Castle Cantina Tapas Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Leicester

Went with my mom and girlfriend as a last-minute switch-up from the Chinese place across the street. From the nearly empty dining room in the middle of dinner time on a Saturday night, and the shriveled excuse for a sprig of plant life in the middle of the table, I felt like we were about to be underwhelmed. I was also put off by the fact that this place separates a handful of its menu items into a visibly cheaper-looking menu, and customers have to choose one menu or the other. Customers who choose the cheaper menu are segregated into a second-class-ish dining area from which they can see the better furnished and overall fancier "Camelot" area through a semi-wall.

Then the warm bread rolls came out. A little crispy on the outside and warm on the inside, and very tasty with a little bit of butter. Maybe this place had some promise after all.

Unfortunately, though, the rolls were the best part of the meal.

Appetizers: The lobster bisque was brownish and tepid, and it seemed to have a small amount of congealed "skin" on it when it arrived. I can only describe the actual lobster content as a single tiny shred, spread throughout the whole bowl—and I'm being generous. I've had significantly better bisque out of a paper cup, and I'm genuinely surprised I haven't gotten sick from it. The clams casino were tiny and had a strange, sooty aftertaste. My mom said that the French onion soup was "good" with no elaboration.

Entrées: My girlfriend said that she enjoyed the chicken Parmesan. The Pacific salmon was okay, but seemed less than fresh due to a fishy flavor. The sides were nothing special.

However, my mom strongly disliked the scallops and was disgusted by the apparently canned or frozen green beans that came as a side. All in all, she was very unhappy with her entrée and made it known to the waiter not once, but twice. He did not seem to know how to respond, almost shrugging before walking off without any attempt at a resolution to this customer who was so dissatisfied that she wasn't going to take another bite of her food.

Finally, my girlfriend stopped him and made it very clear that my mom felt she'd been very shortchanged on her meal and was hoping for a replacement. He said something to the effect that he'd try to help her out.

Minutes later, a man in a chef's outfit arrived and basically insisted that the scallops were bay scallops from Nantucket and were the "best," even proclaiming that they cost $20 per pound. From his demeanor, I almost expected an argument to ensue. However, he did honor her request to replace her scallops with the same salmon dish I'd ordered, and he checked back later about the salmon and was friendly and polite. We were not charged for the scallops.

I must say, though, that the waiter was very attentive, polite, and friendly, if a little inexperienced. None of us ever came close to running out of water, and our orders were taken and everything was served in a timely fashion. Despite his response to the scallops issue, he is the primary reason this review is 2 stars instead of 1.

TLDR:

Upsides: Delicious rolls, good server, mostly nice decor (though it could use a bit of housekeeping).

Downsides: Near-empty dining rooms are a bad sign on a Saturday at dinner time. Mixed bag of food, some merely "good" or "okay" and some just terrible. Nothing seemed very fresh, and definitely sub-par for the price point. Being ushered into a "cheapo" section for picking the "wrong" menu was not very welcoming. Being confronted by the chef over a complaint about a dish felt like a scene from a sitcom (though he did make it right, to his credit).

Overall: I won't be returning. Next time,...

Don't go. The waitress was not attentive, my water was left empty for over a half hour. The lobster bisque soup was brown and had no lobster bits in it, just ground up broth. The "Fruit of the sea" platter had just one shrimp, one scallop in bacon, one little neck clam, and one mussel. This made it very hard to share.

After not getting our meal for over an hour, sitting with an empty glass of water, tasting the nasty soup and baby-sized appetizer, and after overhearing another waitress tell a group that the kitchen was still backed up, we decided to cancel our entree orders. Our waitress never came to our table to tell us why the wait was so long.

The manager came over and we explained how bad everything was and her only response was, "well I guess your tip will reflect that".

When the waitress returned with our check, I noticed we were charged 16$ for liquor, even though we never ordered anything besides water. Apparently the glass of wine our waitress gave my girlfriend when we first sat down wasn't a complimentary wine, but a mistake that should have gone to another table. We gave her a look when she gave it to us, but she left too quickly before we could ask questions and everyone else had wine at their tables. After twenty minutes went by without her coming back, my girlfriend drank it, assuming it was complimentary.

So I confronted the waitress about the check and her response was, " You ordered wine, and there's a glass at your table. " I then repeated myself, saying I didn't order wine. I didn't even know what type of wine it was and our waitress never checked my ID or my girlfriends'. (We are 22 and have young faces).

A few minutes later a different waitress/manager came to our table and said in an angry, mocking tone, "That wine is coming out of your waitresses pocket and we don't serve 'complimentary' wine here. Here's your check", then threw the check book on our table and stormed into the kitchen.

I'm not someone who takes getting falsely accused of something lightly, especially when the meal was so bad and the staff was rude and inattentive.

So I left. Then purposely signed up to this site just to write...

Allow me to preface this review with the following: I write this review out of love, and because I see that this restaurant clearly used to be great.

It's a place that has great attention to detail. Some of the plates were even custom made. It's a castle with a stunning lake backdrop, surrounded by an actual moat. The interior has a cozy feel, and harkens back to a time when your local eatery had a roaring fire, mutton chops galore, and ale drunk out of steins.

Then it goes downhill. They have two menus, one fit for kings, and one for peasants, so to speak. I was feeling rather like a serf, so I chose to impress my date with the peasant menu. By choosing that menu, you get sat in what I guess is the low income section. It's by no means a bad place, but having full view of the King's court that wealthier patrons frequent made me feel... well, like a peasant. And I don't know if it was just me, but I felt like I was also treated accordingly.

So, the food. I feel like this would be a great candidate of a restaurant to be saved on Kitchen Nightmares by Gordon Ramsay. The French onion soup tasted a bit bitter, like it was microwaved. The cheese just floated half-melted on the top.

My entree was a lamb shank. It sat in a puddle of flavorless water. It was cold towards the center, indicating that it had been frozen/microwaved. The mashed potatoes tasted like instant mashed potatoes - no flavor, no butter, and gritty. The carrots were a total mush.

If their intent was to feed and treat me like a peasant, then I suppose they achieved their goal. But for an $80 meal for two, I'd have to be a glutton for punishment if I ever came back. I wanted to complain, but I think the waitress already knows.

I can't be alone in this opinion. The restaurant was completely deserted at 6 o'clock on a Sunday night.

The restaurant's walls are lined with accolades for excellence, but most of those are anywhere from 15 to 34 years old! Somewhere along the way, somebody's vision was lost. I just hope they can...