Last night the Wiff and I went out to dinner. She had gone online and purchased a $100 gift certificate (half price too! Go get something for a restaurant you like at Project Half Price or at the WBZ site) for a little restaurant near our place that she's been wanting to try for a while now (I have to mention that when I went to check out the restaurant's website, the first thing I noticed was a spelling error. In the title of the site it reads "A New Tase on the North Short". Awesome job, website douche). We haven't gone out to dinner in a long time so it was supposed to be a nice night out to enjoy each others company and some good food. What we forgot to factor in is the humans that will inevitably throw a monkey wrench into the works and ruin the night.
The restaurant is about a mile from our house over in Swampscott so getting there was easy enough. The place is right near the water (not quite within view of the ocean but you know it's there) and I got a parking space right in front. I chose to take this is a good sign and happily parked the car. We walked in and you know that feeling you get when you instantly don't like a place? Yea, I got that feeling right off the bat. Tacky is a good description. It's trying to be a high-end place but not quite pulling it off. But since I'm trying to be less anti-social (HA!), I dismissed it as just me being my usual cranky self and even though the place is decorated like a Long Island housewife's wet dream, I'm sure it'll be fine. We were greeted right away by a woman who looked like she just got out of the spray tan booth 5 minutes before showing up for work. The place was completely empty and she said that we could sit wherever we wanted. I kinda wanted to sit in the dark, back corner but I figured that would be overruled as too gloomy so we ended up sitting right at the front of the big windows that overlooked, well, our little diesel Jetta mostly.
The server (who I think must be an owner too or something...no proof of this but she gave that impression. Perhaps it was just the fake tan and giant painted nails) gave us menus and a cocktail menu (which was empty by the way. The Wiff opened the cocktail menu and there was nothing in there. It was just a blank, leatherette folder at this stage). After getting the real cocktail menu we were left alone to figure out what we wanted. Then this Porsche SUV pulled up outside and a this small family of 4 got out. I didn't really pay attention to them (other than noting the two kids were wearing those horrible Ed Hardy "fashion" T-shirts and that the woman was also overly spray tanned and had on I'm guessing 10 gold rings. Ok, I guess I did notice them a little. I think the situation was the Porsche-douche is dating the super-tanned lady and the Ed Hardy assholes are her kids) until they came into the restaurant itself. Now remember, the place is completely empty except for us two. So where do you think the waitress sat them? If you said DIRECTLY behind us (and right in my line of sight) then you'd be correct. I must have looked like I wanted to bail 'cuz the Wiff gave me that "Just let it go" look. But I can't just let it go can I? No, I can't. I'm a jackass remember?
All I wanted to do was to go to my instinct and either move our seats to the other side of the L-shaped space or just bolt and forget the whole thing. We hadn't ordered at this stage so we totally should have left. Now I know I sound like a high-maintainance jerk-o now (and I am) but honestly, why seat them right there? Oh, plus they were friends with the server/suspected owner-lady and the bartender guy. This I mention because our server wasn't that into being a server in the first place (my impression) and when you add people that she already knows into the mix, she's just gonna go hang out and talk to them instead of, oh I dunno, checking on us for instance. At this time is when I noticed that the music there was really loud italian "rock". As I tried to process that this shitty song was yes in fact louder than it should be and yes they are singing in Italian, I looked up and realized that I was sitting directly under a speaker. Niiiiiice. Where's my scotch?
Then the guy at the other table started coughing. It was a harsh, and perhaps (I'm hoping) painful cough that was quite loud. Louder even than the shitty italian rock music. I can't really blame the restaurant for the guy having a cough like that but I can certainly focus on it and allow it to mess up my dinner. This guy was sitting facing me and right over the Wiff's left shoulder. So I could see exactly when he was gearing up for the next burst of hacking. It was the opposite of awesome. It took some doing but I actually let it go. No, seriously, I was not "ok with it" but I was trying desperately to not let it ruin the evening. Then the food started to come out.
We had ordered a couple of apps which isn't normally something we'd do but since we had this lovely $100 gift certificate that we snagged for $50 we figured what the hell. The first app was a lobster and crab pancake thing that was just....meh. It was too oily for my taste. The Wiff seemed to like it. The other app was a potato gnocci that I swear to jeebus christmas tasted like Chef Boyardee made it. Except that the Chef doesn't charge $18 for his shit. Ok, so the apps aren't fantastic. Whatevs, let's just move on to the main course and try to enjoy ourselves. But I can't. Why? Cuz the douchebag with the cough is going on and on about how the younger of the two kids should get the Mercedes-something SUV and the other brother should totally get either the BMW or Land Rover. By now the Wiff has also noticed that this place is not really our cup of tea. And then the guy went into another coughing fit. Hooray! Swine flu for everyone!
The main course comes and it's good. I got the lemon chicken and since the Wiff loves nothing more than a tortured animal, she got the veal (I'm surprised she didn't get it with a side of foie gras and an assortment of kittens that she could punch). My meal was pretty good. But that's really the gist of the whole place right there: It was "pretty good" not "amazing" or "wicked pissah". By now the place is filling up with other patrons and so I do a quick glance over my shoulder to silently judge the rest of them as well. As I had expected it was chock full of assholes. God, I really don't like people at all. The waitress comes over with the check and I take a look-see. Now, I'm figuring that based on 1) where we are, Swampscott on the fucking Lynn border 2) what we had, Chef Boyardee apps and mediocre main courses and 3) there's only 2 of us that the check would be what? $75? Maybe $85? Nope. $124. Are you fucking kidding me? My scotch all by itself was $12. Holy shit. Good thing I only had one of those. This is not Boston you assholes. What the fuck? More swear words!
So as I get wallet out I look at the Wiff and say "I'm never coming back here". And I think she agreed. We settled up and got the hell out of there. I guess this place decided that all you have to do to be considered "fine dining" was to have inflated prices. I wouldn't mind so much if the experience and food hadn't been such a let down. I had been looking forward to a night out too. Next time we'll just head over to The Blue Ox in downtown Lynn. At least there the waitstaff seem to actually care if you're enjoying yourself.
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