Freshfood

We drove from Puumala with the purpose to eat in Kenkävero since we heard a lot about the place. My wife and son ordered the Sikke Sumari-burger, I took the summer buffet. My wife wanted to change the sauce from the regular burger to the sauce from the chicken burger. That seemed to be a great challenge!
We were told that there is a group just about to eat and food might take a while. No problem for us, we strolled through the lovely herb garden, smelling and tasting the various herbs. What a foreplay, the longer-the better!
Them we strolled back to the house since we saw a waitress looking for our table. I for my food went to pick up the goodies from the buffet when I saw two "hamburgers" coming towards our table. That was when my red light started blinking...
It looked like a big oven steamed pale meat ball with gravy on top surrounded by two slices of bread with half a kilo of marinated red onion slices, some salad and 100 g of mayonnaise aside.
I picked my starters: it lokked like the herring was the most basic a restaurant can buy. The vendace was mushy and by lifting it up it already fell apart. The dill from the dill marinade was not visible. The onion-tomato sauce was some pale mayonnaise. The slightly salted salmon looked like it just came out of a vacuum pack-presliced, with lots of dill - dried, of course!
The salad was supposed to be a flowery salad from their own garden. I suspected the worst, especially since it was prime time and the place was empty, even though quite a few tables had dirty dishes on them or werent wiped yet. The buffet seemed to be untouched after beeing open for one hour-on a sunday! I picked plenty of the lovely flowers and took time to make my plate look nice-and it did look nice! Coming back to the table I saw my wife and son fighting with the "hamburger", you just couldn't eat it with the fingers nor with forks and knifes, it was just a pile of odd-shaped things who did not belong together. I wanted to taste their food as we normally do in our family, and we all agreed, that school food meatballs or Ikea standard frozen meatbaslls are the only memory.
Nobody could eat the amount of pickled onions served, even though we love onions.
The bread was grilled, stale, bristle and didn't hold the burger. 15 € is quite a lot for a big pre-prepared grey meatball.
For my summer buffet made with local ingredients: It was a great disappointment! Herring was the cheapest bulk stuff, sauce untasty mayonnaise, salmon cheap mass production, vendace the worst I had in 15 years, Rhubarb schnapps good, own garden salad was sandy and was standard bulk from Holland, flowers great, dill cucumbers good, potato salad dull, cauliflower salad tasteless, "overcooked pork and dark bacon sauce" was really just like it reads on the menu, I left everything on the plate, tomato-zuchini hash was mash that tasted like tinned tomatoes only, and the locally produced potatoes were cold, not even warm.
The vicarage's dessert was good, quite sweet, the sauce made from instant powder.
Please, staff at Kenkävero - wake up!!!
You got the most beautiful herbgarden - USE IT, A LOT! I would be proud to be able to use what you've got.
On you web page you write, that you cook with your heart and craftmanship - have you as staff ever read this part of you workplace?
Next time when you work as a waitress on a sunday earning double wages, maybe open your mouth and ask your customers wether there was a problem with the food, when everything on the plate was left...Never say just "Kiitos!". This is a slap in the face not only for the customer but for the one who pays your double wages.
Another comment, and this might be vital to change: You bake fresh bread 7 days a week and sell it in your shop, and you serve old bread in the restaurant 7 days a week. In the short run you save a little money, in the long run you loose a lot of customers. In our case to Tertin kartano - we went straight there after having been at your place. It is not perfect there either, but there is a very visible red line in the product and visible leadership that reflects even in the youngest of the staff.
Your region has so much to offer in terms of ingredients, and competition seems to be ready to compete - maybe you should start competing, that certainly will improve your product!
I will be back next year, I hope you will be too!