We checked the menu and it seemed interesting so we decided to eat there.
As soon as we entered and sat down the waitress brought us the menu, which sounds obvious to those who live in other countries but it is unusual for those living in Romania. One positive point to them.
While we were browsing the menu the waitress passed by again and asked if we would like to order drinks first. One more positive point. So we ordered a beer for me and a white wine to Ioana.
A short time later and the waitress brought us the drinks and to my surprise: In the appropriate glasses! My beer (I had ordered a draught Stella Artois) in their trademark draught glass with short stem and the white wine in a stemmed glass with a not so broad bowl, proper for white wines. Another very big positive point.
We proceeded to choose the food. I noticed that they had Beef Cutlet alla Parmigiana, which was a favorite of mine when I lived in Brazil. So I ordered one.
Ioana was feeling a little more adventurous so she ordered a burrito.
Now we don’t really need to live in Italy or Mexico to know what these dishes are about do we?
Beef alla Parmigiana is a dish typical from Southern Italy and consists of a piece of boneless meat coated in bread crumbs and fried. The meat is then put on an oven dish and covered with layers of cheese and tomato sauce and baked in the oven.
Burritos are a Mexican dish that consists of a filling of minced meat, Mexican beans, rice, cheese and lettuce wrapped in a soft corn flour tortilla and usually covered in a chili-tomato sauce.
Now based on all the positive points that the restaurant had earned so far, that’s exactly what we were expecting.
However, to our utter disappointment we realized that Beef alla Parmigiana and Burrito were simply euphemisms to hide the crude naked true:
What they call Beef alla Parmigiana was a simple, ordinary schnitzel with fried potatoes. No cheese, no tomato sauce, no oven. They didn’t even care to spill some ketchup on top and pretend it was tomato sauce.
And the so-called Burrito was an undisguised Shaworma with a small cup of un-chilied tomato sauce on the side. No corn tortilla, no beans, no chili.
I'm sure they didn’t even wave the dishes in the general direction of Italy and Mexico to attach those names on them!
I asked the waitress where’s the tomato sauce, the cheese, the chili, the beans…??? And she just mumbled “this is how we make them” and something about “our own recipe”.
I know that expecting the right food in a Romanian restaurant was overly optimistic. But after all those positive signs I had the right to have hope!
But alas, as usual in Romania hope is the first to die.
I will never, ever expect good things from a Romanian restaurant. And don’t send me messages about half-full and half-empty glasses, please.
2 comments:
For this reason we dont lose time, money and dont get angry trying to eat in a restaurant.
For me, whom i traveled just a bit, my knowledge regarding this field is divided in 2: before and after living with Orazio.
Before: the restaurants and the bars were dark places where a woman couldnt enter alone, in the least desired situation was that to be in the company of other women. In the both situations the woman is qualified as "easy", the difference between the both situations being the fact that not having company you wont feel so uncomfortable by the insistent eyes of the waiters or of the other clients (men).
The second period started full of a romantic enthusiasm, which immediately was erased by the lack of respect, education & professionalism of the workers, by the lack of the variety of the menu (Orazio says that at the custom all foreign visitors should receive a menu, because all restaurants, without difference - whatever specific or whatever name they have, will present the same meals on the table and not in the last often you'll be hit by the lack of cleanliness.
Bro, the point is that here the lack of everything is the romanian national feature and excuse - so to close the vicious circle.
Hi sis!
Thanks for checking my blog and for your comment.
To add: another thing that I find unbelievable here is the lack of pride on their work. In Japan people who work in the food industry say that first of all you must be proud of the food you serve to your customers otherwise you shouldn't be serving them. And the customers are treated with the utmost respect.
Here it seems that restaurants believe that customers are disposable. As long as you sell your product to them once they don't need to come back again. So they use all sorts of tatics to fool the customers into buying their product and who cares whether they like it to come back again for more or not. That's why places like Dominium put pompous and misleading names to their ordinary dishes. Make the customer think they will get something special. When they realize it is just the run of the mill ordinary dish, they already ordered it and have to pay anyway so who cares whether they like it or not. And who cares whether they will come back or not. As seems to be the Romanian motto: "Daca nu iti convine, PLECI!!"
I was going to say more about this subject but I realize it will become long so I think I better write it in another blog post and not in the comments.
So thanks again for reading, sis and my reagards to Orazio. We feel the same pain.
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