Shakti's — Restaurant in Wenatchee

I am not one to leave a bad review, I really hate being negative but our experience last night warrants a review for others to see. I called ahead and left a voicemail to make a reservation and the gal was extremely nice and got back to me quickly. When I asked if there were options for dairy free, she assured me they had TONS of options and substitutions- she said just ask your server and they will be able to accommodate.My husband is lactose intolerant and gets extremely sick if he has dairy. I was thrilled they had options as it was our 3rd wedding anniversary and I wanted to go somewhere nice to celebrate. Upon arrival everything seemed great, it smelled great and the atmosphere seemed really nice. Unfortunately we were seated at a horrible table- sitting directly in front of the chef in the kitchen facing the door where people were entering and exiting. We let it go, because it didn’t matter. When the waitress came over and greeted us we had already looked over the menu and were ready for an appetizer. My husband opted for the “hot” calamari. When it arrived to our table it looked awful. But what’s worse it that it tasted absolutely vile. Imagine eating a raw baby squid drenched in warm cocktail sauce.. and for 27$?? It wasn’t spicy, it wasn’t cooked and it smelled disgusting. We didn’t eat it. But yet we decided to order dinner to give them the benefit of the doubt and try it out. When asking the server for dairy free suggestions she said and I quote “ummm we don’t have hardly any- I suppose you could do steak”. ARE YOU JOKING? We should have paid for the freaking nasty calamari and left. But yet we didn’t. He thought steak sounded good and we were hungry, when he asked what sides it comes with she said starter salad, mashed potato’s and green beans. My husband asked if he could do no cheese on the salad and mashed potato’s but dairy free. She said no “ we make the batch of potato’s in the morning for the day”. First off, that’s disgusting, for being so high class you’d think they would make things fresh for you. Especially when they don’t open till 4, so they’re just sitting there all day till dinner? Yuck. He said ok so I guess no mashed potato’s for me, and she asked how he wanted his steak, he said medium. I ordered the Kobe burger. And she took our orders over to start. She came back a minute later to tell us that unfortunately the glaze for the steak has cream in it. YOURE JOKING. But nope, not joking. She then says “for an additional 5 dollars the chef will make you a dairy free glaze”. So we say ok..... (I know you’re getting mad for us now, right?) Anyway we wait a couple minutes and our salads come out. Hardly any dressing on then. Lettuce tastes like it wasn’t washed and tasted of dirt. So we don’t eat those. Then 15 minutes later our food arrives. I’m not kidding when I say there was a small steak with 3 green beans on it... and let me tell you the steak was raw in the middle, like EXTREMELY RARE (moo) and the green beans were leather and were not cooked all the way at all. My burger was fine, not great, nothing special. But we waited for 10 minutes for our server to come back so he could tell her the steak wasn’t right. By that time he just said screw it, and started eating the outside of the steak that was cooked. When she finally came back and asked how things were, my husband was so mad he didn’t want to make eye contact. So I politely said, well actually no. His steak is extremely rare. Her response was “well I told him medium”. I can throw it in the oven if you’d like? Yeah what we want is for you to throw his cold raw steak in the oven. What’s better than a raw steak, oh yeah- a dry steak!! So we say no can we have the check please. She says well it’s your anniversary so dessert comes free. She gives us 2 options- both are ice cream. So I pick the first one because I like ice cream. It arrived and it’s burned pecans with frangelico over vanilla ice cream. Disgusting. Took one bite and said nope. Handed her our card. Paid full price for our meal and $115 later here I am...

The owner's response to my review is riddled with outright misrepresentations. She wasn't at the restaurant to observe the communications breakdown and as a business owner, surely would have handled the many misteps better than this server. My companion and I are females, in our 70s. We did not "loudly jeer and heckle" and shout "over and over," like owner Shakti states. At no time did we say we were in a hurry, as this was supposed to be a relaxed evening of fine dining. We did not refuse new dishes as there was no such offer, and we did not ask for the bill - it was peremptorily served up to us. I left a 10% tip which acknowledged having been served. If that's considered "handsome" it would appear Shakti's has lost sight of the service and quality value proposition.

Furthermore, my review did not name or ridicule the server - it identified her by key appearance traits for those who might experience the same bizarre service problems we had that night. My review told the truth - the garden was half full throughout the evening, the food was mediocre and the service poor, though the ambiance is nice (if that's all you want from a restaurant). The offending coupon was printed directly off of Shakti's website when the reservation was made a few days earlier. Their "extremely qualified staff" could have politely mentioned it was no longer valid, or that it was being honored in a conciliatory fashion. Instead, it's just another grudge item for the Owner to lay on us.

Beware of the waitress with long highlighted curls and lots of eye makeup. She never checked back after serving our two meals. My pasta dish was lukewarm and became inedibly cold and congealed until we got another waitress to find her for us. Reheating helped, but I also found crab membrane minced finely throughout - like eating bits of plastic. When, the server put a check folder on our table (before asking us about dessert), she explained to me that the cook said I was wrong - the dish was not served cold, nor with any membrane/shells. She was quite agressive when I told her my experience with the food, and I finally told her to stop arguing with us. At that point she snapped her reply, "I'm exercising my right to refuse service" and walked away. Say what? In my 50+ years of dining experience, I've very rarely sent anything back to the kitchen.

Drinks plus pasta dishes took a full 2 hours. That included being seated outside and then, being asked to move to another table to allow for a 6-person group. We didn't mind the move, but observed later that the patio was half empty for the entire 2 hours on a Saturday night.

This will be my last time at Shakti's. It wasn't just bad dining, but a truly negative dining experience that left a bad taste. The restaurant does not achieve the level of fine dining represented in its...

We dined at Shakti's for the first time after living in the area for several years now. We always wonder about trying new places, especially for an evening meal. Would it be like so many restaurants, where we have come away disappointed for the amount of money spent?. Here is our experience at Shakti's; The appetizer we had was Muscles that were in a cream sauce and they were outstanding. The Olive oil, garlic and herbs with the bread was outstanding. My wife had the Scallops with Artichoke hearts in cream sauce and she loved it. Said she would have opted for a different appetizer though, as both having delicious cream sauces, to her was a bit too much cream for one meal (Note to self; remember that next time!) but she loved them both though! I had the Rigatoni Prawn dish and while the flavor was incredible, it was overly too hot with spice. It was sopping the backs of the ears with my napkin hot! Very good flavor but I would have liked to have been asked by the wait staff what heat range I would like. I did see on the menu that this dish was labeled "Hot" and I didn't think much of it as I love spicy food. The flavor was outstanding though and I would get it again, but with less heat! We were asked if we would like to upgrade our dinner salad to a Cesar for a $5.00 up-charge each, which we both did and this was the one area with the meal that we both felt like Wow, that was an extra charge that was totally not worth it. We counted the croutons on each salad after not initially seeing any and confirmed there was "two" on each salad. The salad for a Cesar was overly vinegary too. So, some feedback again for the resturaunt, would be to include that as a "comes with" salad, or if you have to have the upgrade charge, at least make it a worthy Cesar salad! We finished with sharing a Cre'me brûlée split between us which was very nice. We had a bottle of Red Wine with dinner and thought the wine list was pretty limited and very expensive for the wines offered. One last piece of feedback is the lighting in the restaurant; It was very dark, so much so, it was difficult to see what was what on the dinner plates. We love a nice romantic atmosphere, but for us, we would like just a tad bit more lighting. I hope they find this as the constructive feedback that is heartfelt from us and that is intended. My wife and I are both "Foodies", love to cook and pair wines. We most likely will dine at Shakti's restaurant again, but it's very expensive and it will have to be for a very special occasion. Shakti is very personable if you ever contact her directly and it's evident she wants to provide an excellent dining experience and have...