I'm having bad luck with restaurants lately -- really,
really bad luck.
I order pizza from a place where I have ordered pizza for
years. One evening recently I got a
shitty pizza. Very little cheese, hardly
any sauce -- a total rip-off for the price.
Cross that place off my list.
Amazing how one bad experience can make that decision for me. Done.
Just like that, as if the pizza maker forgot to kiss my ring, they're
dead to me now.
I go to eat out at a Mexican restaurant that is highly
regarded. I take my entire family to eat
there, anticipating a terrific meal considering the prices and the rave
reviews. What I get is a huge bill and a
meal that I take two bites of before I feel like I might vomit. Worst.
Meal. Ever. I won't go back there now even if someone
paid me money to do it.
We often go to a local chain restaurant, a lower-end Mexican
restaurant that isn't really all that Mexican.
It's like quasi-Mexican food. I
don't know why we keep going there because every time we do go there, the service
is horrible. I guess it's all about
location, location, location as its proximity to work is integral for those
post-workday strategy sessions. Truly,
though, it's hard to justify a $5 Margarita that comes in a juice glass and
takes fifteen minutes to make it to the table.
Subs are a staple in our house, particularly chicken cutlet
with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. We have
a pizza joint that has been our sub go-to place for a long, long time. Years and years. I order us up a couple of those bad boys and
we cannot wait to go pick them up. When
we get there fifteen minutes later, the subs still are not ready. When we get them home, we discover why. Someone must've left the chicken in the
fry-a-lator because the chicken is so overcooked that it practically breaks off
our teeth as we attempt to take bites.
Now even this place is off the table.
Sometimes when we're bored we go to a local watering hole
that is considered "swanky" by town standards. I have gotten food poisoning there twice (or
general gastro-intestinal distress as a result of eating their cream-based
chowders or sauces), yet I go back because that's where most people want to
meet. It's centrally located. But it smells. Somehow and someway this place always smells
bad. It smells like the inside of a
dirty bathroom, that sharp industrial solvent smell. The service is always spotty, but we usually
start at the bar. Today we start at a
table. And this is the beginning of the
end for this place, too.
You see, as soon as we sit down, we are greeted by
semi-clean utensils. I order ice water
with lemon to start and receive tap water sans anything but a straw stuck into
it. It takes the waitress about twelve
minutes to acknowledge us, and once we order food, it takes her another ten minutes
to bring over our beer. I guess pouring
from the tap must be an extremely difficult and complicated task. Alas, the beer arrives semi-warm.
Two older women are seated immediately behind us in a
booth. While they are deciding what to
order for lunch, their waiter brings them each glasses of ice cold water -- garnished
with lemon.
"Hey," I say loudly and to no one in particular,
"they got lemon in their water!"
My friend nods, acknowledging the obvious faux pas. We chat for a moment when all of a sudden the
women behind us call over a waiter and exclaim, "There must be a
mistake. Our waters have (wait for it
wait for it wait for it….) LEMON WEDGES IN THEM!"
"Hey," I say loudly and to no one in particular,
but the rest of my sentence never comes out.
My friend and I begin laughing about the lemon. The waitress we have totally sucks, and it
takes forever to get a second round.
So now this place, like the rest before it, will be put onto
the chopping block.
I also suppose the obvious solution: Maybe, just maybe, I should be cooking my own
damn dinners.
