| rev:text
| - This place is so over the top. It's the furthest thing from fine dining, which makes its prices hard to swallow.
I wouldn't have gone there except I got a gift certificate. Even so, my gift certificate wouldn't have made a dent in the cost of dinner, so I opted to pop in one Saturday for lunch.
The service is ridiculous. Waiters all dressed up in black-tie garb and they overemphasize probably-affected accents and speak at insane bellowing volumes. With the tables as close together as they are, it just made me feel like everyone in the room had to be involved in my ordering process. And there are all sorts of unnecessary flourishes in taking orders and presenting the food. Now, I'm not saying the servers weren't nice. They were. And it's probably not their fault that they're all costumed and eccentric; I suspect that's part of the gig. But it doesn't come off like a fine dining establishment. It seemed like a farce.
Likewise, the food is ridiculous. The one thing I can say about the high prices is that at least you get your money's worth in quantity. I mean, the amount of food served to one person bordered on obscene. I had the gazpacho, which was salty but otherwise bland. Then I went with paella, as it seemed to be the house specialty. Goodlawd what a mountain of food! And that doesn't count the entire plate of veggies that come with it (green beans, broccoli, cauliflower) and the plate of potato chips ("spanish style fried potatoes" my a**) and the plate of plain white bread with butter in little plastic packets with foil peel-off lids. Nothing served had spices or flavor, just S&P and oil. Way too much salt in everything, I was chugging water for the next 24 hours. Then, uninterested in all the generic desserts offered, I opted for some kind of sorbet, maybe grapefruit. When the waiter returned, he informed me they only had coconut (of all the sorbet flavors he had offered me). I insisted that I didn't want it, because I don't like coconut, but again, I'm not really sure the entire room full of patrons needed to be privy to that conversation.
In the end, I took the majority of the paella and the veggies home. I wasn't about to eat them, but it seemed wasteful to throw them out, so I pawned them off on someone with a lesser palate. The server was quite gracious in sending me home with lots of broccoli and cauliflower, which he noticed I had eaten all of, and just left the green beans. Unnecessary, but kind.
I feel really bad hating, because the service was awfully well-intentioned. But the whole experience was just way too in your face and low-quality. I truly don't know who considers this place worth patronizing.
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