Scoring at Scores

For a Sunday evening dinner, we tried revisiting Scores Rotisserie & Ribs (150 Trainyards Drive, Ottawa) for dinner.  Revisiting? We attempted to have dinner on Saturday night but there was a 30 minute plus wait to even get a seat let alone the food.

This evening we were seated right away even though the restaurant looked well attended.  We were greated shortly after by our server who inquired what we would like to drink.  Our waitress dissappeared and returned with our drinks and took our order.

The Order: 1 Quarter Chicken Breast Dinner with fries and salad bar with a Pepsi and 1 Quarter Chicken Dinner Leg with rice and salad bar with a glass of water.

The waitress inquired if we were going to have the salad bar first or would like our dinner first with the salad bar.  We asked to have the salad bar first and the waitress said should would bring our main dinner. 

We ventured over to the salad bar to peruse our options before filling our plates with vegetable goodness.  The salad bar is great place to start with bowls full of lettuce to start with followed by the usual vegetables choices (e.g. tomato slices, cucumber, pickles, etc.) and a plethora of salad dressing to choose from.  As well, pasta and potato salads are also available. Add to this melons, grapes and other fruit you have a spot for a nutritious dessert as well.   My wife even found some chicken noodle soup (with real chicken chunks!) at the salad bar.

After gorging ourselves at the salad bar, our food arrived.  This is where comparisons come along with Swiss Chalet as Scores serves similar plates to Swiss Chalet. The rotisserie chicken breast was meaty and juicy.  The chicken serving was better than what Swiss Chalet has lately been serving as I've noticed Swiss Chalet's quarter chickens tend to be drier, thinner and less meaty in nature. 

The chicken plate also came with sauce.  The last time I visited this particular Scores, the sauce was watery and I thought it was a cheap attempt at gravy.  But this visit, the sauce was thicker and better prepared. However, it is hard to tell if it rivals Swiss Chalet sauce as my taste buds have grown to crave the Swiss Chalet sauce in both taste and smell.  

The bun seemed to be an afterthought.  The bun is half a hamburger bun thrown onto the plate underneath the chicken.  To be fair, the last time I was at this location, the bun was buried underneath the fries. Swiss Chalet on the other hand, provides what is passable for a freshly baked (even though it is frozen then reheated) roll.  The Scores bun, in comparison, seemed to be an afterthought of the kitchen when someone mistakenly ordered 20,000 hamburger buns only to realize that they don't serve hamburgers and suddenly need to get rid of them all.

The fries were average at best but not terrible.  They were warm and great with a little ketchup or Scores' sauce, but also decent plain.

The waitress provided excellent service.  She was timely with the food and suggesting she not place the main chicken dish orders for ten minutes so we could have time to visit the salad bar before having our meals.  She passed by a couple of times removing dirty dishes from the salad bar and refilling the Pepsi and water glasses. 

Overall, Scores provides better value than Swiss Chalet by providing free access to the salad bar with the purchase of a chicken plate meal.  The bun and sauce issues need to be remedied in comparison to Swiss Chalet but are not major issues.  Scores' provides a good value for a filling meal.