Because dining out in this city just sucks!
We hadn't eaten out in quite awhile and I convinced AB to go out to dinner last night. He was tired from putting the floor in and I was tired of fielding the kids all day and dealing with Miss Sassy. We needed to get out of the house.
My one request was that we couldn't go to the usual haunt (Sakura) because I wasn't in the mood for sushi (amazingly enough) and I wanted something different. We stepped only slightly out of the box and headed to a Korean restaurant not far from us. One where if we were "regulars" anywhere other than Sakura, this would be #3 on the list. (#2 being a Mexican place a few blocks from the house.)
Having kids has really impacted our dining out style.
Ok, so we go to the sparsely decorated Korean restaurant that still (after 8 or so years) lacks a liquor license. That's ok.
New and very young waitstaff as usual.
Waitress: "Can I take your order?"
AB: "Yes, we will start with the combination tempura..."
Waitress: "Ok, is that all for you tonight?"
AB: "No, the kids will split a Sweet and Sour Chicken with the Sweet and Sour Sauce on the Side."
Waitress: "Ok, is that all for you tonight?"
Me: "No, I would like dinner too. I will do #54."
Waitress: "I am sorry, I don't know the menu yet, what is that?"
Me: "It's the Spicy Pork Bulgogi right here," I said pointing to the menu. AB noted he would take one as well.
A bit of time passes and she returns with the tempura that the entire family chows. Then the Sweet and Sour Chicken arrives, covered in sauce. Skadi is happy, Leif is in tears.
AB tells the waitress that he requested the sauce on the side. Yes, she remembers that but thought he meant something else. I mean really lame long rambley response about why the sauce was on the top and not on the side.
AB: "Can you just bring out a saucer of the chicken without the sauce on it."
She heads in to check. Skadi is chowing away at the sweet and sour chicken.
Waitress: "No, I am sorry we can't. I can return this plate and the chef can remake it, but we can't just bring out extra chicken without the plate being returned."
AB: "But she is eating it and I would rather not take it away, you are just going to throw it away."
Waitress: "No, I am sorry we can't do that, we are just too busy to do that."
?!?!?!
AB: "Fine, I will order another order of Sweet and Sour Chicken with the SAUCE ON THE SIDE."
Then our meals come out. It looks a bit different, but we start eating. Our Korean side dishes don't arrive, so I flag down the waitress.
Me: "Will our Korean side dishes be coming? The Kim-Chi and such."
Waitress: "Let me go see."
She returns.
Waitress: "I am sorry, you ordered the spicy pork teriyaki, it doesn't come with Korean side dishes."
Me: "Umm no. I ordered the bulgogi and we had a conversation about you not knowing the menu and I pointed it to you."
Waitress: "Let me go see."
She returns.
Waitress: "Ok, she will remake your meals for you."
AB: "Nevermind. Can you just bring us the Korean side dishes to go with the pork teriyaki?"
And she does.
Then she brings out a grilled chicken breast sliced up on a plate and puts it in front of Leif.
And if I didn't have a plate of hot food in front of me my head would have just dropped onto the table and maybe pounded a bit.
We all ate. The waitress avoided us.
Then she brought us our ticket charging us for EVERYTHING including $4 for the grilled chicken breast.
Sigh.
Showing posts with label critic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critic. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
On the importance of the whole package
AB and I are suffering foodies. We love good food, we love eating out. The food I can cook, but wow I get tired of my kids questioning and turning their noses up to everything. We occasionally seek to eat out, but we truly do not live in a restaurant town. There are a few places that are angling to take the area a little more in that direction. But it is bad. AB and I reflect on our years of dining out in Northern California fondly. We used to eat at some fabulous places both there and on travels.
Now that we have kids, those adventures are fewer and further between.
The other night we had AB's sister babysit and we had reservations at a local restaurant, Picazo 717. We have eaten there twice before. The first time was fabulous. The second time we shared the paella and were less than enthused. This was the third time.
If you have read my blog before you know that I have secret dreams as a food critic. I would be the undercover type...
Anyways... we had fabulous food at Picazos last week. Really the food was solid. I didn't care for the clams, but that's just me and the fact that I think I have become horribly spoiled having a family cabin on a great clamming beach.
What sucked? The service. It was so so bad that AB and I were contemplating dropping our normal 20% tip to 10%. I can't stiff a wait person, my sister is a waitress and works her butt off. But it says something when I look to drop below that 15% mark.
Indulge my critic-ness... or scroll past. I just need to get this out.
Some people can get by with being given sucky service. But for AB and me, our opportunities to eat out are rare, we can cook food as good as ANY restaurant in the area, I will wager that hands down. Our indulgence with eating out is having the quiet atmosphere to sit and talk, not having to clean up, not having children whining and having someone wait on us. Food for us, is only a minor part of the package. When the rest of the package is screwed up, it isn't worth it.
Now that we have kids, those adventures are fewer and further between.
The other night we had AB's sister babysit and we had reservations at a local restaurant, Picazo 717. We have eaten there twice before. The first time was fabulous. The second time we shared the paella and were less than enthused. This was the third time.
If you have read my blog before you know that I have secret dreams as a food critic. I would be the undercover type...
Anyways... we had fabulous food at Picazos last week. Really the food was solid. I didn't care for the clams, but that's just me and the fact that I think I have become horribly spoiled having a family cabin on a great clamming beach.
What sucked? The service. It was so so bad that AB and I were contemplating dropping our normal 20% tip to 10%. I can't stiff a wait person, my sister is a waitress and works her butt off. But it says something when I look to drop below that 15% mark.
Indulge my critic-ness... or scroll past. I just need to get this out.
- 20 open tables, 3 of them occupied, we were sat at a small little two top next to two guys sitting at a 4-top. And I am talking SMALL two top. We were awkwardly close (I should have asked for a different table.)
- The hostess spills my water and doesn't even return with a rag to wipe it up.
- Waitress doesn't speak to us for 15 minutes, seriously we were ready to go find a wait person.
- When she arrives she asks for our food order. I asked her what the specials were. She recites them and asks for our order. We sent her away while we contemplate our plan with the specials in mind. (She didn't ask for a drink order, but we didn't think to ask for drinks...)
- When she finally returns we tell her we are doing tapas and salads and place the order. I call her back to ask for a glass of sangria since she never asked if we wanted drinks. Which they didn't have any sangria then. So I went back to the wine list.
- After what seems like ages she brings a huge tray out with all our tapas and salads and then declares, "I don't know what YOU are going to do, all this food won't fit on this table." I said, "yes, the table is VERY small". She had the tapas on the table, I sent her back to the kitchen with the salads since there wasn't room and she suggested we don't uncover the clams until ready to eat so they don't get too cold. Duh. Doesn't seem like this took too much forethought... but I was suddenly wishing I would have sent her back with the tapas and not the salads. Oh well, my stomach will survive.
- We finish the tapas, but she has disappeared again. Seriously like 20 minutes pass between being done and AB deciding to flag down the hostess to see if she can find our waitress.
- She returns and asks if we want our salads now. Umm yes.
- Salads were delicious.
- She clears our plates and announces, "thanks for joining us, I will be back with your check".
- "How about dessert?" I ask her. "Oh, your choice is X, Y or Z, what did you want?" Z we answer, with two Spanish coffees. She leaves.
- Comes back with dessert that has ice cream topping. AB asks her if the coffee is on its way? It is.
- 5 minutes later she comes back and asks if the Spanish coffee is a bar drink. We tell her it is.
- 10 minutes later (dessert is gone) she comes back and says that the bartender only has Kahlua, will that work instead of "whatever else is supposed to go in"? YES, we tell her, just bring them.
- Coffees finally arrive.
- Check arrives. Dinner in right at 2.5 hours.
Some people can get by with being given sucky service. But for AB and me, our opportunities to eat out are rare, we can cook food as good as ANY restaurant in the area, I will wager that hands down. Our indulgence with eating out is having the quiet atmosphere to sit and talk, not having to clean up, not having children whining and having someone wait on us. Food for us, is only a minor part of the package. When the rest of the package is screwed up, it isn't worth it.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Critic for a day
I haven't been wow'd by a meal in a long time. I think the last really fabulous meals I ate with my family (i.e., excluding last week's trip to New Mexico) were in Seattle. We ate at Wild Ginger on our trip for Mother's Day and had a most fantastic sushi dinner in Belltown with the kids in a tiny little place that our concierge assured us was kid friendly. It wasn't really from first appearances, but they were good - they entertained and fawned over the kids while AB and I ate some truly awesome sushi.
Unfortunately, I don't usually hold high hopes especially when we eat out in town. Tonight was no different.
Right now I am reading "Garlic and Sapphires, A Diary of a Critic in Disguise" by Ruth Reichl. I really, really enjoy Ruth's writing. This is her third novel I have devoured. As I read, I think about a life on a different planet as a food critic.
So here I sit - living out my little food critic fantasy.
This evening we went to "Fat Olives", the new Italian joint. We passed two families leaving when we walked in wearing our standard clothes, not dressed up. I thought seeing families leave was a good sign.
We waited only a few minutes for the table for 5, which was really just a card table looking thing with a high chair perched at a corner.
Ever try to feed a three year old - or any small child for that matter - at a corner of a table?
As we headed in my sister in law pointed to the small print at the bottom that expressed disdain for crying children. Ok, so it cited the bad acoustics, and then asked that any small children be removed outside while dining. I guess I just think that if you are going to have a whole menu page devoted to pizza, then instructions on how to deal with your children are probably not hitting the target audience. And really, this are is like huge on kids, people like it here because it is a great place to raise kids. Kid unfriendly restaurants are just a bad fit.
I believe that the attitude tossed our way by the waitress was probably thanks to the kids. Or maybe that we weren't dressed up. Or maybe both. She was hurried and short with us.
The selections weren't abundant, and there was a little concern at the table when at 6:30pm two of the specials were nearly gone - one serving of pork shank left and three of the lamb. We ordered a small pizza for the kids, I ordered the house calzone, AB ordered the pork shank and my SIL ordered the lamb.
I asked for milk for the kids, which they did not have milk. Yes, seriously. We ordered instead a bottle of apple juice for them to split.
A few minutes after ordering the waitress came back and informed AB there was no pork shank left and handed him the menu.
Over the years we have had opportunity to eat some really fabulous meals and we have spent the last decade or so refining our cooking. AB cooks meat quite well and will only order meat in a restaurant when it is a type he doesn't cook. So the waitress repeatedly recommending the rib eye or the pork tenderloin was going nowhere fast. He finally settled on a clam and mussel Alfredo sauce dish.
The food arrived and was fine. The lamb was done nicely and tasted good. But it was a boring dish. No pizazz on the lamb. It was served with asparagus and potatoes. Both prepared fine. But for AB and me, this is a routine weeknight dinner that we can whip together in 45 minutes... blindfolded.
AB's pasta was lackluster, he felt the sauce didn't match the seafood. Though he said "it is fine". My calzone was good, though I have to admit that I far prefer the calzones from the restaurant near work. The best dish at our table was the 12" pizza that the kids had. They ate it well, each tackling nearly two pieces.
The food was fine. But at the price we paid, we would be hard pressed to go back. Except maybe for the pizza. But I wouldn't go there to eat the pizza... we would pick up and bring home.
One star of five.
Unfortunately, I don't usually hold high hopes especially when we eat out in town. Tonight was no different.
Right now I am reading "Garlic and Sapphires, A Diary of a Critic in Disguise" by Ruth Reichl. I really, really enjoy Ruth's writing. This is her third novel I have devoured. As I read, I think about a life on a different planet as a food critic.
So here I sit - living out my little food critic fantasy.
This evening we went to "Fat Olives", the new Italian joint. We passed two families leaving when we walked in wearing our standard clothes, not dressed up. I thought seeing families leave was a good sign.
We waited only a few minutes for the table for 5, which was really just a card table looking thing with a high chair perched at a corner.
Ever try to feed a three year old - or any small child for that matter - at a corner of a table?
As we headed in my sister in law pointed to the small print at the bottom that expressed disdain for crying children. Ok, so it cited the bad acoustics, and then asked that any small children be removed outside while dining. I guess I just think that if you are going to have a whole menu page devoted to pizza, then instructions on how to deal with your children are probably not hitting the target audience. And really, this are is like huge on kids, people like it here because it is a great place to raise kids. Kid unfriendly restaurants are just a bad fit.
I believe that the attitude tossed our way by the waitress was probably thanks to the kids. Or maybe that we weren't dressed up. Or maybe both. She was hurried and short with us.
The selections weren't abundant, and there was a little concern at the table when at 6:30pm two of the specials were nearly gone - one serving of pork shank left and three of the lamb. We ordered a small pizza for the kids, I ordered the house calzone, AB ordered the pork shank and my SIL ordered the lamb.
I asked for milk for the kids, which they did not have milk. Yes, seriously. We ordered instead a bottle of apple juice for them to split.
A few minutes after ordering the waitress came back and informed AB there was no pork shank left and handed him the menu.
Over the years we have had opportunity to eat some really fabulous meals and we have spent the last decade or so refining our cooking. AB cooks meat quite well and will only order meat in a restaurant when it is a type he doesn't cook. So the waitress repeatedly recommending the rib eye or the pork tenderloin was going nowhere fast. He finally settled on a clam and mussel Alfredo sauce dish.
The food arrived and was fine. The lamb was done nicely and tasted good. But it was a boring dish. No pizazz on the lamb. It was served with asparagus and potatoes. Both prepared fine. But for AB and me, this is a routine weeknight dinner that we can whip together in 45 minutes... blindfolded.
AB's pasta was lackluster, he felt the sauce didn't match the seafood. Though he said "it is fine". My calzone was good, though I have to admit that I far prefer the calzones from the restaurant near work. The best dish at our table was the 12" pizza that the kids had. They ate it well, each tackling nearly two pieces.
The food was fine. But at the price we paid, we would be hard pressed to go back. Except maybe for the pizza. But I wouldn't go there to eat the pizza... we would pick up and bring home.
One star of five.
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