Symphony Family Restaurant

BEWARE OF SYMPHONY FAMILY RESTRAUNT!!  HORRIBLE FOOD!!

My family and I decided to stop here and have dinner because it was recommended from an acquaintance.  It was HORRIBLE!!  It all started with the bathrooms.  They were well decorated but looked like they hadn't been cleaned in days.  Both the toilets were unflushed and full.  There was toilet paper all over the floor. The soap container was actually a condiment bottle (same type that was used at the table for ketchup and nasty horseradish sauce) full of cheap and runny soap.  

My husband and I both ordered steak, mine was rib eye (just ok) and his was prime rib (HORRIBLE)!  The prime rib  tasted more like it was standard grade, which is even below select, probably barely edible.  Very tough and rubbery.  Should be false advertising to call that steak "PRIME RIB".   Also it came out grilled, which anyone who knows steak known Prime Rib is not grilled, it is cut off of the cooked roast and served.  Both of our meals came with soup or salad.  We both ordered Blue cheese dressing on our salad. It was a cheap dressing that tasted like miracle whip.  YUCK!  The little sour cream container looked like it had been lost in the back of the fridge and was just pulled out.  It was also cheap, sweet tasting.  I don't know what food service they use but you can defiantly tell they are taking the cheap route!

Our daughters ordered grilled cheese (OK) and ravioli (HORRIBLE) off of the kids menu.  The ravioli tasted like it was fresh out of the FREEZER.  Not even good quality, just nasty!  

I would have much rather ate and Ponderosa or even McDonalds, then spend over $40 for food I wouldn't even feed my dog!!!!

My wife has eaten here more than I have, but we've both eaten here at least twice. All our meals have been well above average, as has been the overall service, which seems to be a joint effort. My wife regularly enjoys the Greek Salad, and I've found their seafood dishes satisfactory for a small rural Midwestern town...nothing special, but among the few decent options for sit-down eating in the immediate area. Some other diners we know have complained about the food and/or service. No doubt some will here on Yelp. We think those negative experiences may have been the result of two things:

1. Some restaurants, especially in a relatively barren area when it comes to decent sit-down restaurants, try to be all things to all people by keeping a menu that exceeds reasonable expectation for a locally-owned non-chain restaurant. That may be the case for Symphony. Symphony is probably competing primarily against Applebees, Bob Evans, and Christos' (a local restaurant). The former two produce a wide variety of bland but flashy-looking choices, and I'm sure Symphony feels pressure to keep up with them in menu size. That might be resulting in some dishes being mediocre.

2. People often get used to salty and cheaply-seasoned and artificially spicy food; around here, that is often what passes for "great food." Now, I'm not saying that Symphony is "fine dining" and offering food that will rate highly among those with significant culinary experience -- it's a "family restaurant" setup, and that's okay. However, people who get used to certain types of food might be disappointed at food that isn't overly salty or gaudy with seasoning, so some complaints of "blandness" pop up here and there. Keep in mind that my wife and I prefer Thai, African, Middle Eastern, and Indian food over most anything else, so we're all about seasoning and spices. You'd think that if anyone were to complain about blandness, it would be us, but we haven't really had that problem with Symphony restaurant. We're perfectly content eating here if we want a decent sit-down meal that doesn't require a planned trip somewhere else.

Overall, my wife would give this a 4, and I would give it a 3.