The Dime: worst meal. I wanted to love it. I was taking NH out for dinner and was very excited to try a new place. I was deliberately avoiding yelp and sort of skimming things written about it so I would go with a fresh slate.
Let's start with the menu. Tiny menus are a pet peeve of mine because you really need to be good to pull them off. You better have something that appeals to everyone. This menu is terrible. The dime plates are all exactly the same as sports bar food or existing restaurants.
Spinach and artichoke dip. Am I at a work potluck? Did not order.
Calamari with g-sauce? Ordered. I don't wanna know why they call it g-sauce but it was a red mayo sauce. Long fingers of fried (yes tender) calamari that were awkward to pick up and dip.
Crisped petaluma chicken: sweet or spicy. Ordered. Sounds good right? I envisioned two small pieces of delicious fried chicken. I got breast meat chicken fingers with buffalo sauce. That's what "spicy" was. Standard sports-bar sauce.
Clams chorizo: ordered. A few clams and a few little crumbles of chorizo. Not enough broth to dip bread in. That's ok because the bread was stale thin slices.
Pepperoni flatbread: Did not order. Am I at my work cafeteria?
Mac and cheese: did not order. Seems to be some sort of law this must be on the menu. Ten dollar mac and cheese?
Tacos: did not order. Again, ten bucks? Didn't see portion size so maybe they were huge. I usually get stuck ordering tacos at red rabbit so I did not want to try more upsale tacos.
Sliders w fries. Did not order. Did not want anything this heavy. Maybe the house-smoked hot pastrami is good, but I don't think of that as a dinner item. Kalua pork. Does not sound appealing.
Soup and salad: did not order. did not ask what it was. server did not mention it.
Rabbit food: since when is steak tartare rabbit food? Some of the salads appeared to have been flown in from 1997. Balsamic, raspberries and goat cheese? Also, big stale croutons on a couple of them. I ordered a chicken caesar, something I would normally never order, but none of the other salads sounded appealing. Wilted romaine, bland dressing (no discernible anchovy) cold dry breast chunks (similar to airport food) weird large chunks of parmesan among the shreds, as if it crumbled in there and they just didn't both to fix it.
Plates. Pan-roasted salmon? Wow, exciting. Am I at my grandma's retirment home? Honey truffle chicken frites? Who puts chicken on fries? How do honey and truffles ever belong together and why should fries every have a sweet sauce?
Ambiance. We were out back. They need to do something about the patio, some shrubs or screens or something. You are eating in the courtyard of a jank apartment development. NH said she felt like she was in a dorm quad. Which sparked the thought that I have literally had a better lunch in the dining commons at UCD and it was 8 bucks. At least I could end it with soft serve ice cream.
Menu completely unappealing. Bill with tip, two glasses of wine and two beers: 108 fucking dollars. The hostess asked how it was when we left and I could not lie and told her not good, which made things very awkward because she wanted to know why.
NH, do not apologize for me paying the bill cuz of your bday. I just wish we had eaten somewhere else. We could have eaten at the waterboy probably for that price, or certainly feasted at one speed. Let's go out to a nice place again soon.
I almost forgot! It ended with two bite-sized chocolate chip cookies. They were terrible! Completely dry and flavorless? Am I at a Mexican bakery? The toll house recipe would have been so much better.
8 comments:
I know this post is TLDR.
GM in SNR gave it 3 1/2 stars and I understand cuz I know this rating well. It's the default sort of mediocre rating, which should really be 2 1/2 out of 5, but that seems too mean.
I noticed he also called out the stale bread, so they've had two weeks to fix it. He said his clams had broth so that's different than ours.
OMG yr so wrong I luv that place! (JK!)
Right on about Mexican bakeries (and I'm marginally Mexican-American myself, so this ain't rooted in nationality). ...and Italian ones, while we're at it. (Am not Italian so maybe this part is racist.) What is it that make Italian and Mexican pastries so bad? Is it the huge granules of sugar cracking your teeth? Is it the chalky texture? The buckets of food coloring? The crumbling, bumbling, fumbling dryness? Fuck a Mexican pastry.
-'pstique
I won't apologize, we will always have the memories. Those cookies tasted like rage. And the bread! So stale! All that said there was something funny about the experience.
I sort of liked the patio, I have no idea why. Guess I love eating outside of dorms.
-NH
Now tell us how you really felt...
Thank you for this.
I had that exact same feeling. Read the menu was like huh? Yes, the guy is nice. I order Clams Chorizo and he's like ok it's not very big. Really we need a disclaimer? Yes it was very small and I had an 8 dollar IPA. The salmon plate was good but super small for 16$ and not a very inspiring rendition. Haven't left a restaurant feeling this ripped off in a while. Two drinks, and two small sized "entrees" for 50$
glad you concur. the thing to remember about reviewing is that it's very difficult to not view it differently when you are getting reimbursed. if i had been reviewing the place all of it would have been comped.
Wait, I'd heard all the menu items are 10 clams? Are there even 10 clams in the chorizo dish?
NM
The whole mac & cheese being served in restaurants (even the one in Oakland that serves nothing but) is baffling because it's the easiest thing in the world to make yourself at home. And it definitely costs a lot less than $10.
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