Michele and I have been driving by this place for months now--a new Indian Restaurant on Falls Road that we were kind of curious about, and finally on a recent weekend we had favorable circumstances for a trip from which we are still reeling.
Anatomy of a Bad Restaurant Experience
I am not a food critic, nor a food snob. But right off the bat I could see any number of problems that should have sent us running. First of all, the inside was pretty much set up as a carry-out joint with tables, not conducive to a long stay, even though this place billed itself as “Dine-in/carry out.” There was no one anywhere around to greet or acknowledge us. In fact, there was no one in the restaurant at all, which I would take as a bad sign except for the fact that I knew this place had not been open for long. One look at the menus up front told me that this place was an extension of the Pizza Bolis next door, as half of the menu was Pizza Bolis spliced together with a page from an Indian Menu, kind of a Frankenmenu of takeout. After a few moments of hesitation I, fearing the general awkwardness of the walk-in/walk out in a restaurant, charged ahead.
Our waiter, once he emerged, appeared to be the only person working here, doing both cooking and serving…not that it would be much of a problem with only two customers in the joint, but not a particularly optimistic sign on their part about their ability to attract dine-in customers either. He seated us and put the Pizza Boli menus down. The selections, especially the vegetarian options, were not very extensive--there wasn’t any Naan to be found anywhere on the mere one page of Indian selections in what I thought was supposed to be an Indian restaurant. And color me cheap, but there didn’t seem to be a single item on the menu that was less than 10 dollars.
As we sat, I saw a man in a purple shirt approaching, and I commented to Michele, “Oh, here comes somebody,” thinking it was another customer. Little did I know that this is where this already slightly- off experience would take a turn for the worst.
The man in the purple shirt turned out to be the owner of Boli’s, and this place, and once he saw his empty joint had customers, he latched onto us like grim death.
We had ordered a variation of the same thing, me a chicken jalfreizei and Michele shrimp (which she had to ask for special since it wasn’t on the extremely limited menu). Before the food came, the owner, a Russian (?) sat down right next to us. He started chatting us up, and I figured he was just going to talk to us for a few minutes and leave us alone. He asked what my girlfriend did, where she comes from, and upon finding out her occupation, asked her--“You in marketing? Can you help me? Why I have no business? Can you help me?”
and from then on he dominated our entire experience, asking us questions he had no right knowing the answers to, sometimes getting to an epic level of discomfort as to their personal nature-- “Where exactly do you live--what number?” and “Who’s paying for the meal, him?” and “Why he not shave?”
I hope (and I don’t think) I’m not weird about this, but I really, really hate to talk to people while I’m eating…unless it’s somebody that I’m comfortable with, or at least know. I hate to be forced into a social situation while I’m eating, especially one with someone with no social ability who is going to criticize me in front of my girlfriend. All we could think afterward was “thank God that wasn’t a first date or something”--at least we know each other well enough to take the whole unpleasantness in stride.
So one can imagine our horror when our garrulous and awkward Russian host (owner of the Indian restaurant) remained in the seat next to us and never stopped trying to talk to us, even after our food had arrived! Suddenly I got into lockdown mode. I realized with absolute anger and frustration, that the man who bitched about the fact that he had no customers, was bothering the only customers he had. Once like you’ve boarded the roller coaster, we were now strapped in for the ride. We had no choice but to go through with the meal, as all the while the Russian sat at the next table, facing us, talking in a thick and hard-to-understand accent, making this meal something to endure, rather than enjoy.
The 12 dollar dishes, served with rice, which inexplicably came minutes before the meal, with no silverware, came without the third plate necessary for noshing--I would have figured if we were being hovered over as much as we were, the Russian would see that we needed another plate, but he just kept sitting and watching us and obliviously rambling through our meal, digging for information and making nonsensical statements in that thick accent. He did pour us water, and said “I want to fire this guy,” indicating our waiter, “He no good.”
About 15 minutes into the ordeal, he became focused on “what kind of discount you want?”--like we were owed some kind of discount because we happened to be the only people in the restaurant stupid enough to…be in the restaurant. “What kind of discount you want?” he repeated, numerous times, adding to the general discomfort of the situation. In times of stress, people revert to type, and by this time, we had each done our best to deal with this. Michele handled him with as much humor and grace as she could manage, even indulging him when he showed her a photo album of pictures of flowers--pictures I wasn’t even sure if he took--and I just tried to sit and stare forward and not engage him. It occurred to me to maybe play the asshole card to make him leave, but just as quickly as the thought came to me I realized
a) I didn’t have it in me just then and
b) it wouldn’t have made him go away, just turned the situation into something hostile to go along with the annoyance.
I also thought, if this had been any other person, an employee, or another customer, we could have talked to the owner of the manager and gotten comped, or some kind of discount. But as this guy was the owner, there was really nothing we could do, short of walking out mid-meal, or in this case, swearing to ourselves if we survived this, we would never come back.
“Where you going next? What you do now?” and one final round with the “what kind of discount you want?” and mercifully, the check arrived: $24.13, a fucking fortune for what was probably the worst dining experience I’ve had in a very long time. We paid, left a tip, were followed to the door as we walked away. As soon as we were free from his clutches the one prevailing thought was “Never again.”
We are fairly thrifty people; for Michele and I, a nice meal out is one of our few real luxuries. For the most part, we have scored well trying new restaurants, never being sorry to have spent hard-earned dollars. So I guess we were due for a bad time: an example of what is at stake if we do not choose…wisely.
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big show Saturday, see you there!
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