friends are better than food.

me 'n the Divine Ms. Barbara!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day filled with love, laughter, & friendship with the arrival of our dear friends Barbara, Jerry, and their spectacularly beautiful daughter Eva from Calgary.  Really, these guys rock!!!  We gave them their knit stuff that I’d been meaning to send since, like, oh November (hah) & they gave us Calgary Flames shirts for the girls (Ash wore hers home on the ferry, she thinks she’s like the coolest chick in Bremerton now) and chocolate that will give us diarrhea.  :)  And music, sweet sweet music that I’ve selfishly squirreled away for myself, ya know.  H & I were sorely deficient on the gift front, damn my lack of inspiration & planning – & as far as I know, poor Jerry didn’t get his crab.

We walked around Pike Place, gawked at weird shit, then took off to find some grub & drinks.  First place we attempted, the Seattle Sourdough Pizza Company, had since been replaced by The Crab Pot which I’ve heard is kinda yucky.  They weren’t open anyway so… onwards!  H had the thought of trying this wonderful trattoria we used to visit in Pioneer Square… nope, it’s now a stupid kitchenware store.  Alright… next block’s the J & M, a nice bar/grill we’ve also frequented… nowhere to be seen.  FUCK.  Ok, we walk down 1st Ave, looking, scoping, praying for something nearby to rest our weary brains – we spot this little cafe that looked way too small to accommodate the 7 of us, & right next to it is this restaurant called “Luigi’s Grotto”… by the way, the cafe was named Mario’s.  Seriously.  Right on, time to sit & chat & have some wine!

DON'T EAT HERE!

So we walk down this dark stairwell into this restaurant setting which is absolutely inviting with the dimmed lights & brick archways & walls richly coated with poster art.  We’re immediately greeted by this “Italian” guy who asks how many are in our party, we say 7, & we’re seated at a large table facing the door.  Like, we could see up the stairs facing the door, which wasn’t too bad in & of itself at the time but now it’s just one more thing for me to pick on.  Anyway…

We sit.  “Italian” guy asks us if we have any dietary restrictions so me ‘n H chime in (I’m vegan, he & the girls are vegetarian) but we also let him know that Barbara, Jerry & Eva were not, they were cool with meat & cheese.  Then he asks us what we’d like to drink, so I order a white wine, Jerry & H order a red wine, Barbara orders a brew & the girls get orange sodas… & we wait for menus.  Dude, after asking us if we were all from the area, comes back about 5 minutes later with this giant (I mean GIANT) bowl of salad.  It was pretty good, it had a balsamic vinegar dressing & was tossed with nectarines (flavorless), grapes (I had lots of those), apples (didn’t have any), and apricots (which I didn’t see).  The garlic bread, I must admit, smelled divine – I had plain bread with an oddly seasoned olive oil dip.

All of a sudden, not long after the salads arrived, this humungous plate of pasta gets placed on our table.  It was perciatelli tossed with broccoli, eggplant, zucchini, garlic, tomatoes, red onion, olive oil, & basil.  HUH?!?!?  It smelled great, it looked nice, but what in the holy fucking hell is THIS?????  We didn’t order anything!!!!!  Although I didn’t have any at the restaurant, I had a bite before I collapsed in bed & you know, I didn’t think it was anything to scream, or even breathe heavy, about.  H thinks, & I completely concur with him, it was last night’s leftovers served up big.

Ashleigh, Eva, and Mia

All 3 of the girls were confused… ok, by my biased perception, hah.  All 4 of us adults were confused.  It was a big, unspoken/unmuttered collective “W.T.F…?” as we sort of fogged up in confusion.  I guess, I mean it’s the only explanation I can come up with, it was like we didn’t want to be rude even though we were paying for the damned service.  It didn’t make sense, we all knew it, but we went along for the ride.  So yeah, we ate.

Jerry’s red didn’t appeal to his taste buds so he ordered another glass, this time a little drier.  You’d think Jerry asked if he could give the chef his uninvited professional advice by the snooty little air Dude put on, omg.  Sorry “Italian” Dude, your taste buds were not put here by some kind of divine will.  Oh, & face it pal, you missed the Good Taste boat.

Not long after the pasta is forced on us, Dude comes around with this little pan filled with cippolini onions in a balsamic vinegar (yeah, MORE balsamic vinegar) reduction sauce.  He places 4-6 on each of our plates then disappears with the pan… um, okay… & although they were fairly good it only made me jones hard for a martini.

About 15 or so minutes later, Dude chastizes us for not finishing the salad & proceeds to guilt us into emptying the bowl.  I felt like I was 4 yrs old at gramma’s house, ya know?  So we eat the stupid salad, our dishes get cleared, & we’re presented with the possibility of ice cream.  This cracks me up… Dude doesn’t serve cheese or meat because, I guess, I’m vegan & he forgot there’s only one of my kind at the table but he fucking dishes me up a bowl of ice cream.  Mia got my bowl, I’m not sure why, but she did.  Maybe because she’s the youngest?  :D  Anyway… you know what’s next, right?

THE CHECK.
$237 for 7 people who didn’t even get to see the fucking menu.  $237 that included a 20.9% gratuity than not even Martha Stewart would have earned given our deliberate lack of choices… & to add insult to injury, he added the tax in before taking his tip.

Jerry & Harrison bein' manly

H is currently writing scathing reviews at every single restaurant guide in Seattle that mentions Luigi’s Grotto.  Sadly, when he checked out the other reviews he saw very similar experiences to ours.  There’s this one story about a party of 13 who got charged over $600 for dinner… they got macaroni & cheese.  And ya know, it’s not about the money/cost, it’s the damn principle – we got fucking robbed, chumped, & shanghai’d.

Lesson learned though – ask for a damn menu!!!  And avoid Luigi’s Grotto unless you want mediocre food and sweet red wine and an empty wallet.

We would have had a great time at McDonald’s with the fabulous company, after all.  We had laughs, learned a lot about each other, shared bread…

I miss my friends.  Makes me wanna move to Calgary, but then I’d be far from Jen.  Hey, how’s the weather in Prince George BC?  That’s halfway between!

I apologize for the picture quality – I apparently am now camera dumb.  And I’ll be adding in links to GOB’s reviews as he sends them to me.  :)  Here’s what’s Harrison has going so far:

Review for NWsource ::  The Olympian ::  The Stranger ::  Seattle CitySearch