i totally forgot to post this review

anyway, in a word, nelly's is GREAT - definitely check out the grotta! this is my (unfinished and tongue-in-cheek) review:

well i went and checked out Nelly's last night 'cause I’ve heard lots of good things

here's the scoop:

the restaurant is a big cave - hence 'nelly's grotta' = nelly's cave. he's done it up well and it's colorful and it's warm and there's a big fish tank full of piranhas and other assorted seafood that you can watch kill each other while you wait patiently for someone to greet you, let alone serve you.

seriously. the food was good, but the service was atrocious. Our party of 3 sat ourselves down at a just vacated table and waited 15 minutes for a server to 1) wipe it down, 2) replace the full stinky ashtray and 3) welcome us to the place and maybe ask if we’d like an apero…

after that non-event, we were given hard-to-read menus (the type is far small to be easily read in the sufficiently dim lighting of the grotta), but I knew what I wanted already so I just suggested this and that to my 2 friends and then we sat back and watched Nelly’s fish eat each other

when our server finally reappeared from behind the bar, (where he was furtively drinking beer in between supposedly serving beer to real guests) we knew what we wanted, but he recommended a couple of changes to my carefully prepared selection. He assured me his choices were better than mine, so I gave him the good-to-go and he scurried back to his bar, had a gulp of beer and disappeared into the cave’s kitchen…

I bitched about the service and watched a big blue piranha eat what appeared to me as a lovely little fish that should have been allowed to live a long-enough life to be served up as a tasty piece of sushi.

Our meals arrived. On time and together. 2 servers and my beer-drinking-bartender-buddy actually got it together and got the food on the table in a manner that reaffirmed (at least in my mind), that they realized we were really there to eat... They wished us well and disappeared to the dark depths of the cave…

The food was good. Actually it was quite good. Actually to be fair, Nelly grills up the best beef in zermatt. I skipped the beef, but my buddy had a steak which was the size of a small football, (which is to say, Nelly doesn’t skimp on portions), grilled to perfection, and served with fries and veggies and a tasty butter. it was sweet. ( I had a good-sized chunk and it really was excellent beef, grilled perfectly….) If you’re a meat-eater, you’re not going to get any better than Nelly’s. Just come hungry.

My wife had steak-tartar. Nothing fancy and not served up fancy (prepared in front of the guest like some other Zermatt restaurants do), but she liked it. Now, I guess Nelly’s is more a steak and potatoes kinda place than gourmet pickings, but the people serving there should know the various ingredients and accoutrements that are served with tartar and none of them were. My wife asked for some Tabasco sauce and a couple of other goodies which normally go hand in hand with steak-tartar. The server duly required, but I don’t think he knew half of what she’d requested. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned 5 minutes later with the items. I think he had a beer somewhere along the way But the tartar got the nod of approval and she knows her tartar. (I didn’t have any because quite frankly, I will not eat UNCOOKED meat), but if the wife says it good, then it is.

I wasn’t terribly hungry so I had chicken tandorri and this little beef appetizer dish. Just wanted to check out the starters anyway. (I originally wanted the spare ribs starter and the tandorri, but the beer-guzzling server had recommended the beef thingies over the ribs). He assured me though that the beef thingies that come in a snail pot and the chicken-tandorri were good. Well, next time I *might* go for the spare-ribs starter, because the beef-thingies in the snail pot weren’t all that appetizing. The chunks of beef were tough and over-cooked. The sauce they were served in was little more than a watered-down version of what tasted to me like just that: some water, some vinegar and maybe a dash of oil hastily thrown together and dumped unceremoniously in the snail holes of the bowl it was served in… So, no, the beef thingies starter wasn’t a hit. I’ll just assume that nelly’s sous-chef was off the night we visited and his dishwasher was delegated the duty of preparing the beef-dish-thingie that evening.

On the other hand, the chicken tandorri starter was excellent. It looked good, tasted good and had that excellent qualifying hint of hot, tandorri spices and herbs that wake up your mouth and put some sizzle in your eyes. The chicken was tender and tasty, the tandorri sauce was red and fiery and begging for just another taste test and the portion was more than adequate for a ‘starter’.

Heartily recommended.

If I’d had a chance to finish it. My buddy had cleaned up his steak-plate and my wife had finished up her beef, but we were busy talking and just slowly tasting the tandorri bits (the beef thingies were left alone to fight it out with the piranhas later…) when suddenly, out of no where, one of the server girls appears and starts scooping up our dishes. Not a word from this person about ‘how was your meal?’ or ‘are you finished?’ or even a subtle smile that she was there for a tip… Nope… she just snuck up on our table, picked up my tandorri dish and started to make a move for anything else that wasn’t nailed down to the table. So, I quietly suggested that while it appeared we were finished, we were in fact, still eating. She looked at me quizzically, returned my tandorri plate to the table and scurried away.

I finished up quickly. The other server-girl showed up and asked if we were done, (yes) and if she could take the plates (yes) and did she ask if we’d enjoyed our meals (no) and would we like something else? (no)

So, my beer-drinkin’ buddy-server shows up a minute later and asks about dessert.

At this stage, I’m thinking… a quick coffee and i'm outta here

to be continued...

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I think I may have been there... I remember a bar in a cave with no service to speak of. This was after a few hours at Papperla Pub though so I'm not real sure where it was. I DO love apres-ski at Papperla Pub though!

Yeah... the service at the grotta leaves *just* a little to be desired, but i'm not gonna trash that place anymore for fear of lawsuits

the papperla pub has always been a cool place to hang out in zermatt. definitely worth a visit (and a beer or 2)

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i was there last winter (205) it was quite he piss-up... i heard recently that nelly clodes the place down coz of a fire - anyone know anything about that? i'm coming over in feb 2007 - see you then

simon

nelly's closed for the summer 'cause of burst pipes in the building - don't know when and if he's opening again - at least the fish didn't get fried

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