Photo Courtesy / Jessica Lee

Monday: (Piri Piri Chicken sold out) Macaroni and Cheese  $5.95

Service: We arrived early for dinner at 5 p.m. hoping to try the Piri Piri chicken special, but were informed that it had been sold out by 2 p.m. We weren’t offered an alternative to the special, nor did we get any other discount.

Even worse was the fact that the giant blackboard in front of the restaurant taunted us by advertising the sold out special. Despite our disappointment, we stayed at the restaurant and tried something else.

Food: I ordered mac and cheese with bacon while my friend had shrimp pasta. At first glance, our food looked great, but it was just too salty. I couldn’t finish the whole dish because of the salt. I downed a glass of water easily after eating only half of it.

To my horror, at the end of my meal, I realized there was at least a tablespoon of oil at the bottom of my bowl.

My friend had a better experience with his pasta although we both agreed the tomato sauce tasted like something from a can. The portion of his meal was too small and the pasta on the outside of his plate was cold.

Food Grade D-

Tuesday:Chicken Parmigiana Sandwich $7.95 (Breaded chicken with tomato sauce and sautéed peppers and onions on panini bun, served with fries.)

Service: Today we decided to time how long it took for two meals to arrive at our table. We arrived at 4 p.m., when it wasn’t busy. It took exactly 23 minutes for our two meals to arrive; not too shabby.

Unfortunately though, the service went downhill from there. My friend tried to get our server’s attention for at least five minutes to ask for hot sauce. It never happened, so she had to get the sauce herself at the front of the restaurant.

We were also disappointed that the advertised desserts, a pumpkin cheesecake and brownie were sold out. Once again, the blackboard had false advertising. The table of friends next to us left after being informed of the sold out brownies.

Food: Out of all the days of food, Tuesday was the worst. The Chicken Parmigiana, a Southern Italian dish made of breaded chicken, was hard to bite into, and the bread was soggy from the parmigiana sauce. The accompanying fries were a welcome addition to the otherwise disappointing meal.

Food Grade: D-

Wednesday: Beef Burger $5.45 (4oz all beef pattie with roasted garlic mayo, lettuce, tomato, red onion and sliced pickles, served with fries)

Service: Service at Rex’s Den just isn’t up to standard with the average restaurant. We had a hard time placing our order because our server was missing for no apparent reason.

When it came time for the bill, our server was missing. Again.

Flustered and running late for an exam, my friend frantically waved down another server: “Can we just pay the bill? “ she asked.

We couldn’t apparently. We had to wait three more minutes until our server showed up with the bill.

Food: The burger was an improvement from A & W, but it wasn’t anything special. The burger was juicy, but smaller than the buns.

The meal came with fries, and my two friends substituted theirs for sweet potato fries. Word of advice: stick with the regular fries as the sweet potato fries were soggy.

Also worth noting is that this “special of the day” isn’t much of a deal. After calculations, we only saved 46 cents compared to a regular day, even with our 15 per cent student discount.

Note: The 15 per cent student discount does not apply to the daily specials.

Food Grade: B-

Thursday: Chicken Wing Special $6.99  (Any order of chicken wings comes with order of fries.)

Service: We arrived at lunchtime when the restaurant was partially full. It took the servers a while to seat us, as I had asked for a booth. Placing us in a seat should have been easy as there were two open booths. One server told us that the booth seats were being cleaned, then left to serve other customers. After a few minutes of feeling forgotten, another server gave us a booth seat – which ironically hadn’t been touched by anyone cleaning since the first server told us it was dirty.

Our server then asked us what we wanted to drink. A few minutes later, she came back having forgotten what we ordered.

After bringing us our meals, our server pulled another disappearing act. She went into the kitchen and wasn’t seen again until it was time for us to pay the bill.

However, though our server was gone, we weren’t left alone for long. I pulled out my camera to take pictures of the food for this food review and in seconds, the bar manager appeared at our side. In a suspicious manner, he questioned why I was taking so many photos of our dishes. This alarmed me quite a bit and negatively affected my dining experience at the Den.

Food: I ordered the honey garlic wings, while my friend had the barbecue wings. They came in a small basket with fries and a mysterious white sauce with red dots. The wings had a breaded crust and were drowned with honey garlic sauce. The first bite was delicious; a little heavy on the flavour, but still sweet and satisfying, it almost tasted like candied wings. However, eating a single piece compared to eating a basketful is completely different. By wing number three, I had had enough of the overly sweet flavour. I moved to my fries, which by comparison were dry and tasteless – much like cardboard.

To add flavour to the fries, I tried the mysterious white sauce. It tasted like ranch dressing but was thicker and much creamer and contained strange seed-like red dots. According to the server, besides the main ingredient of mayo, no one in the staff except the chef knew what the rest of the secret ingredients were.

While I thought my wings were too sweet to eat, my friend probably had a worse experience. First, his food came cold. Second, the barbecue flavour of his wings wasn’t appetizing. We both agreed I had the better meal.

Fun fact: We found out later that the wings come to the restaurant frozen with the crust already around the wings. All the kitchen does to “cook” the food is defrost and slather the wings with sauce.

Food Grade: D+

Friday: French Toast $4.95 (Sliced challah bread, pan fried and served with table syrup)

Service: My friend and I arrived at noon to a noisy atmosphere filled with dance beats and hard rock. The restaurant had turned up the music; possibly to enliven the otherwise dull setting. The problem with this was that my friend and I were straining to hear each other speak.

Another strain during the meal was the lack of service we received. We waited for the server for more than 10 minutes. After making eye contact and him acknowledging us, we waited another five minutes. For a while, the whole area of tables was not being served. A diner at another table got fed up with waiting to catch the attention of the waiter and ended up getting his own cutlery from an adjacent table.

Food: The french toast was a pleasant surprise. Made from fresh challah (Jewish braided bread), it had a soft texture, was cooked to a very appetizing golden yellow and had just the right amount of buttery flavour. Perhaps it was a little too buttery as the entire underside was smeared with butter, but it tasted good, which is all that matters.

The dish is served with free coffee or tea, but with no substitutions, so I settled for tea and asked for honey as a sweetener. Inexplicably, the kitchen didn’t have honey.

All in all, the meal was great. The only issue I had with this meal is the lack of a variety of tastes. Mid-way through the meal, I couldn’t finish eating because I had become sick of the doughy taste of the bread- it was just too much without a little bit of something else to balance the taste. There was an option to add whipped cream or strawberry sauce for a $1 more, which would have been a good idea, had I known the toast needed something more.

Food Grade: B+