Vanilla

Food:

Vanilla is trying to do too much, but does some of it very well. Standard breakfast and lunch menus offer mostly tasty if pricey fare. Simple dishes like the gnocchi with mushrooms are delicious and decent value. Costlier dinner items like sushi or lamb also wow, in both taste and price. Shellfish will blow local budgets.

Wine:

Extensive and reasonably priced with many by-the-glass choices.

Service:

Friendly waitrons may not always be briefed on every detail of what they’re serving, but are happy to find someone who is.

Ambience:

If bling is your thing, and glass staircases aren’t a deal-breaker, enjoy the baby grand at the top.

And...:

There’s a private room for parties of up to 20 upstairs. (LM, September 2010)

donnovan jacobs
2-Oct-2011

Well, I must say that it is quite sad that the general public is very quick to add a bad review but it takes a lot more to say a few good words! If people took the time and patience to find out a little more of the situation before ranting their "bad" experience, they would have learned that Vanilla was recently sold and new owners have just recently taken over. Having said that, it is understandable that it takes a lot to get just the right balance between service food and customer satisfaction (and arn't we a difficult bunch to please all the time?) Well, my boyfriend and I went for dinner just recently and had an extremely pleasant evening. There was a 4-piece jazz band to entertain us, the waiter (I forget his name) was extremely informative and virtually ordered our meal for us without us having to have to decide what to eat. We also had a voucher for their steak special which was tender and deliciously served with a gorgonzola sauce which was as smooth as silk. we had their creme brulee dessert and that too was "just like mamma used to make". Well, all in all, I say thank Well done to all at Vanilla for all the hard work that has obviously been put into making this a place I will enjoy going back to time and again!

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Carol Boag
13-Aug-2011

Also a very disappointing experience! My husband and I went to Vanilla the other night, to use a voucher we had recently bought from one of the popular group buying sites. I had had previous good experiences with their cocktails and sushi, which is why I bought this voucher.

It was a freezing evening and we were taken to a table right next to the window and right in the path of a icy aircon breeze, harshly lit by a down lighter and a 2 seater table that sat me so far away from my husband that we had to shout over the table. Hardly cosy or romantic! After sitting there for 5 minutes we moved ourselves to another table.

My husband ordered the mushroom and biltong soup starter, which was more like a thick tinned mushroom sauce of which he only had 2 mouthfuls. I ordered the stuffed mushroom starter, which was average. When we asked the waiter if the ‘oyster’ stipulated on the menu for one of the steaks was ‘oyster mushrooms’ or ‘oysters’ he said: “oyster mushrooms”, so we ordered that. When the steak arrived it was a fillet stuffed with oysters and not of the mushroom variety! The steaks were also overcooked and on each end of the plate were a few extremely overcooked pieces of broccoli and cauliflower, cooked to complete mush! We sent back the steaks and when we got them back it was just a plane steak on the plate, no sauce was even offered! By that time we had lost our appetite and paid for our drinks and left.

I am a business owner in the area and like to support local shops and businesses but when you get service and food like that, I won’t be going back!

 

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