Gualala Hotel

The good: The food was amazing. I had a half chicken with some apple cranberry compote, mashed potatoes, and green beans. So so so good. Our waitress was nice and personable.
The bad: We arrived for dinner at 8pm and they had already run out of two of the dishes being served. :(One of the waitresses was dressed fairly inappropriately for the scale of the restaurant. She seemed to be braless while wearing her shirt off the shoulder (80’s Madonna style.) Maybe appropriate for the bar side, not for a restaurant charging $ 20+ a plate.

We had a very nice dinner at the Gualala Hotel last Tuesday night. We arrived at 7:30, and the hostess told us they had a really busy night earlier… it appears that many of the restaurants in this area are closed on Tuesdays, so they get a lot of guests.
When we placed our order, we were told that they were out of the gnocchi and any dish that had wild rice would get mashed potatoes as a substitute. My wife had to quickly come up with something else to select, but I went with the duck dish (the menu said «duck two ways» and that sounded interesting).
Based on reviews here on Unilocal,we ordered the clam chowder and the crab cakes for an appetizer. This was the best clam chowder I’ve ever eaten! Usually the clams are like salty pieces of chewing gum, but here they were tender and juicy. The crab cakes were fine too.
When the main courses were served, our waiter told us he was leaving for the night and that a different waiter would take over our table. A minute later, while eating my duck, I noticed that it was actually «duck one way». I expected our new waiter to stop by and check in with us a few minutes after we got our order, but he never did. I eventually flagged him down. He had no idea he was supposed to be taking over. I asked him about my duck and he looked confused and said he’d go ask. He came back and said that there was no «duck two ways» on the menu, though they did have it on the menu last summer. I’m guessing I got an old version of the menu (sheets on a clipboard)… he said he’d check, but he never came back with an answer.
My wife ordered the stuffed Cornish game hen. She loved the stuffing, but found the white meat a bit dry. She still enjoyed the dish.
When we got back to our B&B, we realized we had never been served the wonderful bread several people here on Unilocal had raved about! Disappointed, since my wife bakes awesome bread and is a connoisseur of great bread.
So, in summary, the kitchen did a great job (except maybe for the dry hen), but the management needs to train their staff better… we should have received the bread right away, the waiter probably should have mentioned what they were out of when we were first given the menus (not when we were ordering), old menu pages should be removed, and the handoff from one waiter to another should have been done much more smoothly, with the old waiter bringing the new waiter to our table to introduce him.
We’ll definitely be back for the clam chowder… and our double-​order of bread!

THE most inedible food I have EVER been ripped off for! Clam chowder fine… ordered baked oysters… FROZEN!!! Had to toss them… how can a Burger get destroyed!!! NO management available… place could have such great possibilities if they cleaned up the act… will not go back or recommend!
Susan

Food was amazing. Service was good. Portions are generous. Prices are as expected on the coast.
The clam chowder was great. The duck pâté was so delicious, and the portion of pâté was huge. My chef’s special salad was simple, elegant, fresh, delicious, and huge. I tried my husbands tri-​tip (not my usual thing to eat); it was great.
Sadly they were mostly out of the desserts we want to try. They could benefit from closing one of their dinning rooms and putting more tables in the remaining two dinning areas. I had heard that they were having problems getting servers in, but service was excellent.

This used to be one of my favorite places to eat. After tonight I doubt that I will be coming back. While our server was courteous and probably doing his best he was poorly trained and made many mistakes. He routinely forgot to bring us things we had asked for and was gone for long periods of time. The restaurant was not busy, so these extended absences were curious.
We did not receive our food until an hour after we ordered it. An hour. Again, they were not busy. An hour is ridiculous. When we did receive our food
my entrée was acceptably hot but my fiancé’s carrots and potatoes were ice cold. She had ordered slow roasted chicken– it was very clearly baked. The carrots were supposed to be glaze cooked but were obviously boiled in water. For what we paid, her meal was very poorly prepared and not what was described on the menu.
My fiancé stated several times that she needed to know what was in the food to avoid eating anything that might trigger her migraines, specifically nuts or any kind of alcoholic ingredient. The server told us the dipping sauce for her chicken only had three ingredients, after she had already eaten some we asked him again and he admitted there were other ingredients but he did not remember what they were. Now my fiancé is very upset that she may get a severe migraine over this. The server did apologize to us, but the damage is already done and would have been avoided if he had been more honest about not knowing all of the ingredients.
We had not complained to management or made any kind of scene, we simply paid and left. I had no intention of writing a review here until the next thing happened.
The insult to injury occurred when the server’s supervisor ran after us in the parking lot, saying the server who waited on us was very upset and she wanted to know why. To be clear, we did not chastise the server or even raise our voices to him, and despite all the issues that occurred I had still tipped him for his service. I have no doubts this person was only looking out for their fellow employee, but we had already had a very poor dining experience and did not need to be delayed in returning home by answering unnecessary questions. We also did not appreciate the insinuation that we had done something wrong after receiving cold food to eat and otherwise subpar service.
All in all, it was an altogether unpleasant dining experience that cost us nearly $ 50.