Carmen's Hamilton - A place to forget (for the food anyway!)

I was recently at a wedding at Carmen's in Hamilton. The wedding was lovely and the bride and groom looked very happy.

The food however, was something else - and not in a good way. The first course was a typical Italian-style antipasto. I did not eat this course (not one of my favourites) but the people I was sitting with seemed to find it acceptable. Aside from the fact that it looked that it had been plated several hours prior, there was nothing inherently wrong with the first course.

On to the pasta course. I don't eat meat products myself, so I informed the server that I would like a vegetarian option for the meal. He had no problems with this (a good sign I thought). While everyone else at my table had the pasta with meat sauce (from looking at my husband's plate, I think it was invisible meat), I was presented with a plate of cooked pasta. That's it - cooked pasta - no sauce, no veggies, just PLAIN pasta. I was quite put off by this and one of the servers offered to bring me some tomato sauce. It was very mediocre but not the worst of it!

The main course came and I felt glad that I didn't eat meat - one person described the meat (beef, maybe?) as "like eating a flip flop". My hubby thought they took the sauce that comes in the cans of beans and poured it on the meat. My meal consisted of rice, veggies and some type of layered veggie dish with what I think was at one point brie cheese. The rice smelled like dirt and much to my dismay, tasted worse than dirt. The veggies were clearly cooked for people who did not have teeth and were unable to chew food - they were one step away from liquefying before my eyes. And the layered veggie thing consisted of eggplant, zucchini and cheese. I think it had been made several weeks ago and re-heated just for me! The eggplant was hard and impossible to chew, the cheese looked like "the food formally known as cheese" - hard and tasteless, and the zucchini was the only thing that seemed to hold up.
The desert was forgettable - some type of ice-cream substitute with what appeared to be strawberry Quik syrup.

Having not really eaten the dinner, I was hoping that a late night sweet table might offer some relief to my hunger pains. I was NOT relieved. There was pizza - barely eatable - greasy, oily, flavourless. There were a couple sweets - soggy and flavourless - just like the rest of this disastrous meal.

Future brides and grooms - BEWARE! Please think twice about this venue if you want people to actually enjoy the food on your special day!