symposium cafe restaurant & lounge

hit and miss depending on the day.. symposium is a gamble. i've had great burgers there- and terrible burgers there- along with pretty much everything else i've tried.. i'm not sure if it depends on who is in the kitchen that day, but i've always found it to be either very good or incredibly mediocre. atmosphere is nice and the display of cakes is impressive. however i find thefoodto be vastly overrated, especially for the price.

ummm...continued. okay cake is $10.
(sysco/flanagan's)
why again am drinking from a plastic class?
hell at least they could have splurged on the fancy black straws?


-----13 mar, 2014-----

ummm...continued. okay cake is $10.
(sysco/flanagan's)
why again am drinking from a plastic class?


-----13 mar, 2014-----

ummmm..... so paid $12.95 for a pesto chicken wrap, while drinking out of a plastic water glass?
okay the ikea candles are nice.
great staff, but honestlyfoodfrom the freezer section of sysco ...for $13.00?
...and the plastic water glass?
i'm not sure what this place is trying to be--but its not working.

greatfoodand service, cakes seem over priced :s. they have a great selection of foods, drinks, and desserts. i find the cakes to be a bit pricey though ($10/slice).

ok, no more no less. we have been a few time now. breakfast , lunch and dinner. number one, the hosts are always very friendly which is more than i can say about the servers. only once have we had a friendly server (male, older). always slow to get to us, slow and we always end up asking for everything, from ketchup to water or more drinks. thefoodhas been hit or miss. never a problem with breakfast or sandwiches. the mussels are fantastic. the burschetta was very soggy once, the goat cheese sandwich was good (not enough gotacheese), the steak was not bad, just not as tender as expected. the place is not bad, it doesn't "wow" us but have gone back. the service and prices are what keep us form going more often.

just decided to look out of curiosity at how this place is doing after having multiple poor experiences. my girlfriend and i went shortly after they opened because having been to the location in waterloo a few times, we excited to have one within walking distance of where we live. our first time we had some mussels and beer. nothing exceptional but the staff were friendly and the bill wasn't too bad, so we decided to try it for a full meal. this time around was different. we both had pasta and more mussels. this time the mussels were tiny and bland. i had flank steak pasta and my girlfriend had (i believe) carbonara. portions were actually way too much (so much so that we could have split a meal). i know many would say this isn't a bad thing but it was a huge waste and neither our pastas had much flavor- really quite bland. service this time was slower. we waited almost 15 minutes for our server to come for our drink order. from that point he basically never left us alone, but not in a good way. we were constantly being interrupted with random conversation- i think we actually spent more time in conversation with him than we had ourselves ! after this experience we figured we would give it one more chance in the hopes it was just poor luck. not so much. this time we tired the mussels marinara which again we tiny and tasted like someone opened a can of tomato sauce on them. for dinner we both had burgers ( turned out to be the "special") both burgers were overlooked and dry and didn't come with fries (they were extra) which pretty much negated the "special". service was average- kinda slow but our server was nice so it balanced out. at this point we decided we wouldn't have dinner there again, however they had a mojito and sangria pitcher night we thought we would try ( we have had these in waterloo and they were great). first and only time in my life i have sent drinks back (tried the mojito- fail, sangria-fail) both were made with sprite- i'll say no more on this. a final note: my patents went with friends for dinner and said thefoodwas almost inedible- a friend couldn't even eat their meal ( this is a very unpicky person) on our final visit we actually witnessed a couple on what appeared to be a first date complaining about thefoodand actually pay while leaving their plates mostly untouched. all in all a horrible restaurant i would never recommend.

not absolute worstfoodi've ever eaten, but the worstfoodi've ever paid to eat. their cakes are delicious, however, but the service when i went there was terrible.