Metropolitan Seafood & Gourmet — Restaurant in Lebanon

Caveat - never ate there but this review is based on why. Went in once and it was a very strong bad fish smell. Yeah, I know - it's a seafood place. But I've been to many and none smelled that bad or strong. It made me question the freshness. We decided to try something else and come back another time. We had just moved to the area. Shortly after that, my wife was on the way to work at 5:30am during a bad snowstorm. Traffic in front of her stopped short and to avoid a collision she steered off the road where there was a cutout in the curb, which looked like the entrance to a parking lot (she couldn't tell due to the snow covering everything, but the curb cutout was visible). She ended up in what turned out to be a grass area just behind the Metropolitan Seafood place. She tried to back out but her wheels kept spinning. She got out of the car and ended up getting locked out, with the engine running. It was below zero, extremely cold and snowing. Fortunately, she had her phone and called me to come and help. A few big guys in white aprons came out of the Metropolitan Seafood and started yelling at her, telling her she had to "get that car the hll out of there". She was distraught at this point. Did they think she was there because she likes standing out in the freezing cold during a snowstorm? Who sees a woman in a situation like that and doesn't offer to help or ask her if she wanted to come inside until help arrives? I arrived and saw some busted up pallets and other wood scraps off to the side of the building. I started to grab some to put under the wheels and here comes the two knuckleheads out to yell at me, telling me to get the hll away from the building. They were extremely nasty. It took a long time to get the car out of there, and because of this treatment I will never, ever set foot in that establishment. I don't want people like that cooking my food, and there's a lesson to be learned in how you treat people - you never know...

Edit: While my experience eating there wasn't impeccable (see below), the customer service was excellent. The owner got in touch with me personally after I posted this review, and offered me a full refund and a replacement soup. My critiques do still remain, but these are easily solvable (more lobster in the roll, a bit more variety in the salad components) - and the flavours were good. So, combined with the excellent post-sales service, I am happy to up my score and give them another chance in the future.

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It seems like a well stocked place, and I was excited to try it given the good reviews, but alas my personal experience wasn't great. I'm a big fan of lobster rolls, and understand they are costly, but when I pay 31 dollars for a roll I expect it to be packed with so much lobster that I actually have to pick lobster out of the roll and eat it before tackling the roll (and have had this experience a number of times). It was a tasty roll, and the lobster was well cooked/nicely dressed, but the portioning was a little mean for the price.

I bought some clam chowder to have for dinner, but when I opened it (just a few hours later) the chowder looked off. I heated it up anyway, but tasting it confirmed that it had gone bad. Altogether, this means I am almost fifty dollars out of pocket for an undersized lobster roll and chowder that was off.

My friend had their prawn caesar salad, which had a generous portion of well cooked prawns, with a good and tasty dressing, but it was a little uninspiring as a salad - it had very few croutons, lettuce, and nothing else. So good, but not great. Would be three stars overall, but I'm taking away one star for the...

This review is for the Holiday Pre-Order experience only. Our family has been a long time fans of the place- always fresh and unique products, courteous team. The prices are on the high end, but we always felt it was totally worth it. Until I have placed an order for the NYE celebration- to say it was a disappointment is not to say anything. Traditionally, when we buy oysters from their store we are asked if we need it shacked and then placed on tray, on ice. Very nicely packed, suitable for transportation and presentable to the table straightaway. I was receiving the email notification that "they are still accepting NYE Holiday orders " - to my understanding, they had orders but within capacity. What was my surprise when I came to pick up my order in was given to me in a bag, not a tray. When I asked if the oysters were shacked, I was shown a bag of shells and a plastic container with all dozen oysters "jarred" together. We had 2 dozens of oysters, and 6 clams and all were packed the same manner. We were told that "this is how the Holiday order is done". If I was informed about it at the time I called - I would have shacked my oysters myself,buying it from another store for half the price. We were on our way to the party and clearly couldn't bring it that way. When we "assembled " in the way we were instructed- it was dry and flavorless. The cost of each oyster is equal to the cost at the restaurant, but this was not a restaurant experience. Very...