Enigma Restaurant — Restaurant in Rapid City

It took me some time to finally decide to write this review. To see why I'm giving it this rating, please read on. My wife and I don't get out very often and when we do, we like to go places where we can expect to get good food and good service. We had fond memories of a time several years ago when we went to Enigma to eat. We had been greeted by friendly staff, had our every need tended to, presented with delicious food, and topped it all off with an excellent dessert of their peppered strawberries and cream. I forget what they called it, but it was delicious.

A couple of weeks ago, we went back to Enigma on a Friday evening. Walking up to the entrance, there was no one to greet us. They were open, but could only see one other table with anyone seated. We stood there for a couple of minutes before anyone showed up to greet and seat us. Once seated, it took another 5-10 minutes before being offered water, then another 5-10 minutes to get bread. Finally they took our order. We ordered a couple of appetizers to share, crab cakes for my wife and drunken clams for myself. This took a while to get the first course. My wife's crabcakes tasted ok, but with two cakes, they were both inconsistent. One was charred but cooked through, while the other was barely warm in middle. My clams were overcooked and rubbery.

Once we finished with the appetizers, we sat waiting for the main course. I had to eventually ask if it was coming soon. The attendant acted kind of surprised like he forgot that we had food coming. My wife had the beef stroganoff and I had the duck breast, which turned out to be a pasta dish as well. I was looking forward to a nicely seared, medium rare duck breast. That wasn’t the case. It was medium at best, sliced up and mixed in with very undercooked pasta. I know pasta is supposed to be al dente, but this was very undercooked. Both our dishes were dried and lukewarm as if they’d been sitting for a while before coming to our table. In addition to the above, I had to ask the waiter to leave a carafe of water at our table because he was visiting so infrequently, that my glass was empty.

The reason it took me a while to write this review is that even though we had really poor service and less than mediocre food, we managed to enjoy our evening out together. We will just never go to this restaurant again, unfortunately. Until something changes, like management, ownership, chefs, or something, I cannot recommend this...

I took my girlfriend here on our anniversary for the "mystery Dinner" I have heard so many good things about, after all, this is what the restaurant is named after. $110 gets you a mystery 4 course meal with wine pairings. Supposedly the chef makes this up on the spot and it's different every time.

When we showed up, there was nobody at the front desk to greet us. The restaurant was completely empty on a Sunday evening, which is generally not a good sign. After we finally got a seat, we asked if the chef could prepare us the mystery dinner while also keeping it vegan-friendly. Part of this is a life choice, part of it also has to do with my girlfriend's allergies. We were very disappointed to hear that the chef could not accommodate us. The waiter said he could provide us 2 entrees instead. I agreed but later found out that this was a miscommunication, the waiter had meant the chef could only prepare us one entree each to accommodate our diet. I had to ask for the wine pairing, as he had assumed we didn't want one. The dish we were served was adaquate, but not at all worth the $30 I paid.

If you are thinking of getting the mystery dinner, go to Tally's Silver Spoon instead. You can get the indecision dinner: four course meal for $80, and they have never had a problem accommodating our vegan friendly needs. One time we even asked for gluten-free as well and they had no problems. The food is always delicious and a true mystery because it is different every time. My guess is that the "mystery dinner" at the Enigma is probably a preset recipe that they have to follow every time. Either that or the chef is just lazy or incompetent. I don't know how you can call yourself a chef and not be able to create something so simple. You're an Italian restaurant right? Here is an Italian friendly recommendation if you have a vegan couple come in next time:

course 1: veggie salad course 2: grilled veggies. Maybe a fried eggplant like at olive garden? course 3: spaghetti, or any kind of pasta really course 4: sherbet desert, maybe some kind of smoothie desert. Or just figure out another kind of dish if your desert ingredients are sparse.

I came up with that in 30 seconds. Can't be...

Note: The free hotel breakfast bar is great. Food you pay for, not great.

The real "enigma" is why the prices are so high when you could get this food at the local mall food court for $4 and arrange it delicately on a giant plate and no one would notice. (Actually it would probably be superior.)

We had the two vegetarian options: vegetable stir fry and bean bolognese. This is the kind of food your dad could whip you up any given afternoon for lunch with his hand tied to his butt. The only difference is that this is placed on a large plate and arranged delicately with "ambiance." I ended up paying $40, and we didn't even have drinks or appetizers. What a rip off. Server felt sorry for us and brought us two refills on the free bread.

The reason you pay more at a fancy restaurant is because they make their own pasta or do things you don't do at home, or they have a chef, that kind of stuff. This is seriously just overpriced food. I got a better stir fry at a no-name Chinese buffet for $10, and it was 4x the portion.

Partner's bean bolognese had a nice flavor, but again, nothing special, and it had parmesan cheese in it, which makes it non-vegetarian (parmesan has pig intestines in it).

Totally not impressed and actually sort of ticked off. The hotel is nice. Come here and look at the hotel if you want. If you're already staying at the hotel, cool--leave the hotel and eat ANYWHERE else since there are about 100 restaurants in a two-mile radius.

But I'm still looking forward to the free hotel breakfast...