Trails End Dining Room

This will be a long review ... sorry but I have to! Firstly, we ate at their 2nd restaurant - The Angus McVie Dining Room (it gets very confusing as to what's open and when! Everything about the place is confusing!)Anyway ... here goes:We chose this place as I've always wanted to do a trail ride and my husband found this on-line. He thought since we've been camping and on the road for a few months that he'd book us in for a night in the resort and a gourmet dining experience as they advertised. I was really looking forward to it!Well, we should have stayed in the RV and bar-b-qued a steak. It was awful!From the first moment that we walked into the restaurant (The 1871 Angus McVie Dining Room) and there was no one to greet or acknowledge us, just a waitress running back and forth in front of us from the main dining room to the kitchen I had a bad feeling. We weren’t sure where to go or what to do so we kind of stood there – in the way I guess – looking around.The waitress finally acknowledged us and told us to wait – they’d get a table ready. Another couple showed up at the same time and ended up getting seated first and got ‘our table’ (a nice one by the window.) There seemed to be no system in place as they kept asking other people showing up if they had a reservation, but I don’t know why as they had no book or list or anything to refer to and really had NO idea how many customers were going to show up and when. I have no idea why we were encouraged to even make a reservation the day before.When we were finally were seated – we were handed ONE menu (which we had to pass back and forth and was quite annoying) and shortly the waitress arrived and asked “Do you want anything to drink other than water?”Wow. A proper approach would have been to hand us a wine/drink menu when we sat down and then asked if we’d like to start with a drink or bottle of wine? Poor training. The way her question was asked sets you (the restaurant) up for a “No” response and thus lost revenue for you and lost enjoyment for the diner! We had to ask for a wine list – which we were given. And then - we were asked if had already had 2 drinks beforehand. What? We just got there! Where did that come from? They were obviously confusing us with another couple. She looked almost annoyed when we said we hadn’t, then left us with the wine list. Only about a minute passed and she was back asking which wine we wanted – holy cow … give us a minute, please? She came back a few minutes later and we ordered a bottle. She disappeared and came back and told us that … no … they didn’t have that one. Would we like this other one which was similar? We thought for a minute, then she said she’d give us a taste to see if we liked it and that sounded good. She came back a minute later with 2 glasses, saw one was dirty and hauled it back to the kitchen. We waited a bit more and she came back with another glass and proceeded to then pour ¾ of the bottle into our two glasses (where was the ‘taste’.?) My glass was hot (must have just come out of the dishwasher) and the wine was warm. But oh well, it would do. Only now I’ve got this practically full glass that I have to lift with 2 hands. Do they not even have the training to know how much wine to pour into a glass? That’s pretty basic stuff!After a bit she came back to ask for our meal choices. We ordered an appie (smoked salmon) to share and I ordered the ‘Slow Roasted Duck Breast’ and Bruce got the Pork Tenderloin for our mains.We waited a loooonnnnngggg time and saw the table of people who came in before us (and who’d gotten our table!) get an appie … but ours never came. There seemed to be 2 people working all the tables, with no rhyme or reason as to who they served. We tried to get one of their attention wrt the missing appie but no one would ever look at us!Finally our main courses arrived (the young fellow who was the 2nd of the 2 servers working brought them) and we told him that we’d ordered appies but never got them. He laughed ruefully and said that yes, our appie went to the other table and they ate it! What? Ok so they made a mistake … and they knew it … but they didn’t apologize … and didn’t bring us ours … did they only have the one serving left? They said they’d take it off our bill … WELL OF COURSE YOU’LL TAKE IT OFF OUR BILL!!!Grrrr. Anyway we started in on our much anticipated ‘gourmet’ dinner. Oh My. My duck was overcooked and had so much un-chewable fat/gristle I left ½ of it on my plate. I’d have sent it back, but I still could not get anyone’s attention … and never did anyone come to see if everything was ok. The sweet potato mash was awful … and the chunk of corn was old and inedible. The roast pork that Bruce got was ok but nothing special and a VERY small portion. His sweet potato fries were uncooked in the middle and dried up on the outside and again the chunk of corn was old and inedible. Altogether one of the worst meals we’ve ever had!Finally the original waitress came over when she saw we’d pushed our plates aside I told her how awful it was plus we didn’t get the appie we’d ordered. She apologized and took away our plates. When she came back she said they weren’t going to charge us for either meal and would we like some dessert on the house. We agreed and Bruce ordered the cowboy pudding and I ordered the sticky toffee pudding. Again she came back telling us there was no cowboy pudding … would Bruce like the sticky toffee? Ok sure.She never asked if we wanted coffee or tea.In the meantime … the tables around us seemed to have their own troubles. One problem was the 2 wait staff seemed to be waiting on tables arbitrarily resulting in double drink orders. One table (with 5 people) got 4 dinners (mostly steaks) and the 1 fellow who’d ordered salmon never did get his main dish at ALL. No explanations, no apologies …For such a world-class spa (which we didn’t partake of so I can’t comment on that) … the dining seemed to be an afterthought. The staff were not trained at all … and even common sense seemed to be lacking. The food was terrible – and not cheap! So not only were we highly disappointed and will NEVER come back again, but this review is going on Trip Advisor. So how much money did the owners lose that night? Well, the hard costs are: we were going to order a ‘before dinner drink’ which wasn’t offered - 5-$6 each - $12. 1 appie to someone who didn’t order it and didn’t pay for it - $12. Our appie we didn’t get and didn’t pay for - $12. Our main courses that were free - $28

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I cant believe that The Hills is still in business! The place smells and looks like a rundown old age home. I don't think a dime has been spent on maintenance since it was built. I felt sorry for all the European cliental checking in based on a misleading, over represented and outdated website. Oh, and they have to eat there as well! I am in the food industry and looked into the dining room once the dinner specials were posted and at $30 a person that was the most blatant rip off. There is no excuse for bad accommodations and bad food. I would hate to be hiking or snowshoeing as there are no trail markers that make sense.Get your act together

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I tried some of the new menu items and they all looked great. For starters, I had the calamari and for my main dish, I went with the crab macaroni and cheese. I was not disappointed at all. Karen, our waitress, was once again amazing. She is always friendly and welcoming, and she even remembered us from our previous visit.

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I have visited this restaurant twice and I must say, the tartes flambees are not good. If you're in search of a well-prepared and delicious flammekueche, I would recommend avoiding this place.

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The homemade food at this restaurant is excellent, with exceptional value for the price. The service is friendly and quick.

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