Eateries - Two Shot Tuesdays - The Abbey, and Timsan's Japanese Steak House

Ohh no. Now you went and did it. You asked for Two Shot Tuesdays. Well Gonzo Guide Green Bay is once again all up in your grill, ready to bring you the sweet skinny on two local establishments.

Timsan's Japanese Steak House - Hot like Wasabi?
Timsan's is hot like Wasabi. Their take on the Hibachi experience provides a nice diversion from the bar and grill monotony that seems to be prevalent in our area, and the food and service were excellent.

We arrived a little before peak feeding times in order to insure a prompt spot in the feasting madness that is Timsan's. We enjoyed a cocktail at the bar, and eventually found ourselves face to face with a spot at the table/grill.

The Dinner for Two is an excellent choice, and in no time we were snout deep in the first course which was a very tasty soup. The ginger dressing on the salad was also fantastic, and a signature of theirs that we sometimes find ourselves craving.

The appetizer and main course followed, mixed with some fancy Hibachi chef work. There were shrimp flying around, flame galore, and a volcanic onion. Where else can you get this type of showmanship and get very good food too? Most places that do showy entertainment dining don't do the food real well, but this place does both and was an excellent experience for us (again).

Timsan's holds a special spot in our eatery rotation. We have never had a bad or even sub par time here. Their food is good and in large quantity. Their cocktails and service are excellent too.

So with that quick and dirty, Gonzo Guide Green Bay gives Timsan's Japanese Steak House 4.6793 flaming onion volcanoes out of 5.

The Abbey - A deeply religious experience?
To be honest, it wasn't really.

Friday last week was still damn near 70 by the time (7:00 pm) we rolled up to The Abbey. A patio, for having cocktails and appetizers with a few of the Gonzo Guide Green Bay faithful? Why not give The Abbey a shot?

We sat down at a table in the patio, and before too long we had a waitress stop by. She seemed friendly enough. Since it was a nice afternoon there was a little crowd, but nothing that would seem unmanageable from a serving perspective.

And it is with the service that we have our gripes. On three separate occasions we needed to go inside and find her to get another round (the last round we ordered she forgot all together), and finally we actually had to track her down to pay our bill. Beyond that we had a different server approach us who had no idea that another server was working with us. We explained to him that another server had already approached us, and he proceeded to spew a story on us about how it is soo busy and they are so understaffed, and that is why he forgot ours was not his table. It was not that busy. Even if they had only 2 servers on it was doable. Overall, the service just seemed like a mess, and took away from what could have been a nice evening spent on a patio sipping an adult beverage.

The food we ordered was good, and the prices reasonable. The atmosphere was clean and nice inside. The patio was clean and comfortable outside.

The saving grace, besides the slightly above average food, was the manager on staff who realized our service was going pretty bad, and he seemed to step up and try to take care of it, but by that time we were already figuring out a different place to go.

All in, the bar and grill is space is pretty crowded, and The Abbey put on a pretty weak show. If you are going to do the bar and grill scene you have to do it better, and more unique than the other guy and the servers are the main part of that equation. The Abbey is a well known establishment in De Pere and they can rely on that fact to a point, but we think they need some help from their servers in maintaining that status.

Please know that we always go in with an open mind, and when we have a sub par experience it really is a downer for us. We never want to shine a dim light on one of our local spots, but there is some sort of literary integrity in what we are doing (if you can believe that) and we need to be honest about our experiences. We will visit The Abbey again to give them another shot, most certainly, but our visit this time around was weak.

Gonzo Guide Green Bay gives our experience at The Abbey 2.61 flying nuns out of 5.

So...there you go, you've you've gotten your Two Shot Tuesdays fix.
Thanks for playing, and watch out for flying shrimp.

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Gomez Gonzo
Gonzo Editor-at-Large
gomez@gonzoguidegreenbay.com