Food & Drinks
HORRIBLE MEAL & SCRAPED ICK
We decided to go to R.L.. Jack's Mom loves R.L., so we called her and she
was very happy to go with us. This was to be
Mom's birthday dinner that we owed her from a couple weeks before. We were surprised
they were not busy when we got there. We got a table real fast. The waitress was
training a new girl and asked if that would be OK with us. We said that would be just fine.
Our drinks came quickly and were all great.
My husband and I decided to each
have the 1/2 serving fish of the day, Mahimahi. My mother-in-law had one of the
regular fares. Mom's meal got there and it looked wonderful. Nice helpings, but
not too much. When my husband and my meal got there, we just looked at our
plates, looked up at the new help, and looked back down. We have never in our
life seen such a tiny (yes tiny) helping of fish. The fillets were 1" wide by 3"
long. I kid you not. This meal was costing us $15.99 each. The full order was to
be $21.99. Now, we have gotten MahiMahi at other restaurants and knew what a
normal size serving would be and were happy to get the 1/2 serving because we
weren't all that hungry and figured we would fill up on the double vegetable
serving of broccoli that we ordered (in place of the potato dish). Well, on top of
the fish being a couple of bite sizes big our broccoli was raw, old, and yellowing
to boot.
To make matters worse, as we were trying to "butter" up the broccoli to
make it edible, a girl shows up with a scraper and a bowl. She gets down on the
floor and proceeds to scrape gum off the bottom of the table next to us. At
first, I thought, "Wow, they don't miss a trick." But then I thought, "Wait, I
really don't want to be eating an already horrible meal with some kid scraping ICK in front of me."
We used to go to R.L. several times a year, but after this last trip, it's
off our restaurant list permanently. 7/08
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I LEFT MY MONEY IN SAN FRANCISCO
What I am about to write happened to my wife and I during a visit to San
Francisco in the summer of 2006.
Prior to my retirement, I had travelled extensively and made a number of visits
to the above beautiful city. Each time I visited I stayed in a very lovely older
hotel on Union Square having an outstanding restaurant on the top floor with
wonderful views of the city in every direction - particularly at night when
all the lights were on. Over the years I, along with everyone else who visited
San Francisco, raved about how beautiful it is - even taking the very changeable
weather into account. As my wife had not been there, and looking for a new place
for a vacation, we decided to make a visit.
I called the hotel myself to make our booking and told the person at the hotel
that I wanted to make a dinner reservation for the restaurant on the top floor.
Much to my disappointment, I was told the top floor restaurant was no longer
there having been converted into additional guest rooms a few years ago.
However, I was told they had an equally fine restaurant on the first floor and
that perhaps I would like to book for that room. I agreed and booked for an
evening in the middle of our visit.
We arrived at the restaurant at the appointed hour and were shown into an
enormous dining room with twenty foot ceilings, beautiful furniture and drapes
on all the windows from ceiling to floor. We were greeted very graciously and
were escorted to a table in the center of the room. We were told a waiter would
be with us momentarily. A few minutes later a very tall cadaverous bald man
completely dressed in black came to our table. He introduced himself, said he
would be our waiter this evening, and asked if this was our first visit to the
restaurant. I said it was, not realizing at the time it would be the ONLY time
we would eat there.
We made small talk about my previous visits to the hotel and my disappointment
upon learning the top floor restaurant had gone. He told us the room we were in
would not disappoint us even though there were no views of the city, and that we
would find our meal to be more enjoyable than at any time I had eaten in the old
room. As it was our first visit he suggested he should explain the dining plan
to us. We sat quietly while he explained there was no menu but a set meal that
was served to everyone (at least, I think that is what he said). THAT IS WHEN WE
SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP AND LEFT.
He described in glowing terms how the meal would be of three courses - an
appetizer, an entree and dessert. Each course would be served on a specially
designed plate that had six compartments - three on the furthest side away from
us and three on the closest side. Each of the furthest three sections would
contain an outstanding portion of food for each course and each of the three
closest sections would contain very interesting sauces for dipping. In this way
we had three separate flavors to accompany each course. As I have said, this
applied to each course being served, naturally, on a separate plate. Perhaps I
should explain here that the plate was roughly twelve inches square lest anyone
might think the portions were enormous. This meant that each section of the dish
was roughly three and one half inches square.
It seemed like a novel approach, so we decided to go along with the
recommendations - BIG MISTAKE. Of course, we had no idea of the size of each
portion until it was presented to us. Each course was served, and with the
exception of a shrimp (please note that I said "A" shrimp) in the appetizer, and
a fairly familiar flavor in one of the dessert portions, we had (and still have)
no idea of what we ate.
A few minutes after we finished our meal and our coffee the man in black
returned and asked how we had enjoyed our meal. Instead of saying how terrible
it was, we lied, saying it was very interesting and unusual. He returned with
the check; I opened the black leather embossed folder and almost fell on to the
floor. I think I must have turned white as my wife asked me if I was alright. I
replied in a very quiet voice, "Yes, I think so." She asked me, "How much is the
bill ?" I replied, "THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS." Her response - "You are joking, of
course." I replied, "No, that's what it is and it includes the tip."
Too embarrassed to complain as everyone else appeared to be enjoying their meal
(or at least, putting on a good show not yet knowing how much it would cost), I
paid and thanked the waiter. We left as decorously as we could trying to give
the impression we always ate this way regardless of cost. We managed to control
our laughter until we were outside the building. We then went to another
restaurant for a meal of proper food we could recognize - what an expensive
evening.
Boy, oh boy, were we taken to the cleaners or what?
Signed, Lawrence Bently
BACK TO THE KITCHEN............AGAIN
Recently my friend and I visited a fairly new restaurant based
on the recommendation of another friend. She stated that the mussels were the
best ever. So we ordered wine, very good by the glass and affordable, and the
mussels. We also ordered oysters on the half shell. The waitress said the two
choices of oysters were Blue Point from Maine and "Ameripure." Never having
heard of Ameripure, I inquired of the waitress where exactly they came from. She
thought Alabama, but she had never eaten an oyster and wasn't sure. She did
offer to check with the chef though. I was not too keen on the unknown oysters,
so I ordered the Blue Points which were supposedly $10.00 a half dozen.
The mussels were wonderful, seared in a hot skillet with rock
salt and olive oil. The oysters were large but milky; one, however, was dry and
shredded. Looked like they had destroyed it trying to open it....yesterday. Oh
well, one out of 6 ain't bad. We also ordered the seafood Chioppino, and a
fillet with sautéed spinach. The spinach arrived with the bottom warm and
somewhat sautéed; the top was so raw the leaves were cold. When the waitress
questioned my definition of sautéed, I handed her a cold spinach leaf. Back to
the kitchen it went. The seafood Chioppino was so salty it was inedible. Back to
the kitchen. The fillet was slightly under done and totally ordinary with no
seasoning whatsoever; I think all the salt was put in the seafood dish. We
didn't send it back. By that time, we were so hungry that we ate the filet and
the recooked spinach, which was prepared correctly this time. The waitress took
so long to return the Chioppino that we finally asked her to put it in a to-go
box. When we received the bill there was a charge for $3.00 "open food." As it
turned out, the Blue Point oysters were $3.00 more than the amount listed on the
menu, which was never mentioned by the waitress at the time. I would go back,
but for the mussels only. 07/07
Sign me.......exhausted from sending food back
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