Slow service at Bølgen & Moi

I have been to Bølgen & Moi a couple of times before and to be honest I have had various experiences there (you can read my old review here and here). On a Friday afternoon we decided to grab some food before a movie and at about 5 pm we called Bølgen & Moi to make a reservation for 8 PM. We were told that they didn’t have a table at 8 PM but 8.30 could work and we accepted this. The location of Bølgen & Moi is great – located inside the oil museum and located on the waterfront in Stavanger, it has stunning views of the waterfront area. We came there at 8.30 and our waiter took us to our table – to my surprise there were lots and lots of table with no people and table that were not set! So I’m having problems understanding why they couldn’t accept our request to come at 8 PM.

As we were going to the movie at 10 PM we ordered the food right away – Nikki went for the tenderloin and I went for Norwegian clip fish and Nikki also ordered a glass of red wine. After a couple of minutes the waiter came back to inform Nikki that they didn’t have tenderloin after all but she could get entrecote. Then we started the waiting game – there were not that many people in the restaurant – I would guess 20 people or so. After a fair bit of time the waiter came back to serve the wine and he had already forgotten that it was Nikki who had ordered the wine. We waited a bit more and we got a small appetizer with some bread on the side – I guess they knew already that this would take time! The appetizer was not bad at all – a small potato and leek soup with bacon. Too bad Nikki couldn’t have it as she is lactose intolerant. In the end the waiter came back and poured some more wine in Nikki’s glass even if she had not asked for it so she was like “No, I only wanted one glass”. The waiter replied that it was on the house as the food was taking so long and she needed some wine to go along with the food.

So after about 1 hour we finally got the food – but by this time we were getting a bit stressed as we also needed a few minutes to get to the movie house. My clip fish was served with various vegetables and it was pretty good even if it was a bit on the salty side. The fish was served on top of mashed potatoes with the vegetables, mussels and bacon so it was a bit strange combination. But all in all it was pretty good. The fish was warm but as I said, a bit too salty. Nikki was not that lucky with her entrecote – the food was a bit lukewarm, the small potatoes that she got on the side were dry and parts of the steak were chewy.

Conclusion: I was not too impressed with Bølgen & Moi this time. I have no idea how to run a restaurant and I guess they have to run on a minimum staff if they don’t have that many reservations one evening. But I find it annoying that we couldn’t get a table at 8 was there was clearly tables available and hence we had to eat fast to get to the movies on time as it took close to an hour from we ordered until the food was served – it shouldn’t take that long guys. But I did enjoy my fish – too bad I didn’t have the time to really enjoy it. One glass of red wine was 99 kroner (18 USD) and our food cost about 500 kroner (about 90 USD).

When we asked for just tap water we were also asked if we wanted to support a drilling for clean water in Cambodia program that the restaurant is sponsoring – I think it is great that the restaurant gets involved in stuff like this and I hope the money will help improve people’s lives in Cambodia. The program is called “Vann til vann” and you can read more about it on the restaurant homepage http://www.bolgenogmoi.no/

Regards
Gard
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