Counteroffer

I was here for a seminar, and never left the grounds. Fortunately there were several bars and this is the one I stopped by in the middle of the afternoon. I chose it to get away from the crowds and at first I was the only one at the bar. It was perfect until Miss chatty Cathy arrived straight from the airport, but that’s not their fault.
The bartender was nice and she made a nice gimlet. She let me go outside and take some photos of the statues in the sculpture garden, and my drink was fine when I came back. The several nights that I was there I did notice that this place comes alive at night, way too crowded for me, but for a younger crowd this looked like the place to be to meet and mingle.

Was staying at the Hilton Anetole Hotel on a recent business trip, and I found out the hard way that not having a car in Dallas can really limit your food options. I was basically forced to eat the food of varying quality at the hotel, and made the mistake of eating the sushi dinner that they had at Counter Offer
Food: During the morning and lunch hours, this place serves more of the «Starbucks» variety of items such as cold pre-​made sandwiches, pastries and coffees. At night time they change into a sushi and wine bar. Their sushi menu is extremely limited and only offer a few basic offerings line California rolls, cucumber rolls and a few different nigiri and sashimi options and sides. I order a California roll, a few pieces of tuna nigiri and a miso soup, and I was so disappointed with the meal. The miso soup was flavorless and you can tell the mini pieces of tofu that was in it were previously dried or from a packet. The soup did not have the depth of flavor that you would expect even basic miso /​dashi based soups to have. The nigiri and California rolls were also flavorless and were a bit on the small side. The rice was too mushy and had no type of flavor to it (at least add a dash of rice vinegar or mirin like how the real sushi places do.) The California roll barely had any crab or avocado in it, and it was missing the cucumber all together. The tuna on my nigiri did taste very fresh, but there was no wasabi put on it and the portion was very small. Usually nigiri takes 2 bites to get down for me, but the ones I had were single biters. Worse of all, this place does not serve normal soy sauce, only some sad watered down «low sodium» soy sauce. My meal was not at all filling, and I ended up leaving hungry because I did not want to spend more money buying sushi that was so bad.
Price: The price was very expensive, especially for the quality you get. The miso soup and California rolls were about $ 9 a piece, with a pair of nigiri sushi about $ 5. $ 9 for a small soup is highway robbery, and the fact that it was not even a decent soup kind of upset me. The California roll was way over priced for the size and quality of it. Maybe I’m spoiled because I live in an area where you can get amazing sushi at much better prices (San Francisco bay area). For $ 9 I expected at least to get a flavorful roll with lots of crab, avocado and cucumber in it. The $ 5 tune nigiri wasn’t as bad for the price, but the potions were small.
Atmosphere: No real atmosphere at this restaurant. It has a very coffee-​shop sort of feel to it with open seating that flows into the main lobby /​atrium area of the hotel, and a lot of open tables and chairs. You simply find an open table and sit down. There are paper menus and plates on all the tables, and once you figure out what you want to order you write it down on the paper menu and hand it to the waiter. The décor and table settings do not change between coffee and dinner services, but at least the place was clean and the chairs are comfortable.
Staff /​Service: This place had very minimal staff during the dinner service. There was only one waiter, one chef/​cook, and one cashier when I went there. The place was pretty empty when I was there, but the waiter was not very attentive at all. I had to at first hunt him down to ask if I can sit anywhere, and then when I was ready to order I had to hunt him down again. I did get my food in a timely manner, but the waiter never came by during the meal to see if I needed more water (and I drink a lot of water.) When I was finished, I had to hunt the waiter down for my check, and he simply asked me «anything else?» before handing me my check. A group of ladies that were eating near me said the waiter was «feisty» which I am not sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Overall, I feel like I was tricked into eating here. Not having a car, and only having a couple of food options in the Hilton Anatole was awful. I was at the hotel for 5 days and was basically forced to eat at the same 3 restaurants each day. I only ate at Counter Offer once, as it is the very worse option in the hotel. The only thing that would have made it worse is if I would have gotten food poisoning.