We have eaten at YEMANJA ever since it opened and generally have enjoyed it. Over the past few years we have noticed a decline in their service and products and, this year, the decline was so pronounced that we will no longer be dining here. There was a total lack of attention to any of the details that make a restaurant good. We are told that the founder of this place has branched into other enterprises and appears to have ignored this place to its detriment. So let's describe the fiasco that was our dinner. It started off nicely with the traditional greeting and welcome back and seating. Upon seating we noted that the place had not been kept as clean as it had traditionally been done but it was not offensively unclean either. Our waitress came by and explained the specials of the day and, after some thought we placed our orders.
We both traditionally do their puff pastry appetizers - the shrimp one and the cheese one - and that is what we ordered. For Entrees we ordered their cheese encrusted fish and a special of the night which was in the nature of a fish chowder. Bread was served and eventually our appetizers showed up. We should have known at that time that the night was not going to be a good one because they were each burned - any chef of any repute would have redone them properly, but that did not happen, so we moved on. Our entrees them came out and the fish dish was presented first and then a plain scalloped shrimp dish was presented. We indicated that the shrimp dish was not what was ordered. At that point they lost it - we were asked if we preferred the shrimp dish and we indicated to them NO, that is not what was ordered. The offer was made to prepare the proper alternative entree - THEN, the other party who was to eat the fish dish was asked if it was to be redone or whether it was desired to be eaten while waiting for the other Entree! DUH - what do you think the answer was to that - it had to be redone - we came there to dine together not to watch each other eat. Because the fish dish involved some cheese we thought that it would have to be totally redone because heating would further melt and curdle or burn the cheese. So both entrees were taken back and then our side dishes showed up in their traditional little community style serving bowls (which we have never liked) and we indicated that they had to be taken back while we awaited our entrees and they were. Time passed and eventually the proper entrees were brought to the table - the chowder was hot, steamy, and quite tasty and vastly different than a plate of shrimp and was well worth waiting for. Unfortunately the cheese encrusted (I am simplifying its description) fish had been put under a heating lamp and, as suspected, it curdled and burned - again, no chef of any ability level would or should have done this to this dish, but they did. AND, if that was not bad enough, the side dishes were returned to our table and they had been under a heating lamp as well - in the course of that, the mashed potatoes had dried out and had become pasty, the black beans had been overcooked and had burned and had become tasteless, the grilled vegetables had wilted and had become burned and tasteless as well, surprisingly, the rice managed to survive this onslaught of incompetence and, though dry, had some texture and taste left to it. NEEDLESS to say we were not happy with the experience and have written this place off for any future visits. We would encourage the founder to put some time and effort into fixing this place up and returning it to its former ways - without which, we can no longer recommend this place to anyone - the incompetence we experienced was, in our opinion, the culmination of an ongoing decline at this place and a lack of proper supervision or management and we feel that this place no longer merits our or your patronage. Mind you that it is not just that they got our orders wrong, it is what they did after they were told about it and the fact that they burned out appetizers as well. Hopefully they will bounce back - but we have concerns that they will not especially while the founder is off not paying proper attention to the place. What a waste of an otherwise good eating establishment.
