The $50 Veggie Burger
FRIEND: You’re paying for the view.
ME: I’m looking at three TV’s.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m great company and this was a very good veggie burger but this is an average meal, and I can’t but help feel a disturbance in the force.
It’s been rumbling for a while.
Sure, I’m cranky, I’ve been up since 3:15am because my new “going-to-bed early” routine still only results in 4 hours straight sleep on work nights – at best – and tonight I’d be woken at four, my bedroom turned into a brothel by Vancouverites celebrating the one-week anniversary of Halloween with fireworks – think being inside a lava lamp.
I know, cool.
When we sat down at our table we both laughed at the forced intimacy, the dim lighting so on overkill we had to whip out night vision goggles. It was over compensation for sitting in the airport lounge section, the music turned down so low you could hear the other music pounding from the bar half a mile away inside the restaurant. Yes, we were in one those large vacuous corporate establishments, where you need Gandalf the Grey to find the bathroom.
I’ve sat at that bar before, almost a year earlier after an office Christmas lunch that went on a good while longer, and only one of us was smart enough to take the next day off, and it wasn’t me. I’d bailed from getting into a cab to get cocktails because my body said food, and hm, I was the only one left who had to be in at 7am (ish). I found myself seated next to somebody with a lot of cash and was paralytic drunk. It was horrible. My salad took 40 minutes to arrive.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a very good salad.
On Thursday, my hand had barely got out of my cycling jacket when asked if we had decided on drinks. It was happening again, this crazy demand to ply drinks before you can breathe. WTF Vancouver?
There are, one of two things happening here:
Either someone had a bad experience as a child in the 90s waiting for their Gen X reprobate server and decided when they ran their corporate establishment, this would never happen or, the next generation don’t know how to converse because we are all head first in our entertainment devices.
I get if it’s brunch and you want to get your coffee or tea pronto, but that’s a question of caffeineted or decaf, black or herbal. Here it’s an extensive line up, and we were at unhappy hour – the half hour after happy hour, so everything appears overpriced and time stands still while thinking you’ve made some massive error of judgment. Could we have a few minutes?
It’s not the only place of aggressive booze serving. At a martini place in Chinatown in the summer we were asked if we wanted another martini within five minutes of receiving our first drinks!
And while this is a blog and I’m prone to over exaggeration to make a point (like footballers diving when an opponent breathes on them), here I’m not. My friend was convinced it was only two minutes. The server came back five more times before we were close to finished. The food was actually good but I can’t recommend the place (in part because I can’t remember what it’s called). It’s on Keefer.
There was Tasty – the Yaletown version - they didn’t stop harassing us to get more drinks. It wasn’t just our server, there were three of them unable to realize two people across a table from each other might want to have a conversation. It’s the closest I’ve come to experiencing augmented reality. Maybe people are so used to their lives been interrupted by multiple text messages this is the norm.
At Havana’s it was the mimosa special, with the only thing being special, the extra $5 charge the server forgot to mention. No, it didn’t come with a lap dance.
I finally twigged on Thursday that we’re no more than commodities to the restaurant industry and it works on both sides. Something is rotten in Denmark. You can feel it in the air. The employees are being watched by their masters. The staff consist of goblin ants forced to walk at breakneck speed without running. It’s alarming and unsettling.
My dystopian future is finally here.
If there is so much watching, I have suggestion, restaurants:
Put someone on “fries watch”.
Because, how dare you serve lukewarm fries!
I’d normally send these back but I was hungry and shoved them in like an 8-year old, making sure I caught the dying embers of heat. Good thing it wasn’t a date (whatever those things are).
My aunt and uncle introduced me to this idea in Oregon five years ago. I was initially surprised they would send fries back, but you know, they had a point. When I returned to Van I noticed our fries were served hot, wherever I had them. The first time I sent fries back was a year later in London (yeah, shocker). Byrons, they were very apologetic, and watching the English apologize is amusing because it’s actually genuine.
But that’s so 2014.
In 2019 this would have been the third time in Vancouver I’d have to return fries, and if that isn’t proof of my belief standards have fallen off a cliff in this town since, nothing else will.
So what’s happened Cactus Club? It used to be so much fun going to have a meal before you were bought out and replicated all over the city like a plague – and I’m talking a while ago and more, when the menus were constructed from Gary Larson Far Side cartoons, so it didn’t matter if your server took three hours to take your order because you were entertained. Hell, I have sepia memories of Gary Larson cows hanging from the ceiling.
I don’t want be like one of those old guys in the 90s who used to harp on how good the 70s were and you’d chuckle at how ancient and antiquated their world views were, but here I am. Fuck.
My face is contorted.
ME: $50 … and… so average
FRIEND: I know what you’re saying, but you’re paying for the view.
ME: I’m looking at three TV’s.
The veggie burger was very good, the fries were crappy and a half-size portion compared to the 90s (there, I said it), and was left hungry so I ordered a lava cake that didn’t taste fresh and the lava was more like runny hot chocolate sewage.
And there was glass of wine, because I couldn’t bring myself to spend over $8 on a sleeve of beer that would only ever reach 12oz of its stated 14. I’d rather self-immolate than order a beer in a Vancouver restaurant.
For $10 more I could actually go to a much better restaurant, but that’s reservation, more special event, and way too datey for a catch up with a married friend when the initial plan was to have dinner at their house because we’re both on budgets.
We blew it.
With budgeting I’m like a fiscally conservative government, balance the day-to-day budget, load long-term debt with a series of one-off’s, and tout my genius.
Hey, what’s good for the goose...
My weekday budget is pretty tight, a third of it essentially goes on hot water, and charity collectors on the street can guilt me all they want, but I’m paying for a mental break that stops them collecting for me. And I have a reputation to maintain, at 49thP, they call me Mr. Oolong.
* To confirm, I’m an absolute joy to hang out with.