Jensens
To serve food to people has been known for some years now. One of the first known establishments are from 1153 and exists to this day. It is of course Ma Yu Ching's Bucket Chicken House, in Kaifeng, China. Much has happened since then. One of the worst things was when McDonald’s began to call themselves "Family Restaurant". Here the was bottom reached. I thought. Then we visited Jensen's Steakhouse in Soenderborg...
I had won a voucher for DKK 300 to Jensen's Steakhouse, so I invited the Mrs along for a bite to eat. I had no idea this would be so bad...
Booking: In order to quickly get me a phone number I could use for reservations, I went onto Jensens's website. Since Linux and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) does not go well together I just used my Mozilla browser. Frightening that webmasters today cannot figure out how to make a website that works with all browsers. There was nothing to find on their website unless you used IE. Useless, so I found a number via dgs.dk.
I phoned them to book a table for 2. There was some noise from children in the background and I of course asked if it was possible to get a table in the child-free end. I was told that "this is a family restaurant" so one would expect that there were kids all over. Well, I then asked for a corner in the restaurant. This was no problem. We just had to get down there. Already when it they said "Family Restaurant" I thought of McDonald’s ....
Arrival: We showed up at 19:30 as agreed and were greeted by a smiling waitress. "We have booked a table for Fink" I said, after which we were assigned seats in the middle of the hall just next to the aisle. I wondered why they had placed a corner in the middle of the room and asked for an other corner in a more "cornery" place in the room. You know: one of those who are further out toward the wall. We were then shown to a small table a little further away from the aisle. That was good enough. We got seated and I came to look down on the floor. There was pieces of potatoes and gravy splashes around. I therefore looked up at the ceiling, but that was just too disgusting. It does not seem like cleaning is of first priority in this tribe.
Ordering: We were served relatively quickly. We ordered a 400g meat for me and a 200g meat with salad bar for the lady. I wanted a large beer, and she should have a glass of wine and an ice-water. The drinks came relatively quickly and when we had emptied the iced water, we ordered a new one. This came immediately. The old glass, however, was not removed from the small table by the waiter. In my world the waiter takes the empty glass out by himself, but not here.
Food: The lady went up for some salad. When she came back she told me that there was a part of the salad that was starting to get brown around the edges. The carrots had the fine whitish surface carrots get when they have been out too long. Not very nice. Then came the food. The meat was delicious, but that was it. The potatoes reminded a lot about ones you buy in your ordinary super market. I had ordered Pepper Sauce and she had ordered Whiskey Sauce. It was pretty obvious that this was just mass produced goo. The two sauces tasted almost identical and were both utterly genderless. Since there was not much of it was we had to order more. It also came, but the waiter was again called upon to remove the now 4 empty sauce bowls and the dishes they had come in on.
Atmosphere: There were kids who constantly ran back and forth across the room. I wonder why parents generally can not figure out how to keep their brood on a leash when they are out to eat. The most grotesque was a mother who had her screaming diaper wrapped compressor horn with in a restaurant. From we arrived to we went there was a constant howling 2-3 tables away. There are stupid mothers who believes that everyone else wants to listen to their noisy, enervating offspring.
Cleaning: This was, as mentioned earlier, quite poor and the place does not have very cosy furnishings.
Conclusion : We could not complain about the meat for that was quite good, but all in all Jensen's Steakhouse in Soenderborg just like a McDonald’s on steroids. Besides the 300 DKK voucher, we came payed an additional 180 DKK. We would have had a cheaper and better culinary experience by using a smaller amount on a clean restaurant in Flensburg.
We are not entering Jensens again before it's turned into a shoe store or possibly a second-hand car dealer ...
Character : 1 -> 5 stars (*), where 5 is best.
Service ** - Could not figure out how to remove used stuff from the table, but was quick.
site * - Dirty, not nice, noisy.
food * - That the meat was tender but that does not compensate for the other things. It is a steakhouse. They have to be able to cook the meat.
Price * - I would never pay so much for eating my food in so dirty a place. It's not worth it.