symposium cafe restaurant & lounge

hit and miss. wasn't expecting much the first time i went but was pleasantly surprized. i had asteakwhich was very good however the surcharge for the blue cheese sauce which was no more than a tbsp. full was a bit outrageous. happened to be mussel night and they were quite good as well. my wife had the flat ironsteak(or baseball....can't recall the cut) and strangely it came cut up like a stir fry....however it was quite good as well. the desserts look a lot better than they actually taste....they were ok. we went again for lunch this past weekend. our waitress was very good....attentive and accomodating. my burger however was a let-down. pre-fab patty....enuff said. the one bright spot was a basil dipping mayo that came with the plate....it was very good. my wife had a breakfast which was simply ok and my daughter had a quesadilla which she enjoyed. i will add another note if we indeed give it another shot.

honestly if i could rate a negative 10 for this restaurant i would. my husband & i went to dinner with 3 other couples and my husband & 2 others ordered asteakdinner for 25.00 a plate. all thesteakdinners came served cold. they were sent back, they microwaved them and threw some sauce on it to warm up the steak. just as my husband was checking out his meal he noticed finger poke holes in the mashed potatoes. his dinner and the other two as well had finger poke holes in them.disgusting!!! we once again called over the waitress, she took them back, and newsteakdinners were made. however the manager never offered an apology what so ever, but i demanded that all thesteakdinners be at no charge. will never return!!

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. the food has 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), thesteakwas 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 flanksteakpasta 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 the food was 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 the food and actually pay while leaving their plates mostly untouched. all in all a horrible restaurant i would never recommend.

will never return. will never go back! at first i was pleased with the atmosphere until we were stuck in a corner of the restaurant that had too many tables crammed together and surrounded by loud students. i had ordered the cream of broccoli soup and new york grilled steak, mmmm i thought. the soup was overcooked and slightly curdled, and literally 1 minute after receiving the soup we had got our main courses which nearly didn't fit on our small table. the vegetables were still dirty and the potatoes had no herbs our spice on them and thesteakwas oily (obviously pan fried, not "grilled"). halfway through thesteaki found it was too rare to eat, i had ordered medium rare. after being asked by the waitress how the meal was i politely told the waitress of the situation she apologized and said i would get a new steak. she came back only too say the kitchen was too busy and that they could cook the half again. disappointing! later whom i believed was the manager or owner came by asking how the meal was, and i said ok. i told him what i thought he had not apologized and just said they were very busy, he offered me a 10% discount on our next purchase at the restaurant.