I told my girl that I wanted a burger and a beer. I’m not much of a drinker but it just sounded good. We hopped in the car and drove for about 20 minutes to somewhere I’d never been before. We parked next to a McDonald’s—not a good omen—and then went for a walk.
We got to the end of a strip—this area looked like a typical downtown area in a midsized city—I’m thinking Sacramento without all the homeless and bums on the streets. Anyway, I see a sign that says “burger” on it. We entered the place and it was nice.
We were seated and I noticed a Hell’s Kitchen reference and then saw the name Gordon Ramsey on the menu. Being that I’m in Asia, my first thought is that this place is a knockoff that hasn’t heard from Gordon’s legal team yet. Finally, I saw enough things to confirm to me that this probably was a legit Gordon Ramsey restaurant.
I decided to order the Italian Burger, and my girl got the monthly special, the Beef Wellington Burger. The burgers came with French fries, and we placed a drink order for two lemonades and of course a beer.
My last and only other experience in a Gordon Ramsey place was the pilgrimage that my wife and I made to Las Vegas to visit Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurant. We had to go through Vegas to get to our son’s college Freshman parent’s weekend in Arizona. Man, that seems a lifetime ago. Anyway, our tab for a Hell’s Kitchen dinner was about $350. We thought of it as a bucket list sort of outing which it was.
In contrast our meal at Ramsey’s Street Burger was a whopping $28.
Italian Burger
The burgers both tasted good. My girl was nice enough to give me a sample of her Wellington. The French fries were crisp and seemed oil-free. I’d compare them to In-and-Out but without oil. I don’t know Ramsey’s technique; they could be double fried or finished in an air fryer.
The Ramsey experience was essentially high-end food truck food.
The menu shown below is in Philippine pesos. To convert to dollars, divide the price by 60.
Compared to Philippine prices, Ramsey’s prices are outrageous, but then again, this place is located in a high-end tourist area, so his pricing is fair.
I’d give it a 4.5 or there abouts. And yes, I’d gladly go again.
I am overseas for the next two months. In honor of the occasion, I will randomly be presenting reviews of stuff that I experienced. My goal is to inform people about what I’m up to without angering my family or others that think they know what’s best for my life.
First up, is The Big Taco.
The Big Taco has intrigued me since I learned that our old hangout, Good Burrito, closed a few months after my last visit. Both restaurants are located in Lapu Lapu City, Cebu, Philippines. Finding a Mexican themed restaurant on the Asian side of the Pacific is an interesting proposition. Generally, Mexican food is a safe bet for dining out, but does that hold true here?
I learned of The Big Taco via a search on the Internet and began to follow their Facebook page many months ago. I vowed to try it when I visit the area next time. The other night we took the long drive to get to that side of the Island.
The first thing that struck me was the operating hours. My recollection is that they are open from 7 AM to 1 AM. The restaurant is a small storefront. It could probably seat 16 to 18 people. Upon entering, we noticed that there were random shopping bags on one side of the room with a motorcycle helmet prominently protruding from one. There were two female workers in the place that acted as reception and seating. Some of the tables had dirty dishes on them and were in need of bussing. The table locations were random and scattered about. We were the only customers. The seats that we chose were wet. We learned later that was the result of condensation dripping from the roof. Music was playing on a big screen television in the restaurant. It was dance club themed stuff that I had never heard before. It was loud enough to cancel-out the noise of motorcycles driving up and down the busy street.
We were each brought two menus, one for food and the other for drinks. I picked what I thought was a variety of items on the menu; however, it was pick one of three entrée choices; Taco, Burrito, Quesadilla. Then two sides. Side choice number one was nachos or French fries. Side choice two was salsa or garlic sauce. I picked the burrito entrée and chicken for the meat. For the sides I ordered nachos and choice two was salsa. In addition, I bought one each of chicken, beef, and pork tacos. This was more food than we needed but I wanted a sample of what they had to offer.
Please note that after we were seated, nobody brought us any chips and salsa. Also, it was never offered to us. Our drinks were brought to the table before the food. I don’t recall ever being asked about any refills. Service was not really anything outstanding. The girls were more interested in watching music videos on YouTube; the same ones we got to watch at a high decibel level on the big screen.
The food arrived at the same time. The combo plate and then three plates, one for each taco. The combo plate was a burrito wrapped in foil that was neatly cut in half; also on the plate was a small quantity of chips circled around a cup of salsa. We never saw any nachos, only the chips and salsa we should have been served when we were seated.
Neither the burrito nor any of the tacos had anything resembling Mexica seasoning or spice. The meat was uniformly bland and overwhelmed with a stewed pinto bean concoction that overcame everything else. The taco was presented nicely, and the contents were pleasing to the eye. Also, strangely lacking was any cheese. Sorry kids, but spicy meat, cheese, lettuce, onion, and tomato are the centerpiece of the taco. Cilantro is also a good ingredient on tacos but it too was absent. The tortilla was a nice sized one and easy to pick up, partially because it was not stuffed with much food.
We tried the burrito and then some of each of the tacos. My girlfriend, who loved the food at Good Burrito, said several times that she didn’t like the food at The Big Taco and that she never wanted to return. The pinto beans and associated juice simply overwhelmed everything else on the plate. The chips and salsa were good, the pinto beans on the burrito were ok since they didn’t use refried beans in anything we were served; however, it was a deal killer on the tacos.
Frankly, if they had just copied Del Taco’s food, it would have been better. The Big Taco makes the salsa bars in Elk Grove look like Michelin Star dining.
Per the Internet, there is a bar and karaoke area, but it is not attached to the dining area. It is a stairwell on the left-hand side of the restaurant entrance.
I would give The Big Taco two of five stars. Pinto beans are a side dish, especially for tacos, not a main ingredient of a taco.
Noticed the price of fast food lately? Wonder why it is so expensive? Wonder what happened to portion sizes? Wonder why Chili’s and Applebee’s can sling a cheaper meal and they are full service?
Well strap in, it’s going to be a rough ride!
While this blog is mostly based out of California, I am sure in your local town that you have noticed similar issues.
Quick history lesson, about 2 years ago the People’s Republic of California agreed to raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour. Keep in mind the minimum wage for other workers is currently $16.50 per hour. Fast food is hard to define in a sense, I would say any quick service restaurant with the large portion of their locations having a drive thru. I say large portion because we have 1 Chipotle and 2 Panda Express stores that have drive thru’s but the lion’s share of them do not.
This caused some issues for both types of stores; fast food and fast/casual eateries. First of all, most fast/casual think Chipotle and Chili’s types likely didn’t start at $20 an hour, their fast-food counterparts did. So, they had to work through some staffing issues.
Now a couple of years later, we can see where the carnage from this law is laid.
I am checking the KFC website right now, and an 8-piece bucket, no sides or beverage is running $25. Actually $24.59 but I digress. My colleague and I used a coupon where the same 8-piece bucket is $13.99. As you can see it’s now quite expensive, oh and the pieces of chicken are small, I could have knocked off all 8 on my own.
(Editor’s Note: occasionally, KFC coupon prices on their bulk mail fliers are actually more than the regular price they charge at their store.)
Let us compare KFC to the Chili’s located just down the road from my office. Here at Chili’s, they are willing to do a burger, fries, soda, and either a salad or chips and salsa for $11. Chili’s is a sit-down place, so I know tax and tip will be added but it’s a far cry from KFC. Oh, the chips and salsa are bottomless and they even insisted I leave with a bagof chips and a pint of salsa! Oh, Red Robin has a similar deal of a burger, soda, and unlimited fries. Again, it’s a sit-down place. No coupon required by the way!
So how can Chili’s/Red Robin do it you ask? Their stores are bigger, have a full kitchen. and lot’s of waitstaff!
Several factors actually.
First, fast-food places do not serve alcohol, this is a huge advantage as chances to upsell a more expensive drink add a massive advantage! Your typical alcoholic beverage is $10 give or take, so in essence your ticket doubled. Bringing to point #2. The longer you linger in the booth, the more dessert starts to look good. Ah, now let us add the chocolate brownie at about $9. Your lunch just became $30. But I digress, as most likely do not do this! #3 is the menu is far more complex at the sit-down restaurant. Sure, you went in there for the loss leader, but you spied that steak, or pile of nachos that look better. Well, that’s not part of the meal deal and thus more expensive ticket.
At fast food, the upsell chances are minimal. Sure, offer me the meal deal of fries and a coke for an extra $7, not going to happen when you want $25 for 8 pieces chicken. At that price, I’m washing it down with water from the tap. The other massive disadvantage is fast food is supposed to be… well fast. I do not want to linger in the drive thru, get me my meal so I can get back on the road. This is another issue as we waited nearly 12 minutes at KFC to get our order in the drive thru. Fast is key, whereas at Chilis I am not in a big hurry.
Fast food, having to be offered as cheap as possible, is another way they are behind the eight ball. As a result, they must walk a fine line on who they hire/how many they hire, again fast food is supposed to be cheap! Quality of product, as I mentioned, the pieces of chicken resembled a pigeon more than a chicken. Wendy’s has since switched to cheap shredded lettuce rather than leaf lettuce. Most places charge for sauces now. Last time I was at Burger King, my Whopper was gray, it almost appeared boiled or microwaved. It didn’t taste like much. Oh, and the Whopper, fries, and drink “meal” was about $18.
In business school they teach you, quality, price, service…. Pick 2/3. As it’s impossible to hit on all 3. The problem here is, they have now made it very hard to hit on even 1. $18 for a meal deal is a ton of money…. Oh, and in my opinion, horrific quality to boot. $25 for 8 pieces chicken that really cannot even be shared by 2 is bad as well. Fast food used to be an asset, a light and quick way, to sling a meal on the cheap. It’s the opposite now. Our Governor and the older generation of bleeding hearts, want fast food to be a career, as such, the food is priced how it is. Oh, and the minimum wage for fast food went up to, I believe, $20.70, so your meal just got more expensive. As such, the operators have tried to hold the line on price, but have resorted to cheap quality food, or very slow service.
It will not get better, actually it’s gotten far worse.
Wendy’s recently announced the closure of 350 stores this coming year. Jack in the Box closing 150-200. The carnage has started. They simply cannot compete. If you supported the fast-food minimum wage hike and relied on them for your food to boot, you reap what you sow!
On the Hook is a traveling food truck that has been stopping here about once a month. Based on their phone number’s area code, they are based out of Wyoming. Oh, on the side of their vehicle it says, “Truck 26”. I’m sure your first thought when you think Wyoming is fresh cod fish, but not mine. I’m thinking of fossils and cowboys.
Anyway, I caught up with them yesterday. Last time they were in town, I went to Super1 Grocery, but they were nowhere to be found. Yesterday, they were in the parking lot of Grocery Outlet.
Their vehicle was larger than most food trucks that I have frequented. I saw at least three people working inside. There easily could have been another person or two in it.
The menu was basic and designed for production. Fish and chips with a few add-ons.
I bought fish and chips with added coleslaw. With the tip, I was out just over $26. I waited about 12 to 15 minutes for the order. Oh, waiting outside in 39-degree weather without a jacket was cold to say the least.
When my name was called, I was given a box with the order of fish and chips and a small round container with coleslaw. I asked for a fork for the coleslaw and two minutes later I was given one. I also was not given any napkins.
I took everything back to my car to eat it. In the car I had a good supply of napkins, hand wipes, my drink which I brought from home, and climate control (i.e. heater).
The box contained three long fish sticks, fries, two containers of tartar sauce with On the Hook branding and about 7 catsup packets. The coleslaw was dry veggies and a small container of oriental style dressing in the round container. The packaging was nice looking, but I really wanted the traditional white dressing for the coleslaw.
On the Hook makes no claim that their fish is fresh. I think it is frozen (they claim flash frozen) and then thawed as needed. The batter seemed to be done in the truck. Their French fries are what I call the composite ones. They have a texture like they were molded from potato parts, not whole fresh potatoes.
The fish sticks tasted fine. My third one was kind of smashed. It had marks from the fry basket on it. I think it was on the bottom and got smashed by the rest of the load in the cooking basket. The batter was not raised as much as the other two pieces of fish. The batter on it was OK and not too oily. It reminded me of the batter that Porky D’s used on their deep-fried mushrooms.
The French fries were good. I would rather have had steak fries made of actual chunks of potato.
It was a lot of food for one person. If I had one more fish stick, it would be enough for two people. My advice is to buy an extra stick of fish and split the fish and chips meal with a friend. Take a pass on the coleslaw because it’s not served in the traditional way.
The price is higher than other places here in town. The quality was generally good. It’s too expensive for a solo meal but great for an outing with a friend. If I did buy a side next time, I would probably try the clam chowder.
With Covid now in the rearview mirror (except for some). the food/meal reviews are back.
I came across this “Old El Paso” Stacked Queso crunch kit at my local grocer. It was on the “closeout rack” marked down to $2. I bought it for a couple reasons. First, I was going to cook tacos and secondly, I had no shells or taco dirt (aka the spices) so I decided what the heck.
The taco kit contains, 6 soft taco shells, 6 hard taco shells, a packet of taco dirt, and a packet of nacho cheese sauce. The point of this kit is to essentially to make a hard shell taco (you must buy the meat, and fixings) and then put the nacho cheese on the soft shell and wrap it around the hard taco. The hard shells are flavored with nacho cheese dust, quite similar to the Taco Bell Doritos Nacho Cheese Loco Taco. I cooked the meat, seasoned it with the dirt, got my fixings ready, and made a few of these for myself.
Honest assessment? Not great, ok at very best. The nacho cheese sauce was a garden variety high school basketball/football game melted plastic type cheese. There were some pepper flakes in it, so it had a vest. The soft shell was fine. The taco dirt was your garden variety dirt, nothing special. The hard shell was an odd choice. The shells have a flat bottom so you can “stand and stuff them” a nice change from the old, you have to hold it and stuff it, but the flavoring was odd. I would describe this meal as eating nachos but with nacho cheese Doritos instead of tortilla chips. 2.5/5
Price point: $2 is a steal, I went back to the scene of the sale and found the item on the shelf a week later (likely this had to do with expiration dates) retailing for $6.99. Yikes. Based on $2 4.7/5. Full retail? Even a Biden voter would say this economy is causing these shells to be a rip off. Seriously? 12 taco shells, a package of taco dirt and nacho cheese for $7? That’s whack. Hell, a pound of ground beef cost me just $3.
Aftermath: This was not great. I ate the entirety of the shells. They were not large, think basically fast-food sized tacos. The meat, fixings, and shredded cheese were not an issue. The nacho cheese and hard taco chemical shell caused some issues. Let’s just say I haven’t seen a blow out that bad since Tampa Bay played the Raiders in a Super Bowl about 20 years ago. The processed cheese product and the hard shells I would definitely pass on in the future.
Johnnie Does
PS I was able to report back to my doctor that I am able to delay my colonoscopy another year because this taco kit cleaned everything out down there. If you’ve ever considered a cleansing routine and like mildly spicey food this may just be your ticket to better health.
Friday night, Johnnie Does and a male friend (both are straight) got together to share a meal and get caught up on recent happenings in our lives. We decided to break bread at the Macaroni Grill. I use the straight term as my co-worker made a comment that Macaroni Grill is an odd option for a couple of fellas to grab dinner. He wasn’t wrong. Some background on Macaroni Grill, it’s an Italian chain that is a rival with Olive Garden. It offers typical Italian faire, here is the review and my commentary.
Peasant bread
Ambiance: It has a cool, wine cellar/Italian castle vibe to it. It’s a dark place, but that’s ok. It seems like a “take a girl out on a date prior to prom place.” They place a white piece of butcher paper over the table to simulate a white tablecloth dining experience, this was cool. For a typical table, if you ordered wine, they draw a glass on your table, and after placing the wine on the table, you keep track of your glasses. I would give it a 6.5/10 as our table had no butcher paper and while the place was basically empty it seemed we were an afterthought. At 7:30 mind you, closing time is 9.
Create your own pasta #1
Food: As I mentioned, its classic Italian faire; pasta, fish, steak, ravioli and the like. The chain 86’d its pizza during Covid for who knows what reason as they have a fired pizza oven in the kitchen. We both had create your own pasta, you get a choice of noodles, sauce, you pick 3 veggie/type toppings, and meat if you would like it. You also get a loaf of “peasant bread” and oil and balsamic to dip it in. Overall, I give the food selection 6.1/10.
Create your own pasta #2
Overall: It’s a chain, and I have blistering commentary at the bottom here. The open concept kitchen was cool, the décor was nice, but the menu was just ok. It’s a typical chain, and as I mentioned, it’s a “take your date there prior to the dance” place. 6.3/10.
Scalding hot-take commentary: Your experience may vary, but mine was bizarre. The hostess seemed more interested in texting on her phone than trying to seat us. We were seated at a barely made-up table. Our waiter seemed pretty off, like maybe he had a hit or two on the devil’s lettuce during his break. We placed our order, and he almost immediately came back with our food, like disturbingly quickly. My friend’s order was perfect, mine was served sans meatballs. When I made comment, I was told they are there. Okay, I guess I’ll dig around. When I confirmed their absence, the waiter ran the whole plate back to the kitchen to have the applicable 4 meat balls tossed on the plate. Not a big deal, but I mean where is the quality control? Also, no offer of parmesan cheese!? I figured the waiter likely forgot, or got the munchies and ate it all. Also, there was a wild move with an employee walking around serenading every single table. I would have had him more like a “for hire” guy because he just kept walking around the store. Kind bizarre actually, like you could serenade a table for tips, but oh well. Oh, and in addition, at the top of the bill, a $2 inflation fee? F*** outta here! Make Biden pay it, his dementia laden a** caused this. The only thing I want to see inflated are Jen Aniston’s tots……okay that’s it, Troll. Quit photo bombing my post.
It’s not fair, but Macaroni Grill is in a lot of trouble as a chain, they only have 41 locations left nation-wide. They challenged Olive Garden mocking their unlimited salad in an ad, but yikes. The chain has been sold more times than Troll changes his underwear. Most recently, in 2015 Red Rock Capital bought the whole chain for 8 million. The chain filed for BK protection in 2017 and is struggling badly today. If you have a gift card, use it.
Final note: I did describe this place to the Blog Father as a poor man’s Olive Garden but it costs more.
We are back, Covid is declared over….er I mean Putin invaded Ukraine. But anyways here we go with food reviews again! Blog Father tripled our salary so we will get these more often.
A new place opened in Elk Grove near the Costco called “Nick the Greek” we love Greek people and Greek food on this blog so here we go.
Ambiance: It’s a typical fast casual (order at counter, be seated, food brought to you place). Lots of décor and an outdoor eating area. Its new, and trendy, but very small. Think like a Chipotle but smaller. You can watch the cook crew make/assemble the meals. Overall, it’s a cool concept 7.2/10
Food: Typical Greek faire, Gyros, kabobs, souvlaki, bowls, and sides. Basically, it reminded me of Ariana’s. I went with the chicken gyro pita, fries and a coke. This meal sets you back about $15. The fries I chose were the regular fries, they came with sea salt and herbs. You also could choose Greek fries, which include feta cheese, or Nick’s fries which include meat, garlic and spicy yogurt. The chicken gyro pita was solid, it was quite large, and I got a very generous portion of chicken. I also thought the fries were a generous portion. A patron next to me got a chicken kabob plate over rice, which I also thought looked great. Call it 8.7/10.
Overall: It’s a small regional chain. I learned that they have shops in Roseville and Davis among other locations. I hope they make it and wish them well. They were very busy since it was opening weekend, and they had quite a crew working there. The owner was greeting folks at the door and explaining the menu, I thought this is a needed touchpoint. Some folks are not as cultured as others and if the menu’s not familiar to them it could cause confusion and a back-up at the order kiosk. Solid 8.3/10. We will be back.
We are back in business! Folks we had to wait an agonizing few days prior to our benevolent king Gavin Newsom reopening the state, but we are back to doing restaurant reviews.
Ambiance: Hungry Pecker opened about 9 months or so ago “allegedly” since all bars were ordered closed by King Newsom. The place is an old warehouse I think they used to refurbish hot tubs out of it. However, it was very nice inside, they had a few seating tables, a high-top bar area, and a separate room where the beer making process is located. They also had ample outdoor seating. This seems like a cool place to grab a cold one with the fellas after work. While the outside could use a little fixing up, I call it a work in progress, and I give a slight pass. 4.3/5
Drinks: They had about 8 beers on tap, with typical varying alcohol amounts. A couple took the names of local streets in Elk Grove. I tried, I believe it was called the Porto Rosa Porter, it’s about 8% alcohol and it was quite good.
Johnnie Does Sr. had a light beer, he felt the same, even ordering a second. I would give it a 4.5. Just a note, I am not a drinker, basically gave it up years ago, I’ll have a cold one with my father every so often, but I choose to “hoof it home” as the kids say.
Overall: It’s a cool local joint, has some potential… quite a bit actually. I would argue between this joint, Waterman Brewing Company, Tilted Mash, and Flatland–just to name a few–my home zip code is more than covered with local brew pubs. I seriously would wonder about cannibalization.
My overall grade will look bad, and this is not the intention, but man a couple things need to get cleaned up here…. badly…..and pronto. First, the bartender gal (likely owners’ daughter, wife) had a “what do you want” attitude rather than a “welcome in” one. This was largely off putting, and she couldn’t be bothered to explain the drinks to us. We only asked about which beers are lighter vs darker. She served us and pointed to a couple tables over yonder. She came by later to check on us and lamented the very sparse crowd for a Saturday at 6pm. She said they had tried everything, axe throwing, corn hole, and even have BBQ here every Saturday, nothing has been working. Might be due to having no atmosphere and very little in the way of customer experiences. In many ways this reminded me of a fundraiser bar for a crab feed. What do you want? Ok, here ya go. NEXT! 1.5/5 Gotta get this turned around quickly.
Bonus Review: JP B QUE located in the Hungry Pecker as a food option. It’s an Indy BBQ guy, who judging by his size, looks like he loves his own cooking. He had menus out on the tables and had a buffet type set up outside. I was actually looking for some decent BBQ. Had a taste for it. There was no BBQ, smoker, or grill anywhere to be found. Odd, since, well half the experience is the smell trying to draw you in or make you crave BBQ. Weirder yet as the owner walked to the restroom right near us; he said under his breath “Its leftover from an event earlier today”. Yikes 0/5 avoid this place like the black plague! This is not a surprise as most “mobile” operations do this, rather than cook fresh they offer to re-heat after taking the leftovers from another gathering. This is a dangerous practice, first it was quite hot outside, and the pans were half covered. This causes very serious food borne illness bacteria to form. As much as I hate to say this, JP B Que will never get another look from this reviewer. Quite frankly I do not think the owner fully understood what he was doing. He could get folks extremely sick.
Proof JP has a grill even if you don’t see it at Hungry Pecker
Full disclosure: I have seen a smoker out there on the patio before, not sure why he changed it up this day. But Yikes.
Johnnie Does
P.S. I saw the attempted clean shot by the “Troll” calling me a waste of time and resources on this news site, well let me fire a clean shot at him. Dear Troll: maybe Jake the Snake would like to discuss “Thou shalt not commit adultery” with you, as you seem to love a married woman, Carli Lloyd. Stick to what you do best; namely, ogling celebrities in your basement and cranking out 1 blog a month when your mom’s not home.
Blogger Note:no business names will be used at all during this review as to keep Comrade Newsom, Fake Dr. Beilensen and their ilk guessing.
While we respect all laws here at Reallyright.com, we love small local businesses! We do. Be it the salsa bar, or the new salsa bar. All the places I review are local, some may be chains, but it’s a local flair. We recently went under a lockdown where restaurants cannot do indoor or outdoor dining, only take out. Even after fake, racist, alcoholic Dr. Beilensen admitted only 7% of folks were identified as catching the rona at a eating establishment. Good luck staying in business doing take out only, unless you’re a Chinese restaurant.
So anyway, Johnnie Does on a Friday mind you, went to a local shop to order take out. This place has been around for a while, and it’s rare to see a place on this side of town (sparsely populated) in business hopefully they survive the rona. The owner asked if I would prefer dine-in, and I said only if it’s ok. He responded saying if Newsom can dine at The French Laundry you can dine in here, and I did. I ordered my typical takeout meal here, but it seemed to taste better, maybe it was rona infected as here in CA the rona gets you between 10pm and 5am, also if you dine out or in, and seems to avoid you at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and the like.
I was not the only one dining in, the place was packed, roughly 50% capacity and all were vigilant. There was joy and a lot of don’t give an f*** going on, I loved it, why should we become slaves to a group of folks (I include both R & D here btw) saying what we can and cannot do, based on wild science that makes no sense.
The food was great, I tipped well, and I will be back. I may even bring the Chief, Troll, and William here too at some point.
Sadly, what I wish to point out is this. These places spent $$$ to buy plexi-glass partitions to go between booths, made staff wear masks, adapted to take out only, and then spent a ton of $$$ on outdoor heaters, custom over hangs, etc. Now they must go to take-out only. Money wasted or money well spent? I say the former. The rules change here in California literally every 10 minutes, and these folks have adapted, but now the push back is real. Why are these folks being punished? This will be the final nail in the coffin of most of these places, before you say; Chilis, Applebee’s, and Olive Garden are going to be ok, those are chains, the parent likely took PPP money, or gave the operators a break on fees. The small business folks will perish, and it will not be pretty. Retail will follow them down the drain, likely after the Christmas season. For context, the end of year blog party was charged $1.50 for using more than 2 bowls of salsa, folks that means this is real!
It’s sad, and I have no way of putting this lightly, the Blog Father, his better half, child, and dog all know my beliefs on this, but it’s going to get very ugly. Support your small business nearby, and tip for takeout, it may not be tradition, but these folks need it. Sadly the 90-Day Guy and others think closing businesses and ending livelihoods is the best way to beat this infectious disease. Think of someone else not yourself for a couple minutes.
RIP Local eateries.
Johnnie Does
BTW Gavin Newsom, 90-Day Guy and others, you’re jerks! Closing stores and altering lives solely for your own gain? Think of others, some of us don’t work in government.
Editor’s Note: Just to prove that Johnnie Does is right, California’s chief health official admits that closing restaurants is not related to science. Here’s the meat of the article.
… California’s health and human services secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, addressed the matter to the press. According to this expert, science has nothing to do with it.
“The decision to include, among other sectors, outdoor dining, and limiting that, turning to restaurants to deliver and provide takeout options instead, really has to do with the goal of trying to keep people at home, not a comment on the relative safety of outdoor dining.”
“We advise against anything that you can do in another way, in a lower risk way, that avoids you leaving your home…”
So, there’s no science saying that outdoor dining is unsafe. It’s just unsafe for you to leave your house in the first place. According to experts. The same experts who told us fifteen days to flatten the curve. Nine months ago. The outdoor dining ban isn’t about science. This “expert” confirmed that. It’s all about control. California doesn’t want you to leave your house. So they’ll take away reasons to leave your house. You know, for your own good. But only some places.
Cicada Cantina is a new joint that moved into the old Logan’s Road House near the Best (expensive) Buy in Elk Grove. They are what appears to be a family owned joint with the legacy store being in Redding, CA. Cicada serves Mexican food with a traditional style as opposed to American style. They had a tent set up outside to be Covid compliant, a garage area, and an outdoor dining area.
Here is the review. (Blogger’s note: we go easy on places due to it being Covid and all)
Ambiance: we will leave this blank since outdoor was all that was available.
Food: Cicada Cantina offers traditional Mexican food such as tacos and burritos, but in addition, they have some cool things on the menu, such as seafood plates. It’s what you would expect from a chain restaurant based in California. However, …
This place charges for chips and salsa. Yeah, they claim if you buy a food item, they will reverse the charge but that is petty. By the way the chips and salsa is listed as costing $7.99. Covid or not, you are a Mexican food joint, that is standard and to be expected. How about a Chinese place without fortune cookies, or an Italian place without bread. SAD!
A friend of mine ordered the Cabo Salad, it consisted of a typical cobb salad, just very little outside of wilted lettuce greens. The price for this? $14, not only did my friend say it wasn’t worth it, but it took 40 minutes to come out during lunch.
Here is an experience shared by someone near and dear to me:
“We dined there in mid-November and since its local we figured we would give it a chance. Since it opened about the time Covid shutdowns began, we didn’t know much about the place. Boy was it a disappointment. Not having been there before, we looked the menu over and asked our server questions before ordering. An item that caught my wife’s eye was a spinach enchilada that was listed on the menu as coming in a corn tortilla. My wife asked if she could change to a flour tortilla but was told by our server that it only came in corn. Disappointed, she ordered the chile relleno (think large stuffed jalapeno pepper) for a cool $17.29. The portion was large, and the pepper appeared to be deep-fried but after a bite or two, it was still icy in the middle and required to be sent back. I don’t like saying this, but icy food, and unable to change meaningless parts of a dish such as choosing corn or flour tortillas, means only 1 thing, their food is frozen. Its very expensive freezer food warmed in microwaves and toaster ovens. My chicken fajita looked to be more of the same, processed, frozen, and precooked. There is no excuse for food to come out cold. It’s even more disgusting at the prices that this place has. We are charged for fresh food and get frozen. I expect better.”
Oh, in addition to being microwave meals, my friend’s the total ticket, sans alcohol came to $50 after tip. Whoa!
I have spoken to a couple other dissatisfied customers that said they were less than impressed and based on the experiences described above, “unimpressed” is the understatement of the year!
I am going to attach photos of a couple shots of the menu and while some food looks good, look at the prices.
I am sorry it ain’t just Covid, this place is actively ripping off everyone it serves. This place is basically a very expensive TGI Fridays, where the entire menu can be found at the freezer section at your local grocer. I see no reason to visit this place.
