Richard's Restaurant in Chapala

We were going out with clients for dinner and they booked us into Richard’s Restaurant in Chapala. We are always excited to try a new restaurant and were looking forward to our dinner.

Richard is from London, England so perhaps our expectations should not have been so high. The wine list is limited but you are invited to bring in your own wine for a corkage fee.

They have daily specials as well the normal menu which includes such things as Chicken Curry, Coq au Vin, Pepper Steak, shrimp two ways and Beef Stroganoff and maybe one or two other entrees.

I ordered the Chicken Curry which came with rice and the Chicken Curry on the plate without so much as a spring of parsley. It was OK but I did leave half of it and would not order it again. The leek soup with parmesan was not bad but the bread pudding was disappointing and dry. Others had a chocolate mousse type of affair which they did seem to enjoy.

My husband and I are foodies so perhaps our standards are a little high but others in our party did say they enjoyed their meals of Chicken Curry and Shrimp. My husband was not thrilled with his Coq au Vin, however.

The main thing that put us off this restaurant was that our client had, by mistake, booked a table for 6 and there were, in fact, 7 of us. They would not give the table for 6 that they had prepared for us as it seemed impossible to add another chair. I have never been to a restaurant where one more person could not be accommodated.

They put us outside, with the horse, in the garden at a plastic table and chairs and when it started to rain my husband went inside to see what they could do about putting us back inside. He had quite the scuffle on his hands as this seemed to be an insurmountable issue and my husband was on the verge of saying we would leave when they finally decided, with a huge sigh, that they could put us back inside by inconveniencing another couple who had booked a table for two and add another table to allow 7 to be seated.

We sent over a drink to the couple who had relinquished their table and they were very gracious about it. To be honest I don’t think they cared less and were quite happy with the other table they were given.

I told Richard that I wrote blogs and would like a menu so I could blog about them (this was before we had had our food) and he said he would think about it and as we were leaving he said he was not interested in loaning me a menu. At this point that was fine with me.

I must say their bi-lingual waitress, Angie, was delightful and looked after all of us beautifully.

If you are interested in going to Richard’s and drawing your own conclusions, you can find out more about them on facebook under Richard’s Restaurant Chapala.