“Match Eatery & Public House”:http://matchpub.com/point-edward/ is a new restaurant at the Gateway Casino in Point Edward. Unlike the old restaurant that was in the middle of the casino, Match is at one end of the building so you do not have to go through the casino to get to it. It is open to the general public, not just casino players, and has a children’s menu. The restaurant overlooks the St. Clair River where it meets up with Lake Huron at the Blue Water Bridge. If you have a window seat or you are seated on the patio you have lovely views of the river and bridge.
We tried it out this past weekend and have mixed reviews: the food was very good, the service was spotty. We had to wait ten minutes for a table, not because there weren’t plenty of available tables, there were not enough staff members working. It was just around 5:00 pm on Saturday and the servers for the evening were just coming on shift. There were reserved signs on a few of the tables but not all. We were there until 7:00 and there were consistently many open tables and quite a queue of people waiting to be seated. Many were getting frustrated as they could see there were tables available and yet they weren’t being seated.
My aunt ordered the beet and Boursin salad (mixed greens tossed in blood orange tarragon vinaigrette topped with roasted beets, spicy candied pecans, pickled red onion, and alfalfa sprouts and topped with warm pepper Boursin cheese for $11) and my sister ordered the steak ($20) off the specials sheet and asked for something other than potato with it. Our server offered her additional vegetables as the only alternative. It looked like the steak was piled on the vegetables (green beans and red peppers) that came with the dish and they just piled some roasted beets on the plate as well. I ordered the roasted vegetable sandwich (roasted beets and Portobello mushroom, hummus, goat cheese, lettuce, tomato, sprouts and crispy onion ring served on toasted multigrain bread) with a Caesar salad ($16). The salad was deconstructed; Romaine lettuce hearts drizzled with balsamic vinegar and Caesar dressing with roasted garlic cloves and tomatoes on the side. We waited 45 minutes for our food so it’s a good thing it tasted agreeable.
My sister and I shared the key lime parfait dessert ($7) and it was quite tasty – not sweet at all. It was nice and tart with just a little graham cracker crust at the bottom of a mason jar, mostly parfait and a whipped cream topping with blueberries.
As it is a new restaurant, hopefully they will sort out the growing pains with staff scheduling and even out the service. People don’t mind waiting for good food if they can see the place is hopping. It’s a different story if there are lots of empty tables and they’re kept waiting too long. I could do without all the television screens on the walls but the restaurant is so big and there is so much room between the tables they don’t overcrowd you.
It’s open 10 am to 2 am Monday to Saturday and there’s plenty of free parking in the Casino lot.
