For Valentine’s Day I took my жена to a restaurant.
Alas, three times alas, I was not pleased. And I am pretty sure that I am not the only one in that predicament.
So why do people go to restaurants?
To me, the primary reason is to get out of the house and give the home chef a break.
The secondary reason might be the desire to dine in different surroundings.
And third, the odd chance of making a palate pleasing discovery.
Unfortunately, when you go to a neighborhood restaurant few things compare favorably with what you cook at home.
Most of the dishes lack flavor or are drowning in some “secret sauce”.
To avoid offending anyone’s taste buds, the kitchen deliberately underseasons every dish. Or that’s what I think they do.
The food is bland, bland, desperately bland!
I realize that taste is subjective, but within limits.
What tastes bad to me couldn’t possibly taste good to anybody else.
Last night, I chose “tuna ceviche” as appetizer.
Anybody worth his shot of Tequila knows that ceviche is basically raw fish marinated (cooked) in lime juice.
Well, in this so-called ceviche I couldn’t detect the faintest trace of lime.
The kitchen just slapped together a few pieces of raw tuna with a few herbs.
Tasted insipid.
Ceviche without citrus juice? Who are you kidding?
My second dish was called “Baja seafood salad”.
A bed of greens decorated with a few pieces of grilled salmon, scallops and prawns.
Not too much to say about the seafood, but the salad was totally bland.
Just grass! Would have made my neighboring cows happy.
Not much Baja in this Ensalada!
I understand that a restaurant, like any other business, wants to attract as many people as possible, but when trying to please everybody you please nobody.
A restaurant should specialize in a certain type of food and focus on people attracted by this kind of food.
And if the dishes demand garlic and spices, by golly, give them garlic and spices.
Nothing is worse than tasteless grub.
As usual, after this experience, I will refrain from eating in a restaurant for a while.
And as usual, in a near future I will fall off the wagon and return to one of these pseudo “restaurants”.
C’est la vie!
But no worries!
I am still hot.
It just comes in hot flashes.
Hasta luego!
Alain