man, not our server. Then some time later a third meal came out…. Again delivered by the young man not our server.. After he left our guest from the UK noticed he had delivered a Tomato based soup, when she had ordered the French Onion. Our server still was no where to be found. We eventually flagged down a different server that arranged the correct soup to be brought out, agan by the young man. Then sometime later he finally brought out the 4th meal so that we could actually start our meal…. I should point out that the restaurant was maybe at 30% capacity…. No excuse for the kitchen or our server to be this far out of sync… so probably the most disgusting part of our experience was…. My wife needed to go to the lady’s room, and I stepped out of the booth to let her out… As she left I attempted to sit back down, and my feet were stuck to the floor that was so filthy, I can’t think of any business I have been in for years that was this bad. It was not like some wine was spilt and not wiped up well. It was dirty, black, and obviously been uncleaned for days… I spoke with a gentleman that was supposedly a manager as I was on my way to the restroom. But he never came over...