Cafe de La Read This Review Pronto
Written: Sep 14 '00 (Updated Sep 15 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Proximity to My House
Cons: Food, Service, Atmosphere
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| Leon's Full Review: Cafe de la Paz |
For those unfamiliar with him, Leon Sanders is one of Epinions.com’s most esteemed and experienced reviewers. His reputation often proceeds him. While most of Leon’s reviews can be found in the Home & Garden (garbage disposals) and Racquetball (goggles) categories, Leon recently dined out at a restaurant and would like to share his thoughts. Unfortunately, due to a series of speaking engagements and racquetball tournaments, Leon doesn’t have time to sit down and pen a coherent, comprehensive, and eloquent essay--the kind his readers have come to expect. However, for the benefit of consumers everywhere, Leon did agree to sit for an interview with himself on the subject of his dinner. Following is an exact transcription of that interview. The restaurant in question is Café de La Paz, an establishment of supposed repute located in the “Gourmet Ghetto” section of Berkeley, California. Leon dined at Café de La Paz on the eve of Sunday, August 27th, the year 2000. The interview was conducted two days later, at Leon’s home, not far from the restaurant. Leon spent the hour reclined on the couch, his shoes perched on the armrest. He looked pale, ill at ease, jittery, distracted, and paranoid. He said he was feeling “gaseous.” Throughout the interview, Leon smoked cigarettes, chewed Pepto-Bismol tablets, and ate pretzel rods. He was dressed casually but professionally in a sportscoat and tie. He also wore a pair of racquetball/all-purpose goggles as well as a foam neckbrace tucked into his shirt to look like a turtleneck. The shades in the room were drawn.
An Interview-Review With Leon Sanders:
Leon: Good afternoon, Leon.
Leon: Good afternoon to you, Leon. Welcome to my home.
Leon: Thank you. You don’t look well.
Leon: I don’t feel well.
Leon: We are here, of course, to talk about your recent dinner at Café de La Paz, a restaurant of supposed repute located in North Berkeley.
Leon: That’s correct. The hairs on my neck stand up just thinking about it.
Leon: Should we get down to business then?
Leon: Let’s.
Leon: Okay. On a scale of one to ten, with one being equal to the worst you’ve ever had, and ten being equal to the best, rate the following aspects of your experience at Café de La Paz. Let’s start with the service. How would you rate the service?
Leon: Negative five-thousand.
Leon: That’s too low, Leon. The lowest rating you can give is a one. Let’s try it again. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the service at Café de La Paz?
Leon: Negative five-thousand.
Leon: Fine then. We’ll move on. How about the food itself?
Leon: Zero.
Leon: So the food was better than the service?
Leon: Yes. That’s why it got a zero while the service got a negative five-thousand.
Leon: What about the atmosphere?
Leon: On a scale of one to ten?
Leon: Yes.
Leon: Negative sixty-million.
Leon: That bad?
Leon: Maybe worse. Can I change my rating?
Leon: Sure.
Leon: Negative a zillion.
Leon: To try and give the consumer the clearest possible picture of Café de La Paz, are there any other, perhaps well known restaurants you might compare it to?
Leon: Frank’s Chicken Shack.
Leon: Is that a restaurant in the Bay Area?
Leon: No. It’s a strip bar in New Jersey.
Leon: Does it serve food?
Leon: Nachos. The service is better, too. The waitresses are naked.
Leon: Okay. Back to Café de La Paz. What entrée did you order?
Leon: Some sort of seafood-soup-gumbo contraption. It was hard to tell. It glowed. It tasted like metal. I think it came from a can.
Leon: What sort of seafood was in the soup?
Leon: Sea bass. Crustacean. Prawn. Snapper. Grouper. Squawfish. Rocky Mountain Whitefish. Other stuff. Crawdad. There’s a shrimp shell still caught in my throat.
Leon: That sounds painful. Does it hurt?
Leon: It hurts like hell. I can hardly get any oxygen. My breathing is raspy. Can you hear it?
Leon: Yes. I can hear it.
Leon: I’m considering a lawsuit. All my friends are lawyers.
Leon: Returning to the service, how would you characterize your interactions with the waitress?
Leon: Chaotic. Inconclusive. Frustrating. Insane. Unrewarding.
Leon: Can you be more specific?
Leon: I asked her what defined Latin American food and she said she didn’t know.
Leon: What else?
Leon: I asked her what she recommended and she said she didn’t like “big chunks of meat.”
Leon: What does that mean?
Leon: I'm not sure.
Leon: Anything else?
Leon: They didn’t have any ketchup.
Leon: No ketchup!
Leon: That’s exactly what I said.
Leon: How can a restaurant not have ketchup?
Leon: Easy. They’re stupid.
Leon: Was the waitstaff attentive to your needs?
Leon: Attentive? No. Needs? The only thing I needed was to get out of there and they refused to help me with that. It took them an hour to refill my water glass, and they simply forgot the entrée of one of my dinner partners.
Leon: What did he eat?
Leon: Napkin. Salt.
Leon: Did you leave a tip?
Leon: We didn’t have a choice. They add 18% gratuity for parties of five or more.
Leon: That’s aggressive.
Leon: That’s bull. We left them sixteen cents short.
Leon: You left them sixteen cents short?
Leon: Yes, sir. It felt good.
Leon: Did they say anything?
Leon: Of course not. I would have scissor-kicked them in the head.
Leon: Was there anything positive about your dining experience at Café de La Paz?
Leon: My dinner partners and the mango margaritas.
Leon: The mango margaritas were good?
Leon: If you like Jamba Juice.
Leon: But with tequila--
Leon: No. I think they skipped the tequila part.
Leon: Were the drinks expensive?
Leon: Only if $7.00 sounds like a lot for a five-ounce virgin fruit slurpee.
Leon: It sounds like a lot to me.
Leon: And me.
Leon: How much did the entire meal cost?
Leon. For five of us, $150. About three-hundred times what it should have cost.
Leon: Literally?
Leon: Literally.
Leon: So, if my math is correct, dinner for five at Café de La Paz was worth fifty cents?
Leon: That sounds right. If your math is correct.
Leon: Let’s move on. If you could ask the management at Café de La Paz one question, what would it be?
Leon: Did you know I was a food critic?
Leon: But you’re not a food critic.
Leon: Yes, but they wouldn’t know that would they?
Leon: What are some things you would rather do than eat at Café de La Paz?
Leon: Stick my head in a garbage disposal. Eat glue. Poke myself in the eye with a pencil.
Leon: Is there anything particularly memorable about your dinner there?
Leon: Forty-seven bowel movements in the last three days. Heartburn enough to kill an army. Headaches. Cold sweats. Hallucinations. Does that sound memorable to you?
Leon: It sounds awful.
Leon: It was. It is.
Leon: What would it take for you to dine at Café de La Paz again?
Leon: Armaggedon.
Leon: And that’s saying something. Don’t you live right near the restaurant?
Leon: About one-hundred-and-twenty feet away.
Leon: By the way, how’s your racquetball game coming?
Leon: Never been better, Leon. I’m unbeatable. I’m dangerous.
End Interview.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Leon
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