Lucas
We tried to go to Sylvia’s Kitchen in Monroe around Independence Day and it was closed, so we called ahead this time just to be safe. I wasn’t sure what to expect when going to Sylvia’s. I always find the phrase “Home Cooked Meals” to be funny on a restaurant… where the food is clearly not cooked in a home, but I do understand the sentiment behind it. When we arrived I was quite shocked to see that the place was packed with only a few open tables. We stood in the foyer for about a minute before being told by a waitress that we could sit where ever we wanted. After sitting down our drink orders were quickly taken and delivered and the lady who dropped them off told us that our “waitress will be right over” to get our food orders. This was the end of the good service at Silvia’s. It took 15 minutes from when our drinks were sat down until the waitress came over; she wasn’t friendly or rude but was just very “business” like. She took our food order and left.
About 20 minutes later Gordon’s pulled pork sandwich arrived and it was MASSIVE. Seriously. It was the biggest sandwich I’ve ever seen. 4-5 minutes later my steakburger came out along with our “group fries” that we’d decided to share. My burger was very large as well, in fact it could have used another slice of cheese to cover all the meat. Vinny’s chicken tenders came out 2-3 minutes after that and they were… disappointing. They were definitely not “home cooked” and clearly came right out of a bag in the freezer. I was hoping for some unique breading or something that made them “home made.”
My burger tasted very good; I have no complaints at all and it more than filled me up. The fries had potential, but were just too soggy. Three fats sharing one large order of fries… and we still left 1/3 of them. We were never given or even offered drink refills, which really sucked because I was thirsty. The waitress took another 10 minutes to bring us our check and 10 more minutes to come back and get it. The wait staff seemed unable to multi-task. They were more worried about busing tables (even though there were no guests waiting) than attending to us or any of the other guests in the restaurant.
All-in-all we were there for a little over an hour. That’s just too long for 2 sandwiches and some chicken strips, especially when we didn’t even get refills. I really wanted to rate this restaurant as “bad” instead of just “okay” but… the steakburger was good and big and the prices weren’t unreasonable. I’ll go back one more time with The Fat Guys but I don’t think I’ll be taking my family here unless my next visit is just amazing.
Vinny
I had no idea what to expect from Silvia’s Kitchen and was fairly surprised to see the place was pretty full when we entered. It was a small restaurant but seemed to have plenty of patrons. We were told we could seat ourselves and found one of the few tables that was available. The waitress gave us some menus and took our drink orders. After our drinks came out she didn’t ask us for our order, which I thought was odd. She didnt come back for at least another 15 minutes. We even contemplated on whether we should stay or not because it was getting to the point of ridiculous. I realize they were kinda busy and they didnt have a huge waiting staff (I only counted 2 waitresses and 1 person in the back), but I also noticed them doing things like busing tables while we were clearly not being taken care of. Those things can be taken care of AFTER you help your customers, there was no one waiting for a table. So finally she comes to take our orders. I didn’t see anything on the menu that I cared too much for other than burgers and the BBQ pulled pork, but Gordon and Lucas were already getting those so I didn’t feel like I wanted a repeat of Stained Bistro (me and Gordon both got the BBQ pulled pork sandwich) and didn’t get the same thing as either of them. I opted for a classic, the chicken tenders.
Gordon’s BBQ sandwich came out first and it was so large it was borderline ridiculous, you couldn’t even see the bottom bun. There was no way I could eat even half of that. None of the food came out together, they came out about 2-3 minutes apart (no problem, its better than sitting under a heat lamp while the other food is prepared). Next came out Lucas’s burger and it also was pretty large. I was impressed with the serving sizes. Our fries came out with his burger and while they looked crispy and appetizing, they really weren’t. They were mostly limp and uninteresting. Like Gordon would say, “If three full-grown (his way of saying fat) men only eat 1/3 of a large fry then they are clearly not tasty.” After a few minutes my chicken tenders came out and they were very average. I didn’t dislike them or love them, they were just mediocre. I think they use like Bulls Eye or something similar for BBQ sauce, which I don’t care for either. I ate a few tenders and maybe 3 fries.
The food was just average but the service was so slow that it made the visit exponentially worse. It took 30 minutes after arriving to get food. And then another 15 minutes to get our check, and another 15 to leave! It seemed like timeliness wasn’t their goal, because they did everything one task at a time. We asked for a box, and we weren’t asked if we wanted our check. We got the box and she didn’t come back for another 5 minutes to bring our check and then another 10 minutes to pick the check up. It was just too slow at that point (most people were already gone, so the excuses of being busy no longer applied). I saw them busing tables again and we were just sitting there, drinks empty, food gone, check waiting to be picked up. We were clearly ready to go. It literally took almost 10 minutes for her to just pick up the check (honestly, I have never had a waitress drop off a check and not pick it for another 10 minutes). If you have only an hour lunch break, then forget it, you will spend your whole hour inside the restaurant not including the time it takes to drive to and from. I really wanted to like the restaurant because its got that small, local feel and was getting a decent amount of business and the people seemed nice enough and the portions were big. But the service was snail-pace slow and my food was mediocre to below average (I didn’t get any sense of “home cooked meals”), and neither of us were ever asked if we wanted a refill. We will have to give it another go in the upcoming months to see if our visit was just an unlucky one.
Gordon
Well, that was interesting. And I am glad I was with friends… because we had plenty of time to kill! But as is often the case, outside of lunch, I don’t have much time so forgive me if I get right to the point.
My first impression walking in the door was; this place is small! We were literally sitting right on top of the table next to us. Our tiny table neighbors even joined in our conversation a few times. Which, I’m generally all in favor of, if I’m sitting at a bar with my favorite brew in front of me! Sadly, this was not the case at Silvia’s. Secondly, OMG everything seemed to take so long! In all fairness it was the lunch hour, they were pretty full, and from memory I only recall seeing two wait staff, but that’s not my problem!
Well, whatever, we of course finally did get our food. I ordered the pulled pork BBQ sandwich. Right, I did just have that a few days earlier at the Stained 1054 Bistro.. so yes, I did want to see how Silvia’s would stack up. On the bright side, as far as “stacking up” goes, it was perhaps the largest BBQ sandwich I’ve ever had! Unlike the sandwich at the Stained, I ate all I could, and then still had at least 1/2 left over for lunch the next day. On the down side, it did remind me a lot of the frozen BBQ I often buy from Kroger. While the meat at the Stained was large, dry, delicious chunks of pork, the sandwich at Silvia’s was more of a BBQ soup. Though of course I ate it, there was no comparison between the two sandwiches.
I’m pretty sure that one of the other guys have already mentioned the fries, but the bottom line for me is when you have three fat guys share one order of fries and 80% of them end up in the trash, that should tell you something.
And the big bottom line is.. it’s always nice to get out for lunch, but I see no reason to go back to Silvia’s Kitchen.
12:00 Seated Ourselves
12:01 Given Menus & Drink Order Taken
12:04 Drinks Arrive. Gordon Got A Lemon. He Asked For None. He Hates Lemons!
12:19 Place Food Order
12:31 Gordon’s BBQ Sandwich Out
12:33 Lucas’s Burger Out
12:35 Vinny Gets His Chicken Strips. Gordon Mistakes Them For Jumbo Shrimp.
12:40 Waitress Checked On Us. Box Requested. No Refills Offered At Any Time.
12:43 Check Arrives
12:54 Check Picked Up
1:03 Credit Card Returned
Three Fat Guys Review 
Hi Fat Guys. I enjoyed this review and your other reviews. I’m glad to see someone is writing about the Middletown area. I ate at Silvia’s Kitchen this morning for the first time, and after getting back to my office, Googled it and came upon your review. Like you, I was disappointed by the place. I have no complaint about the service. It was plenty fast and, if anything, the waitress was over-solicitous. Of course, it was almost empty when I was there, which was around 11 am–between the breakfast and lunch crowds, I assume. But the food was mediocre and didn’t taste “home cooked” or whatever that really means in a restaurant–cooked from scratch or freshly made, I suppose. I had two eggs and a biscuit and a buttermilk pancake. The fried eggs were okay, but the biscuit tasted gummy, not flaky. And the pancake was not really tasty, not nearly as good as those I’ve had at First Watch, for example. All in all, a mediocre meal.
Also, I want you to know that I particularly like how precise you are about some of those seemingly small items that can be really irritating–long delays in getting your water refilled, getting the check, getting some more of a sauce and so on. That is helpful to know. I’ll look forward to more of your reviews. Keep up the good work!
By the way, your blog did not come up when I looked up Silvia’s Kitchen on Urbanspoon. I don’t know how you get that site to show your review, but you should be there.