The week has been a bit rough on the eating out front. Given that the majority if not ALL of my dining has been eating out this week due to my work trip; it’s been a suck week. To sum up, the only meals that were actually good in terms of quality and not company, were Papa Johns on Cedar Bluff in Knoxville, Arby’s, again on Cedar Bluff, Cracker Barrel on Cedar Bluff and finally, the holy grail, Mecca and the only place left besides the hills, mountains, rivers and lakes of East Tennessee that remain holy: Los Amigos. Truly awesome every time I have been there.
Add to this problem that my wife and daughter got sick this week with some type of stomach crap and I have to take my daughter to the doctor due to her fever and stomach tomorrow, this has not been a good week.
Work went well and I did get a lot accomplished.
Now to the events of the night: We decided to order out one last time given that we were arriving home and didn’t feel like cooking and figured surely we can’t have another bad experience. GUESS WHAT? Yeah we can!
We order from this place called Carmen’s Pizzeria, Pasta House and Catering. It’s on Golf Road in Schaumburg, IL and yes, I will be telling all here as well as I plan to report to the Better Business Bureau and find every yap and yip site there is to tell everyone about how crappy from start to finish this place is.
Item 1: We order our food and it dose arrive on time. Check 1 for them as good.
Item 2: The delivery guy says, “Um, I forgot to run your card at the store, can you sing this piece of paper for me?”
“What?” I say.
“I didn’t get a receipt because I didn’t run the card before I left. You can sign this.”
“A piece of paper you wrote my order down on? I don’t think so.”
I give him his copy and he says to me, “You not gonna give me a tip?”
“Are you kidding me? You show up at my door and don’t even have my receipt, hand me a smelly bag of garlic, you don’t give me anything that says how much my bill is going to be and now you have the nerve to ASK me for a tip?”
I shut the door, go to my phone, and immediately call the manager to tell him about this unusual occurrence. I get the manager, maybe Carmen, as he wouldn’t give me his name of course. Says the delivery guy is a good kid and forgot to run the receipt. Then tells me he was going to have him bring out a receipt. I said, “I don’t care if he is a good guy or not, this sounds like a scam. I don’t know how much my charge is or how much will go through. He didn’t plan to come back with a receipt and he had the nerve to ask my for a tip for not doing his entire job. Now you, his manager make it seem like this is a normal occurrence and I’m supposed to feel comfortable that this is all right because he is a good kid.”
He, the manager then says, this is the way they do it and it’s not unusual. He then tells me I am blowing this out of proportion and should calm down about it. He’ll send him back with a receipt and I can give him whatever tip I felt like. HAHAHAHAHAAH.
“Don’t send him anywhere near my home again, I am never doing business with you again, everyone I know will know about your practices and my charge card better show the right amount which is how much again?”
He tells me and I write it down and finally get his name. Again, he launches in about how I am unreasonable and they drive back on every delivery to deliver the receipt. ARE YO KIDDING ME?! You send your drivers out to deliver all the food without receipts, then send them all back with receipts after the fact. OKAY, keep lying to me moron as you cover for this kid you obviously have had issues with in the past or you wouldn’t be feeding me this bull shit right now. Not once did he EVER say, you know what sir, that was an error on our part and we can rectify that for you. We will get you a receipt and I will instruct and remind my drivers to make sure they are prepared before they go out on their deliveries. HOW FRIKIN HARD IS THAT!!!!!! You can’t just swallow your ego for a minute and admit that your boy screwed up and was maybe a little shady in what he was doing? Of course, you can’t because legal problems may ensue.
So that over, door slammed in delivery a-holes face, phone conversation with moronic restaurant manager complete, I sit in my hair and brood trying to calm down so I can enjoy my first night back home. I have on demand to watch and a couch crying for me to lie on and watch Letterman. So, I go to check out the food and the stench of garlic is ridiculous. I look at my wife and she has the disgusted look on her first of nasty flavor, although, I may be confusing it with fear over my ranting on the phone earlier and she is just wincing in the corner. I find out later, it sucked: she wasn’t wincing, too much.
I didn’t want the interaction and ridiculous conversation to ruin my evening or my dinner as it partly did so I thought, maybe the food is at least good. Guess what? No way will they disappoint. IT SUCKED HORRIBLE BUTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Check out the picks below.
The fettuccini alfredo had no alfredo really. The shrimp was left with the tails on and not de-veined. The chicken was basically bits of chopped up chicken. They gave us two rolls that were hard and bland. I am assuming processed rolls that were left over from yesterday. Garlic bread wasn’t toasted at all. It looked like grinder bread that had been left in a pan of garlic, butter and oil. It was literally soggy soft bread drenched in garlic and stinking my house up. No chance any vampires are biting us until garbage day comes and goes.
I got Chicken Vesuvio which was supposed to be award winning. I am now questioning who the judges were, what the award was and when and where was this contest judge and did anyone else enter when they put this crap in the contest. The chicken was dry, greasy and drenched again in garlic and oil. I guess this is there special sauce or something and everything gets a dose of it but pasta since the fettuccini was dry. The potatoes were not cooked all the way and as the chicken was sitting in a pool of the sauce. It was also covered in a dry Italian seasoning that just layered the chicken: very thick. Just nasty.
The best part though was the salad. A 6 oz cup filled with chopped iceberg lettuce and a single sliced cucumber. On top. Wala! Salad!
I tried. I mean I had already given my dinner to Nic because I knew I would have a hard time eating it out of my irritation. I am picky that way in that I get frustrated to the point my appetite is gone. However, I wanted to at least give the food the benefit of the doubt. Had my billing situation gone well, and I had given a tip without the little moron asking for it, I would have STILL been ill with this man and his business as his food SUCKS!!!!! And so does his business and customer skills. So there it is, the infamous interaction with the Italian ristorante manager.
Now et me relate one other nice little ditty from the week of my trek to the eating out world.
Texas Roadhouse, Turkey Creek, Farragutt, Knoxville, TN. We go in and everyone is very cordial, waitress was very nice and seemed to be good at her job from what we witnessed. I went in with the positive thought of, (AS I HAD ALL WEEK INCLUDING TONIGHT), this cant end badly too can it? Oh my guess what?
We ordered probably the most simple dishes you could order there. Staples actually. My wife, a chicken salad. Come on now, a little lettuce, tomato, cheese, slice the chicken and bring some dressing right? Me? Beef tips with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes. The beef I said rare so it won’t take too long. Over 45 minutes goes by and I still am not complaining. I had a side salad, my wife and I were talking and having a nice time, Keira was playing and munching on some bread and tomatoes. Then the food finally comes out. As I am sitting there I look down and I think, “Aw! Man! This looks like its been sitting there for ages.” The gravy is set and congealed, the potatoes look set as well. But open mind I take a bite of each and sure enough, cold. I was done. My wife’s salad was okay but the chicken was definitely cold and dry. We summon the waitress and I send the food back because I am just done with it. I don’t want another one with cook spittle in it. I don’t want another dish period. This has been a bad week anyway and the last time we ate here, a year ago at least, the same thing happened to us and a few of our friends. Cold food that had been set under a warmer because thy cooked it in the wrong order or waitresses took the wrong food or whatever and tried to pass it off instead of making it right.
So the manager comes out to try and make it right. Now for me, I know when a customer tells me something, I listen and I take it as gospel and apologize. I told her, I don’t want another meal, I don’t want a card for a free meal because I am not coming back. I am done with the chain.
She says “this is good for two meals up to $15 each.”
I said, “I don’t want it, but thank you. I appreciate your effort.”
“She says, “I just want to make this right.”
As I hear this, I am getting pissed and my internal dialogue is going, you listened to me, you know what happened and what needs to be fixed, ENOUGH! I don’t want your frikin certificate! Outside in my big voice I say, we wont be back for at least a year and wont use it at all.”
She goes “well they don’t expire.”
My wife seeing me about to come unglued says thanks, grabs a box and boxes her salad as we take the certificate to give to my sin to use with one of his rock climbing friends.
As I stood there, my wife heard the table next to us talking to our waitress and she was giving them the same spiel about their dinner being late. There were 6 at the table and 3 had plates eating. One was asking, “Any news on that plate yet?”
She responds with “I think its about to come up soon.” And trots off quickly.
“Come up soon? It’s been 40 minutes?” We left and they still had not received their meals yet and the rest of the guys were over half done. I didn’t feel so bad then. What’s bad, IT WASN’T REALLY THAT BUSY AND THEY WERE STAFFED UP PRETTY GOOD!!!!!! AND IT ISNT TOP CHEF or CHOPPED MENUS!!!!!!!!!!!! DANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then economy is bad, you should be putting your best effort forward when you are providing less for more cost. Service is all you have left.
Anyway, for the second time this week I had pork rinds, sunflower seeds and a myriad of other snacks for dinner. I am in the middle of chips and salsa right now.
Tomorrow is another day and this weekend I tell ya, “Châteaux Jimmy Ray” is open and it’s salt pork great northern and pinto beans with jalapeno cornbread time. And next week my barbeque brisket will be in full force! Finger to you restaurants! You know which one man!
Now for other good things that came about this week. My wife got me a cool blanket. I really like it. It is white sox colors and has the right weight to it. She also got a new UT shirt for but it was only to replace a UT shirt she got for me that I love that has an ink spot on it and looks like I got shot through and through. It’s grey of course cause I like that.
A friend of ours got me a nice UT jersey in the new black colors. COOL SUFF! Things are on track for the house and its repair and possible use that will ease our minds a lot.
My boy is Rock climbing which scares me ut it’s a healthy exercise that lets him enjoy the outdoors too and I love it.
My girl is till in college and doing well and I hope to see her do even better.
A friend of mine seems to be doing well with his band and I have other band members I used to play with and we are missing each other. Shout out to Rick and Marty! You guys rock and I miss our jams.
So, enough for now, I have TV to watch and salsa to eat.
XO ILY YM
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