Alesia Restaurant — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

I’ll start out by saying the food here is amazing, I’ve eaten here at lest 15 times but I don’t live in my house up here much anymore so it’s a rare treat to come to this restaurant. Not tonight!

I drove up here from Naples and refused to stop at a closer restaurant and was starving when I got here. They were pretty busy and I went to the “hostess” area to see where I should sit. A woman came over and asked if I wanted to order food, to which I said “of course” (that’s kind of the whole reason one goes to a restaurant). She then asks me what I wanted! I thought it strange to ask my order before getting a table and a menu but I thought, your hungry just go with it, so I just pick something I’ve had in the past. Beef stew and egg rolls as an appetizer. She then says, “do you want to pay now?” So again I’m like, sure I guess? So I pay and then I ask her if I can maybe sit at a table and get something to drink. She says yes I can sit at any of the tables and then asked what I want to drink and I said well since I already paid I’ll just have water. So I wander out to a table and sit down and wait, and wait, and wait and wait and wait and watch about 14 more people come in, get greeted, seated, order and have drinks and appetizers come out and drink and finish appetizers…. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there with no food, no drink, no one asking me if I need anything so about 35 min later I go find the lady who took my order and she sees me and says, “remind me of your name” so I say “Brian“ so she turns and goes to the kitchen and comes back about 5 min later and says there going to be like ten to fifteen more minutes.

So I say to her, “I must have done something wrong because…” she cuts me off and says “no you didn’t do anything wrong we are just busy” and is obviously trying to brush me off at this point. I don’t leave, I say, “no it’s not because you are busy because the 14 people who all came in after me are eating and drinking there’s no problem with that.” So she looks at me, takes a deep breath and says, “it’s completely different” I am totally dumbfounded at this point. I feel like I’m in the movie “idiocrocy.” There’s no problem with anyone there getting food except for me! At this point it’s been about 45 minutes so I say to the lady who obviously can’t figure this little problem out, “how about you refund my payment and I’ll just go somewhere else?” So she says in response to that, “Ok well there’s nothing I can do it’s completely separate” so upon hearing this craziness a second time I ask her, “What do you mean it’s separate the food all gets made in the same kitchen by the same people it’s all the same!!!” To which she then responds, “Well what do you want me to do about it?” And it was at that point I knew I would never be coming back here again! If she would have offered an apology, a little empathy, said something like.. I’ll go see if I can’t get them to expedite it. Literally anything would have been better than essentially telling me “We’re so busy we don’t need to care about you.” So I left, frustrated, upset and hungry and that is how I will remember this place and it’s sad because I’ve had so many great meals with greats hostess and waitresses but we humans tend to remember most vividly the things that hurt us! Terrible customer service today hope that poor girl gets a little...

Alesia has a nice outdoor patio and a basic indoor dining area. We came in and sat down at the patio our self. I ordered an IPA beer, summer roll, egg roll, grilled pork banh mi, Vietnamese salad and pho.

Beer: Ghost IPA beer was good and has good depth, great job on the beer

Pork banh mi: the bread of the banh mi was very crispy and that is rare in most places, and they have it right with the bread. The grilled meat was very flavorful and the banh mi was very good. I would return just for the banh mi only. It is a very basic banh mi so don’t expect too much.

Vietnamese salad: the only thing I thought it was food about this 18 dollar salad was the grilled shrimp which you get 5 shrimp in the salad. You can’t really called this a Vietnamese salad if it doesn’t have mint leaves or the fish sauce. I would not order this again because it wasn’t a Vietnamese salad like I would expected. Please called this a shrimp Roman salad, it kind of misleading.

Summer roll: this one is just basic and nothing to rave about. The peanut sauce lacks of flavor and they don’t give you siracha to add to the peanut sauce to give it the kick to the peanut sauce dipping.

Egg rolls: this one is decent but not good. Wouldn’t order this again. Not much filling to the egg rolls.

Pho: pho is the star of the show for any Vietnamese restaurant. 16.50 for a small bowl of pho and didn’t come with bean sprout or Thai basil. They offered me hoisin sauce and chili sauce but no siracha. When I asked if there was any bean sprout the cook who brought me pho said that they don’t have it… I said ok.. that was it.

Pho broth was very dark and very sweet. The only reason the broth is dark is because they use more beef powder than using beef bone. I tasted this pho and wanted to like it but the lacks of flavor and how sweet it was It was not good. The pho broth lacks the smell of star anise and other various spices like coriander and cinnamon. Also the noodles were chop up into pieces which was annoying and hard to eat. I hope you guys get your pho broth right because it isn’t good. It’s like drinking sugar water instead of a flavorful...

Service is lukewarm, not welcoming seeming and server didn't introduce himself nor have any personality. Service was meh. Parking is ridiculous, we had to do street side parking a couple blocks down but not terrible. The lighted outdoor seating looks like it would have been nice but there was no availability at 6:30 this Saturday night so we sat inside. Very beautiful architecture especially with the windows. I thought it felt humid and a bit stifling indoors, but strangely it wasn't hot. Food was OK, a couple of really good dishes but otherwise don't believe it's worth the drive 1h+ for us to return.

Potstickers 4/5 - good but too salty Pate chaud 3/5 - personally not a big fan of liver anything so didn't care for that aspect but the pastry itself was flaky deliciousness, but hubs gives 4/5 - he likes liver (this was also his fav dish out of everything) Lobster bisque 5/5 - my absolute favorite here, creamy and flavorful; was supposed to come with bread (french baguette) but ran out and replaced with cheese gougeres (see below review, wish they offered youtiao instead) Curry chicken with jasmine rice 3/5 - rice would be better if it didn't arrive cold. Chicken in curry is dry and had too much onion Wonton soup 3/5 - good but the fried shallots was way overpowering in the soup. Chicken was overcooked dry-dry and only had TWO wontons in the wonton soup Youtiao 3/5 I like it somewhat crispy, this was not and has oily taste Cheese gougeres 1/5 - supposed to be "cheese filled" WHERE? It's just empty space of nothing and the puff pastry tasted stale, not fresh at all Beignets 4/5 - not bad, has a hint of wine or similar taste to it Banana spring roll 5/5 - surprised how much I liked this. Reminds me of childhood Vietnamese dessert that I'm not a huge fan of but subtle sweetness and modernized or frenchified? Very good, banana not overwhelming and the crisp and flavors all go so well together

We'll return if we happen to be in the area perhaps but we wouldn't make the trek solely for...