The Reef - Main Street

Another Groupon deal brought us here to the Reef on Main St/26th Ave for the first time.  We never tried Caribbean style food before so we were looking forward to try this place out.

Things didn’t start out too well unfortunately.  We got there quite early, 5pm since we figured we’d have a better chance getting a table  with no reservations on a Saturday.  The inside of the restaurant was practically empty, maybe 1 or 2 tables were occupied and we saw the rest of the tables had a “reserved sign’ on it. 

The server looked around then  asked if we wanted to sit in the bar.  We declined and offered to sit outside as we respected the other reservations and didn’t want to eat at the bar.

The Groupon deal gives you a Jerk platter for 2 along with 2 draught beers or wine.  We got the beer  and asked for a ginger ale as a substitute.

Unfortunately we did not get the ginger ale. The server dropped off a Sprite instead.  Before we could say anything the the server already quickly darted away back inside.  No one came out for a while so we just went ahead and settled with the unordered Sprite.

We chose chicken breast and wild salmon for the platter. It comes with rice and coleslaw.

It came on a long plate and some smaller side plates to share.  The rice was not very pleasant because it was very firm, in fact so firm that a lot of the rice was still ‘crunchy’ when you chew on it.  We were not sure if this is how Caribbean rice is supposed to be as it was our first time.  It tasted as if the rice was undercooked.  We asked the server if it is normal for Caribbean rice to have this characteristic and we didn’t get a straight clear answer.

The salmon was overcooked so it was dry.  The chicken breast was fine but we didn’t see any special preparation done on the meat. It was just meat with special sauce on top of it.  The portion was not big at all.

We had to wait upwards of 20-25 minutes before the food came (the restaurant was empty by the way).  What was even more upsetting was that throughout our meal of being there for more than an hour, we hardly saw any customers walk in to get their ‘reserved’ table.    Thus, by the time we paid our bill to leave, we peaked back inside and the restaurant was still empty just like an hour and a half earlier when the server couldn’t give us any of the empty tables.

Service was not pleasant and the food was mediocre.  Even with the Groupon discount, we felt like we over paid.

The best part of the visit was the beer and the mystery Sprite (in lieu of the Ginger Ale).  We certainly will avoid this place for the time being.

SFDD gives 1.5 of of 5 Delights (1 Delight goes to the beer and 0.5 for the Sprite) 
We would have given the 2nd beverage 1 Delight too except we ordered a Ginger Ale