Dinner For Two...Idiots.

It was a mild Saturday evening. With an hour to kill before our movie, and buckets of popcorn waiting to be eaten, the Mister and I decided to have dinner before the show.
Without any more thought than – “Hey, it's a new place!” –we stopped at an unrecognized restaurant near the theater.
We noticed that it was not packed – the dinner crowd looked light and well, there were real damn linens on the tables and a Wine Bar. We thought we might have accidentally stumbled upon Xanadu.
I know – that should have thrown up more flags than an amusement park in California, but we were optimistic.
There was a menu shadow-boarded outside the entrance that did not list any prices – 1st flag.
There were 150 workers inside, but only about 6 patrons – 2nd flag
The wine list included a zillion and nine different varietals, but no White Zinfandel (Bastards)and only ONE Cabernet Sauvignon – (Blaspheme!) 3rd flag.
The Mister ordered duck, not something you normally get at your neighborhood McDonalds. I opted for the Rolled Pork. Our waiter, who was as animated as a cadaver in an autopsy, was off to the kitchen with our order. I saw lots of people with chef hats and prayed, hopefully, that Chef Gordon Ramsey was back there, taking care of our pork and duck and that this would be a dining moment like we’d never experienced before.
Our wine arrived in beautifully ornate glasses… not even a third of the way filled.
The Mister looked at me, then looked at his Cabernet, wondering where the rest of the $13 beverage had gone. I got stuck sipping a Rose Pear Chablis – and I was lucky… My libation was only $8.
Still, we are expecting big things from our food. People started to wander in and the place started looking more lively, until I realized, they were putting us all in front of the window to make it look like the place was much busier than it actually was.
FLAG NUMBER 4.
A teenager suddenly bounded to our table with two cool looking dishes. Now, the plates were square but paradoxically cool. However, what was on these plates looked inedible. The size of a Wheat Thin cracker, layered with something not known to gastronomy and covered with what looked like antennae, parodied an hors d’ oeuvre. The mister ate his in one bite, as he has no palate and will consume anything. I was told said Wheat thin had fish on it, so I pushed mine toward him and whispered 'Bon Appetite'.
Yet another person brought us a few slices of bread and ONE little tiny pat of butter. That was ok, and turned out to be the highlight of the meal.
Yet ANOTHER employee arrived at our table and looked at us like we were missing something. He was bald and bespectacled, with a demeanor so intense, as to demand respect.
He assessed the situation and determined our needs in an instant –
Cheese! We didn’t have cheese! Get us cheese with our wine…STAT!
Observing our wine choices, he determined a sharp something for the Mister and a softer, more mellow cheese for me.
I was in awe as he brought forth a tiny sliver of cheese for The Mister and a slightly larger bite of cheese for me. Still, I admired the cheese and the few, tiny little slices of apple that came with it, thinking it a part of the meal. Oh, no – as I would find out afterwards, each tiny shred of cheese (3 in all) and the half dozen tiny little slices of apple cost us $8.
Finally, our entrées arrived and I had a moment of clarity: This was the fabled place where Ethiopians came to die! My meat was tied up like a wagon wheel and placed on a heaping mountain of pureed orange squash eerily in the same shape that Richard Dryfuss made out of his mashed potatoes in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
Sexxy, huh?
The Mister’s duck was not duck in any sense that I have ever seen duck, but two pieces of beef jerky bites out of a minit mart package. Garnished with two thin slices of potato, and a leaf of lettuce. No amount of $13 wine was going to make this any better.
We paid our $91.00 ticket and left. (Yes, 91 American dollars, not pesos)
The Mister and I walked out of the restaurant gingerly, our asses still stinging from being screwed. We learned our lesson last night.
Less is not always more and ambience is way overpriced.