Rx Chicken and Oysters — Restaurant in Wilmington

Warning Long Review: I am still in shock over my experience at RX. We were a party of 4 and excited to enjoy a farm to table restaurant. We ordered about 3 cocktails each, shared appetizers and the service and food were awesome. I was the only person at the table to order the “NC Duck, Stefan’s Turnips, Greens, Clem’s Carrots, Morgan’s Sweet Potatoes, Peppers, Sorghum.” The restaurant has low lighting but upon receiving my main entrée, I noticed that my dish didn’t look quite right. My brother’s gf even made the comment that it looked raw. Despite its appearance, I trusted the restaurant and gave it a try. I first bit into a slice of carrot, and it was almost completely uncooked. It even crunched as I ate it. Then I sliced into my very raw looking duck, and it was in fact undercooked and inedible. Afraid that I would get sick if I dared a second bite, I discreetly notified our waitress and ordered the “Lady Edison Pork Belly” instead (Which was delicious). When we received the check, we were shocked to find that we were being charged ½ price for the duck in addition to the pork belly. I notified the waitress that there was a mistake and she quickly informed us that their management does not void items off the check simply because it was not to the customers liking. I reminded her that it was NOT a matter of preference, but that I was served raw meat and could not eat it. She grabbed her supervisor and 15 minutes later he begrudgingly confronted our table and let us know that he was the one expediting all the dishes and he observed my dish and that it met HIS standards. He loudly stated that because they are a farm to table, they cannot afford to comp any meals. Mind you we were glad to pay $13+ for each drink. I’m in shock at this point. I informed him I wasn’t aware that raw duck met his standard, but it didn’t meet mine. My boyfriend let him know that we would pay for the duck, but we would never return. The manager did end up comping the duck, but only after loudly embarrassing our table and making a scene. In my 30 years of dining, I have never experienced such AWFUL customer service. Please keep in mind that this restaurant truly believes that they cannot make mistakes and their opinion supersedes their customers.

Edit: Per the long winded response below, you can clearly read the tone and content made by this manager and it’s very obvious the content of my review was not only warranted, he literally exemplified what I wrote above about the experience in text. The only thing that could be considered vindictive was your terrible customer service and embarrassing our table. Many others have similar complaints as ours and your duck also has many complaints as well. There was not a single mushy carrot on my plate and I have no reason to lie or attack your...

Exceptionally wonderful experience for us, who are pretty serious about eating locally and sustainably, and who rarely eat out, since most restaurants serve food that is neither local nor sustainable. Our server Tom was -- we actually said this to each other on the way back to the care -- the best server we have ever had: attentive, sincere, knowldgable, efficient, and just a really nice human. But the food. Wow. We've eaten oysters (a lot) in Boston, MA and in Bellingham, WA. We've eaten Chesapeake oysters. The Lucy Beas were so good that after our first course of 6 Lucy Beas and 2 each of the Masonboros, Topsails, and Tiderunners, we had another half dozen Lucy Beas for desert. And it was my wife’s birthday, we said to Tom, please no cake or scene or whatever. He put a candle in the middle of the desert plate of Lucy Beas! So great! The whole fried chicken was also unsurpassed, likely also the best fried chicken we've eaten out, ever. We buy our chickens to cook from Old Rich Valley Farm in Smyth Co. VA and I can fry a mean bird, but I think yours was better. I'm still working on figuring out your crust. The Sea Island Red Peas were great, and the collards sublime. The mac and cheese also excellent -- though mac and cheese is too broad a category to compare, but yours was as good as any (among the great mac and cheeses). We loved your commitment to the basics, the simplicity of your cooking which lets your exceptionally wonderful ingredients shine. Compared to Kindred in Davidson (where we live) your food, commitments, and values are next level. (Kindred feeds the Range Rover, Porsche crowd and is sometimes way too saucy/salty/overwrought for its own good.) Back when Nate Allen was cooking at his Knife and Fork for a few years in 2016-18 in Spruce Pine, that was a good as it gets for brilliant local, sustainable food. We were in Wilmington just for a day and didn't imagine we would want to come back. But now we do. Thank you for a great dinner and brilliant food. We hope to come again for dinner...

Our experiences was ruined with oddly rude behavior from what I assume was either management or kitchen stuff, nobody ever identified who they were or what their role with the business was.

We had an otherwise okay breakfast, the food though was not as expected or described. For example the “hash” was actually breakfast potatoes (they were quite good though), the “sandwich” was open faced.

Where things went poorly was the eggs Benedict. The dish came out with eggs that had runny whites, unfortunately the waitress was busy and didn’t return before we were done and ready to leave. We informed on the eggs but didn’t ask for anything. We were told this is just how they cook their eggs.

A female (maybe a manager?) came out and at no point apologized and instead defended the snotty mess detailing the cooking method (sous vide) and the temperature. She also said that people are normally “warned” (her words) about the end result of the eggs. She did offer to have something else made but the meal was well over at that point.

Then a man came to the table and tried to do the same thing, bringing out a fact sheet, defending what you see pictured. It was a lot of effort to basically say “our chef doesn’t know how to make pocked eggs” without ever actually saying it. He went back and laughed with the woman after. Both were dismissive and neither seemed to care that it ruined one of the meals. We were not comped for anything. It was honestly shocking the lengths that they went to rather than just being hospitable.

There’s no culinary standard on earth where poached eggs have runny whites. If you have to WARN customers about receiving food other than they would expect the problem is you not your customers. It has nothing to do with whether they were safe to eat or not, very few people enjoy eating runny egg whites, and no one expects them on poached eggs. The fact that they wasted more time at our table defending their cooking method than having any sort of regret about our experience means we...