21 January 2006 - Fix Me A Plate Cafe (Fine Southern Style Cooking or something like that...):
They were too busy at Red Lobster at Grossmont Center in La Mesa and the customers were lined up out the door at Souplantation on Fletcher Parkway, also in La Mesa, so we decided to check out the new place right next door.
That's what we get for going to dinner at the same time everyone else on the entire planet does, on a busy Saturday night.
While we were waiting for our food, the 7 adults at the next table were being served and their 2 boys in a separate booth were acting up when the 30-something mother looked across at me and asked if I'd go over to their table and make them behave.
"I can do it from here" I said, "EAT!"
The place got deadly silent for a moment, the boys looked at me like no one had ever dared to speak to them like that before in their lives and promptly got with the program...
A moment later, the place was at full tilt, volume-wise, when the rest of the customers came up to speed about what had just happened...
I had the fried chicken, corn on the cob, red beans, corn bread muffin and iced tea. The beans were horrible, the chicken was covered in some sort of spice which was way too blatant for me, the corn was room temperature and the corn bread muffin was too sweet.
I had a few bites of the wing and leg and Dog Boy will get the breast for his lunch tomorrow.
The Boy had the fried catfish with salad, dirty rice, corn bread muffin, and iced tea for a change. He said the catfish was good but didn't care for the dirty rice ("Popeye's is better"), or the muffin. He sort of liked the spicing on my chicken and ate the thigh.
The young ditzoid blonde waitress (a Tiffany, no doubt) was adept at ignoring us, one of only 2 tables she had.
We did everything to get her attention short of sending up an emergency flare.
This place can't have more than 10 booths and tables yet she never bothered to check back with us after the food was served and deliberately avoided eye contact even when she knew that we knew that she had seen us trying to flag her down.
The Boy had to wait until well after his fish was room temperature before we could get more tartar sauce (we had to ask the other waitress to send our waitress over to the table and I came within an inch of telling her to tell our waitress that she's very close to not getting a tip).
And the waitress obviously doesn't understand that it's "iced" tea as we never got more ice with our refills.
The total was $25 and coin, we left at total of $29 (she was lucky she even got a tip).
Horrible service, mediocre, over-priced food that we normally make for ourselves at home (only better), we won't be back...
