Red Heat Tavern — Restaurant in Wilmington

Went here tonight with my husband. Nothing was good. To start our waitress was mainly absent.. never asked to refill drinks, left dirty dishes on the table while we were eating, had to wait to get plates for awhile after we got our apps and to top it off our waitress never even brought us any of our food! It was always another member of the waitstaff..I barely saw our waitress and when we did she was robotic at best. Now for the food, I’ll go course by course: Apps: wings and ribs combo.. wings were undercooked with rubbery skin, not at all crisp. Only “flats” no little “drumettes”. Ribs were decent thought a touch salty. Main dishes: steak tips, ordered medium came out medium well. Under seasoned. Came with garlic Parmesan fries.. fries had no salt, little flavor and were undercooked mushy and cold. Didn’t taste garlic and there was only a tiny sprinkling of Parmesan on a few of the fries. Ordered a side of Mac and cheese.. again, bland and under seasoned and over cooked on top, macaroni was dry. Needed a crunchy topping for flavor and texture, didn’t have one. Fish tacos.. bland, running theme of the night was the lack of salt in anything! Fish had a floured breading, fish tacos should really have a tempura or beer batter. Came with pico de gallo and pineapple salsa..oh and a sriracha aoli . Little flavor, no contrast in texture.. would have greatly benefited from finely shredded Napa cabbage on top for not only texture contrast but added flavor/color. Should have added that and topped it off with the aoli. Came with cilantro rice.. again, bland.. salt desperately needed. Also got onion strings.. cut too thickly, undercooked, no seasoning and served in a ceramic bowl which only made them soggier. All the food came out lukewarm too, nothing was hot. Gave dessert a try, flourless chocolate cake. I don’t even know where to begin. First of all I am A baker so admittedly I am a tough critic. However, what they are calling a flourless chocolate cake is anything but. It’s a brownie. A little round brownie. Decent flavor, but nothing special and again, needed salt! It tasted flat. Salt actually enhances a dessert’s sweetness. Flourless chocolate cake is almost like a custard as it’s basically just eggs chocolate and sugar.. it should be creamy, the texture, silken.. this was not the case with this brownie trying to pass as a cake. Also it came with peanut butter.. I found that unnecessary and overbearing. So to sum up..my waitress was completely inattentive, all the food was lukewarm, everything was undercooked and the kitchen apparently doesn’t know what salt is (or how to properly season a dish) everything was one note. No nuances. no depth of flavor. Few herbs/spices used. Bland and flat. The menu descriptions looked promising but failed to deliver. Also they need to put better plates together.. many of the dishes come with rice but with all the side dishes they offer they could do a better job of composing dishes...

First and last time I'll be dining there. When we pulled up to the parking lot, it was completely filled. Had to do a second loop to find parking. And I thought to myself, wow this place is a real hot spot. Made a reservation via Google, and went inside to check in, and was immediately sat down for my party of two....so far so good.

Our waitress Kendra was super friendly and nice, and truthfully, was the only thing that made our dining experience even tolerable. Despite the fact I hate the dividers between the tables, I was able to hear my date, and it blocked out the sound from the very hectic kitchen.

I ordered a lemonade sangria, and my date ordered an unsweetened ice tea. My drink was pretty tasty, but considering it was in a wine glass half full of ice not even filled to the top, I feel like the actual beverage itself was less then 4 ounces. We ordered the nachos with Buffalo chicken and guacamole. Now for $2.95 extra, the amount of guac was totally acceptable. However the guac and sour cream scoops covered up burnt chips and there was no gooey cheese in sight. The Buffalo chicken was at the bottom in a pile and not even dispersed along the nachos so it took some digging to find, I will say, the mesquite Buffalo chicken was quite moist and was prolly the only thing good about these nachos besides a massive serving of guacamole.

For dinner I got the hummus dip, and he ordered the chicken tenders with fries with side of onion rings. I love hummus, everything hummus. It was hummus....with tzatziki sauce, and some crumbles of cheese on top. I must have misread the menu, because I was under the impression I was getting cucumbers or veggies on on side to dip in. Either way,, hummus was decent, but my everything pita chips were hard as a rock and definatly not cooked to order. They were saturated in grease and just tasted stale. Kendra gladly got some fresh Pita for me, but the amount that they gave was 1/3 the amount on my plate. My dates chicken tenders had no flavor and were cold to the touch. The fries were over cooked and not even seasoned, the onion rings were shoe sting cut, my fav, but again, cold and unseasoned.

When Kendra came back around to check a second time after the new Pita came out, we asked for to go boxes and the check. My date, very displeased, left the restaurant to grab the car. I explained to her the food was unsatisfactory and the chicken and fries were going to the dog. She was quite shocked and apologized. I told her it wasn't her fault, but from a culinary stand point, for $80 I expect better food: or at least food that tastes fresh and is hot and seasoned properly.

Great service, great vibes, great location, food needs some major...

This place has been on my bucket list to try. So I make it finally on around 9pm on a Friday Summer night. Great atomophere, hostess was nice and seated us right away. Our seats were right below the AC. Which made it very cold wearing summer clothes. We asked to move and they moved us near the kitchen. Much more cozy, 10mins go by and no one has come to take even a drink order. So we kinda laugh and hope the food is better than the service. Then a nice waiter(after several staff members have walked by us, and 2 well dressed men that looked like managers chatting at the kitchen windows don't even acknowledge us) happens to walk by and notice no one has helped. He was great and said I will grab u some drinks until your waitress can come over. Well drinks came by no waitress. The nice waiter happened to walk by again and noticed no one helped us yet. So we started chit chatting about the ketchup and mustard and how it drove me nuts it was upside down. We had some laughs and we talked about the menu. He recommended the Nachos and the turkey tips. I ended up trying the baked haddock. While waiting for our food I noticed our silverware was dirty. I'm talking dried up food stuck on 3 of the forks on the table. Never did tell anyone but did ask for new ones. Food came out fast. Nachos needed cheese. Like what are nachos without cheese? They had this sour cream dill drizzled on top which was tasty. My haddock was cooked perfect but was lacking flavor. I ordered some lemon to help. All and all the food wasn't bad but I don't think I would brag about it. The service was bad to start and this waiter did make up for it. I am undecided if I will try it again. But maybe I will try something easy...