This blog is going up almost a week late, but since it's the place that inspired me to create this blog and I only just now got a chance to CREATE the goddamn blog, give me a break.
The first place I'm going to review is the Padre Hotel in downtown Bakersfield, CA. I should mention that I know someone who works here. That's why I went. I probably wouldn't have gone to eat here otherwise. It's not really my bag. And I'll explain why.
For starters, there's a dress code. They actually will turn you away if you're wearing sneakers. Yeah. I know. Way more prissy than I'm used to and really support. They're also expensive. This is a big turn-off for me, but my girlfriend who works there get's a discount.
A friend of my girlfriend was visiting from out of town and my girlfriend wanted to take said friend to someplace fancy. So I got into a dress shirt, shoes, and khakis (I chose to not wear the tie) and my girlfriend and her friend got dressed up nice with skirts and other stuff like that. We had reservations for 8:15pm. I've gotta take a quick break to explain this next part. The Padre itself is not the restaurant. It's a hotel that has a restaurant, coffee shop, bar, and club in it. The restaurant is called 'Belvedere'. The bar, coffee shop, and club have names too, but who the fuck cares? This is a restaurant blog!
Anyways, when we got there, our table was occupied, so we had to wait until almost 9pm to go to our table. My girlfriend took this time to show us around the coffee shop, club, and bar at this time. At around ten of 9pm, we were sick of waiting. My girlfriend and her friend went outside to have a smoke and I headed to the bar to get drinks for them. I walked into the bar and didn't even get halfway across the floor before I felt a rough hand on my shoulder. It was a woman from Belvedere letting me know that our table was ready. Good timing. /sarcasm
We went in and found ourselves forced to get used to hearing the shitty music from the club next door filling the room. Our waitress, Tahlia took our drink and food orders. This is where the money is for me me. I got a 3-cup french press coffee. I was also drinking water since it was free. The girls got the same things (soup and ravioli). The coffee was alright. It wasn't the best I ever drank, but it was black and caffeinated. I drink my coffee without cream and sugar (as all real men do). The coffee was good enough for me to not wish I ordered some sugar. That's good enough for me.
They brought us an Amuse-bouche. For anyone who's like me and doesn't know what the fuck that is, it's a single bite appetizer served before the meal. It also inspired the title for this blog. It was a cucumber thing with some kind of dressing and some other shit on it. It was edible and since I'm not a 'foodie', I didn't mind it. The ladies at the table weren't big fans of it.
I managed to snag a few bites of my girlfriend's food She works there and it's actually stuff she makes (except for the butternut squash soup) and I wanted to taste it for that reason. Again, I must mention that I'm not a foodie, but this was pretty good. The ravioli's were delicious. The ladies at the table (both of whom are 'foodies') didn't like the avocado sauce that covered the raviolis. Apparently there was too much of it and it was too thick. But since I'm not a picky eater and will usually eat the food rejects at home that my girlfriend wants to throw away, I enjoyed the raviolis.
The butternut squash soup (which, being soup, came before the raviolis), was also good, but perhaps a bit too bland. Or so says my girlfriend and her fellow 'foodie' friend. I liked it.
I've been told that the desert my dinnermates got was not a true Creme Brulee. I wouldn't know because I've never had a fucking Creme Brulee before. I'm not going to go into detail here because I don't know shit about deserts other than the fact that I like to eat them, but apparently it's more of a Creme Napoleon (whatever that means). I liked it though. This was another dish that my girlfriend makes there and the two bites I took were exquisite. Everyone at the table agreed.
As for the service, it was surprisingly good once we finally got in. The waitress was quick to serve us and checked back often enough to make sure we were doing alright, but not too often to get on our nerves. Good job, Tahlia! Every time my cup of water got anywhere close to empty, a kid who has an extrememly emo haircut came by and refilled it. Way to go, My Chemical Romance! You done good!
The water was quite a surprise. It was well chilled and had a good portion of fresh ice mixed in with it. The presentation of it was fantastic as it was placed in a short, round glass as opposed to a mason jar or the table cloth. Without going back to ask, I can't say for sure, but I believe it was spring water. I could immediately tell it wasn't well water as it didn't have a sulfur, farty smell. And it certainly was without the mercury and chlorine flavor of city tap water.
All in all, everyone enjoyed the meal. We weren't charged for my coffee, but I called back to find out how much the coffee was and was told it was five dollars plus tax. So since this was the first place and inspiration for this blog, I chose to set all future monetary limits at five dollars plus tax.
Food-Good
Water-Excellent
Coffee-Good
Service-Good, Fast, Emo
Music-Shitty
Overall Satisfaction- 2 Pocket Yeast Infections out of 4
This blog written while listening to Prince's Love Symbol Album
