Went to Argo's last night on a whim.
We ordered the cheese pies, a Caesar salad and a Moussaka, along with a bottle of house red, which came to a total of 305.
When we went in to the restaurant we decided to go upstairs and had the entire room to ourselves, which was peculiar, but nice in a way.
The waitress was friendly and enthusiastic, but not particularly well versed in the art of waitressing. First she brought us a complementary plate of stale bread they'd tried to disguise by toasting it accompained with Hummus and Pesto. Then upon being asked, she brought a jug of water and two cups to our table but didn't pour the water for us. When we decided to order I had to go downstairs and find the waitress myself so that we could order. She took about 5 minutes to come up because she couldn't find the machine they use to order dishes on.
When she brought the wine it was the same as the water; she opened it for us but left us to pour the wine ourselves whilst she went downstairs to crack jokes with a shifty looking dongbei geezer in a grubby orange t-shirt (probably the boss). Things like this are not really a big issue, but come across as unprofessional.
But there is one thing that really seperates decent western restaurants from the shoddy ones: timing. The cheese pies arrived. 10 minutes later the Caesar salad arrived. 25 minutes later the Moussaka arrived. To me nothing ruins a dining experience more than one person having their food whilst the other has to wait. This is absolutely basic knowledge of western dining. If you want to charge decent prices and attract returning customers then get it right.
The food was quite nice; the fetta in the cheese pies was real, the Caesar salad was quite tasty and the Moussaka was fairly good, if a little dry. All of the dishes were a tad on the small side though.
In short, Argo has potential, but it doesn't fulfill it. Simply by teaching their wait staff how to serve, making sure dishes come out at the same time, and beefing up portion sizes just a tad this would have been a different experience.
Food: 3.5 stars
Service: 2.5 stars
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