Plates Mediterranean Bistro — Restaurant in Williamstown

This is hands down the worst restaurant that I’ve ever been to. They are so stingy here and charge you for every little thing. I came in with my husband for lunch. I originally ordered the beat salad and asked if I could add half chicken & half falafel on it and she said, “no probably not. I thought that was a little weird... how hard would it be to do that. So then, we both ordered hummus with pita bread for an app, the chicken wrap for our meal and my husband got a side of rice. I asked if I could get the beet salad as my side salad and she said, yes they can make any regular size salad as a side salad. I said ok that sounds great. About 10 minutes later we hear the chef yelling at her in the back saying he can’t do a beet salad as a side, only full. So she comes out and lies to my face saying, “the chef hasn’t had a chance to put the beets on the grill yet today so we won’t be able to do the beet salad as a side salad. I said, Ok could get some falafel on my side salad, knowing it would be an up charge. We were literally the only people in the entire restaurant and waited about 15 min just for the hummus. She brings it out with 4 tiny triangles of pita bread to split between the 2 of us. I’m thinking to myself... seriously how are we supposed to eat this. Then our meals finally come out and they’re tiny, and she says the falafel is coming out the chef is still making it (which I wanted ON my salad, so what’s the point.... but whatever, I said okay). She asked us if we wanted more bread for our hummus (since we had like half a plate left because we could only eat like 2 bites of it with the tiny piece of bread she gave us) and we said yes. We ate our meals in about 2 minutes because it wasn’t even enough food to fill up a 5 year old (and the chicken on the wrap was dry and about the size of my pinky, the “side salad” was like 10 pieces of mixed greens) and then she brings the “falafel” out to me after I finish my meal and it’s literally one tiny little falafel patty a little bigger than a quarter (it tasted awful like it was a frozen pre packaged thing they heated up in the microwave). Then after we’re done with our meal and sitting there waiting and she’s already cleared our plates she finally brings the “extra pita bread” at the same time she’s bringing out the check and says “did you still want this?”. We said yes because we were literally starving and again it was just 4 tiny triangles of pita bread. We look at our check and she charged us $4.00 for the TINY falafel patty and $1.50 FOR THE EXTRA BREAD WHICH WAS 1 PIECE OF PITA BREAD. My husband flagged the waitress over and said, we didn’t realize we were getting charged for this extra bread, we thought it just came with the hummus that we’re already paying $8 for??? And she looked at us with this shocked look on her face and was like “Yeah he charges for everything”. So our lunch came to almost $50 and we left hungry. Don’t ever come here... the service sucks, the food sucks and the prices...

Okay where do I start. If you're a fan of Mediterranean food, Greek food in particular. If you've ever had Greek food from a lunch truck and enjoyed it. Then this is not the place for you. It touts itself as being traditional. I ordered a simple gyro platter It took a while to prepare So in the meantime we asked for appetizer order of hummus. This was the start of the concern about the meal. The hummus was served with very little pita bread relative to two people eating it. The hummus itself was incredibly bland It seemed to have been prepared with navy beans as opposed to chickpeas. The coloring was very much off bright orange instead of yellow. The flavor was incredibly bland no taste of garlic or salt, and it had been drenched in an olive oil that was incredibly bitter which took that much more away from the plate. And our meals were served. I was immediately disappointed. I'd asked for tzatziki sauce on the side and what I got was sour cream with a few chives in it. The same was ladled into the gyro. The gyro was constructed of commercially prepped meat strips that were either cold or overdone. There was a smattering of greens, a few pieces of onion and two or three pieces of sliced plum tomatoes. Trying to overcome my initial disappointment in the appearance alone I tasted it and was equally disappointed. I chose not to eat the meal and asked to return it. The waiter was stunned at my request and returned with who was either the chef or the owner / chef who proceeded to berate me for not understanding what quality Greek food was about. He challenged me on many concepts of his product. My point was that I didn't like what he had served and he took great offense to that. I am no novice to Mediterranean food Greek food I love it I've had many incredible experiences at some of the highest end and most modest restaurants in the country. So my understanding of what I expected was pretty clear. Once he realized I was not going to budge on his product he offered me a different item I accepted it. I was not going to get into any more of a disagreement with the man about the restaurant. I was brought a lamb kabob which was lamb chunks grilled and put in a pita I ate the lamb pieces and left the rest. Unfortunately my wife had less of an incident but the platter that she had ordered was a salad with grilled shrimp and that was actually returned for a similar condition where the shrimp was not properly cooked It was only half cooked and again bringing it to attention and asking him for it to be corrected. They took the plate away took the shrimp off the plate regrilled the same items and put them back on the same plate. It was not remade this in itself was a disastrous experience. All in all Pera Bistro must be depending on the ignorance of the areas clientele to support such quality of product. So, for me I would pass on the Pera Bistro if you are in the area. If you are walking down the hill " Walk on by" there are several very nice places...

I never leave negative reviews but this was hands down the worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had. I understand that the service industry is hurting right now, but this place simply doesn’t have the basics down, pandemic or not. We had a reservation for 5:30. We were seated inside at a table by the window and served by a waitress who seemed, at first, friendly and capable. When we asked her for details on the kinds of beers they had on draft, she didn’t know anything, but whatever. As soon as she left to get our drinks, the flies started. I work in retail so understand that, at this time of year when you try to keep the door open, flies get in. But this was beyond. We were in a swarm! We had to bat them away constantly. There was also a cricket and a wasp. We were the only table seated inside, and when I looked over at the bar I realized that our waitress was being taught how to make our drinks. Oh well, they were sweet and weak. The spanakopita appetizer was cold. Everything came out in a timely manner, but by the time we got our entrees, the flies had gotten so bad that we asked if we could be moved away from the window. Our waitress moved us, but the help stopped there. We waited for her to come back with water and silverware but she never did, so we retrieved everything from the other table. I had ordered a beet salad as my entree, but she brought me a watermelon feta salad. No worries, mistakes happen, so I told her I had ordered the beet salad, to which she replied, “no you didn’t.” I didn’t even know there was a watermelon salad on the menu. I said I was sure I’d ordered the beet salad, and she responded, “you told me watermelon.” My parents, who I was dining with, both said, “no, she didn’t.” I apologized and said regardless, I would prefer the beet salad. I mean…maybe if I’d been arguing over a bigger or more expensive entree I would have understood, but some beets thrown on top of a spring mix? Very confusing. It finally came out, and it was fine. My parents both enjoyed their entrées as well, though they called them bland. But the waitress never came back to ask us if we enjoyed the food or needed anymore drinks. By the time we finished our food we had to wait 20 minutes while she ran around helping other people before she finally looked at us so we could flag her down and ask for the check. Altogether a confusing and...