On the second evening of our holiday we had booked to eat at Café Rouge at 6pm. Tuesday is Steak Night so you can get any steak with fries for £15, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than the price on the main menu. We arrived at about 5:45 as we had just finished swimming and we got seated no problem. We were seated at a lovely big table and we had more than enough space for the four of us, Erin and the couple of bags we had with us. The restaurant was steady but not overly busy.
My sister and her fiancé Chris had starters of Champignons A L’Ail and Soufflé but John and I didn’t want anything other than our main. We ordered a portion of fries for Erin with a baguette and asked for those to come out with the starters so that she wasn’t waiting to eat. Considering that the restaurant wasn’t really that busy, it took a good 25 minutes for the starters to come out. John and Erin had gone off to play in the play area thankfully because Erin’s food didn’t come out with the starters. After a few minutes John and Erin had come to sit down after seeing the other food at the table. My sister and Chris had finished most of their food and Erin’s still hadn’t arrived. No one had come to check if the food was okay either so I had to ask a different waitress where our food was. After this it did come out quickly but fries and a baguette shouldn’t have taken well over half an hour.
For our mains I quickly decided that I would have the steak, as I don’t usually order this because it’s so expensive in restaurants. John went for the Bouillabaisse, my sister had the Cromesquis (fishcake) and Chris had the Niçoise salad (tuna). We ordered our mains right at the beginning of the meal so there shouldn’t have been too much of a wait after the starters were finished. Again, we had a really long wait for our food. It took nearly an hour after the starters were brought out for our mains to arrive. Again, we weren’t really asked how things were and there was no apology for the wait.
Unfortunately, our food was very hit and miss. John and Chris really enjoyed their meals both me and my sister didn’t. My steak was so tough and overcooked that I could barely cut into it and my sister’s food was pretty average. I think after waiting so long as well I was pretty annoyed and hungry and really looking forward to a lovely meal.
Our meal came to around £100 but we had paid £5 per person as deposits because we booked online so this knocked the final price down a bit. However, the service was terrible. We had to ask how long things would be several times and remind the waiting staff that we were still waiting for food that should have been brought out already. The woman who started looking after us when we arrived only really came over with our mains and when we asked for the bill.
Café Rouge was one of the restaurants most of us was looking forward to the most and unfortunately, it was the biggest let down. Next time we’re in Center Parcs this isn’t a restaurant we’ll be visiting.