All that said, I didn't love Garrett's.
Garrett's motto is that "fine dining is finally affordable." And Garrett's was affordable. It's whether it was truly "fine dining" that's disputable.
Our table started with a plate of hummus. What arrived was a very, very orange scoop of dip with pita chips. It tasted fine, but it didn't look like any kind of hummus that I've ever seen before. It wasn't enough to make discourage me (yet), and I ordered the seared ahi tuna for dinner.
That is where things got bad. Look, I understand that Waco is nowhere near the ocean, and that therefore fish has to be shipped in frozen sometimes. That's fine. Unfortunately, this fish did not taste like it had been properly defrosted, probably because it was sliced so thickly. That's not fine. The texture of the tuna was completely off. It was hard to cut and even harder to eat. The rice served with the tuna had a wonderful flavor, but was overwhelmed by the slightly-odd sauce beneath it. Overall, I just can't say that I enjoyed this dish.
For dessert we tried the "chocolate peanut butter lasagna" (really just a chocolate-peanut butter layer cake), which was similarly unbalanced. The flavors were good, but the layers were stacked so high that it was hard to eat it without tipping it onto it's side, and the peanut butter filling was so rich that it would be impossible to finish. In this instance a smaller portion would have actually been better.
Service was friendly, but green. Our server accidentally removed our knives after the appetizer and didn't replace them, leaving us to steal knives from the empty table behind us. There were many employees gathered around the bar area with seemingly nothing to do, and they could -- and should -- have helped our server to ensure those kind of minor snafus didn't happen. Oh, and there was a fruit fly in my water. Not exactly the kind of fine dining experience I was hoping for.
The real pity here is that downtown Waco is in desperate need of cool new gathering spots. Garrett's might come around in time, but if it doesn't improve, I just can't see it lasting long. Until and unless it gets better, I suggest trying a less-fancy but delicious alternative while in Waco: get yourself a burger.
