Chapter Text
Sameen S.
New York, NY
0 friends
1 review
★☆☆☆☆ (1.0 star rating)
I came here with my coworker/friend (let’s call her Eeyore) yesterday and this is by far the worst place I have ever been to. The food was alright but the service and ambience were abysmal.
Yesterday Eeyore was craving tacos and just would not shut up about tacos all day so when we passed by this place with a sidewalk sign that said tacos on it, she looked at me and said, “Sameen, I am going to have tacos tonight one way or another,” and so I had no choice but to come in here for some stupid tacos.
The premise of tapas bars seems to be that people are supposed to share the dishes. These dishes also seem to only come in kid-sized portions. Both of these things are stupid and did not serve to make me any happier about being forced into this place against my will.
The tuna tacos that Eeyore ordered for us were only okay. We also got shrimp ceviche, tilapia quesadillas, and an order of chicken chimichangas. Seafood is not real meat, nor is chicken, so I cannot provide a substantial review of the quality of the food.
What I can say is that Mexican food seems to come with a lot of unnecessary frills and if it wasn’t for the jalapenos I ordered on the side, I don’t think I would have eaten very much at all. Not that I did, because the portion sizes were tiny.
But let me start at the beginning of my visit here. This place was so packed (at 4:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, don’t these people have normal jobs?) that we ended up being seated at the bar. This is where it all started to go wrong.
First off, the bar stools were ridiculous. If someone ends up practically doing a hop, skip, and jump just to get onto the damn thing, the bar stools are too high. If someone ends up getting an unsolicited and suspiciously placed “helping hand” from their annoying friend just to climb onto the damn thing, the bar stools are way too damn high.
Not only do high bar stools make for an ungraceful mount, but it also slows down the dismount. People should always be able to just slide off the stool instead of needing to plummet down from a treacherous height. For safety reasons. Like if the person sitting next to you leans too close into your personal space.
Anyway, it was almost 5 o’clock, so I didn’t hesitate to order some drinks as soon as I managed to get seated on the dumb chair. They had a beyond excellent selection of tequila behind the bar, so I may have gotten my hopes up a little bit at first. They were all instantly dashed once I was told by the very annoying bartender that I could not just buy a whole bottle of top shelf tequila, and that they only came in flights.
So I ended up sampling their entire selection of tequila (and most of them were fantastic, but it’s not like the bar was responsible for making the tequila, so I’m not going to give them any credit for that). The problem with this was that I needed to flag down their useless bartender over and over again. Which was difficult because more often than not, she was busy talking to Eeyore as if she didn’t have a job to do.
I call my friend Eeyore because she is an actual ass. More often than not I am referring to her personality (she is very touchy-feely and makes a lot of overbearing innuendo), but sometimes I am also referring to her physical attributes. For some reason a lot of people seem to enjoy when she flirts with them (and she flirts with most people). The probably overpaid bartender is no exception, and quickly became yet another confounded victim of Eeyore’s lack of subtlety.
Every time I wanted to order another drink, I was forced to have to draw Eeyore’s attention in order to stop their conversation so the bartender could realize that the world did not revolve around Eeyore’s light brown eyes. Then I would have to get her to repeat my order to the bartender so that I didn’t have to end up waiting 10 minutes for one flight. The bartender always seemed incapable of hearing Eeyore unless they both leaned in very close to one another over the bartop, and the sight of this much incompetence would almost make me feel like I needed to upchuck the tiny amount of food I’d just eaten.
Further proof that Eeyore deserves her nickname: I was required to steadily take progressively more drastic action every time I needed to get her attention. I was less reluctant to do so as the amount of tequila I consumed increased, but the beginning instances of needing to lean over to whisper into Eeyore’s ear so I could tell her what I wanted were painful.
If you, like me, just want to be able to have a steady supply of alcohol on hand as you watch the bartender shamelessly hitting on the person you came in with, I would recommend doing what I did and ordering the Desperado beer. It's not liquor, but at least it can occasionally block out nauseating sights every time you take a swig.
Eventually the effects of the copious amounts of alcohol required that I somehow find my way off the precipice that they called a bar stool, in order to go to the washroom. As I was coming back, I got mistaken for a server by some moronic college students. If I twisted an arm behind a back it was only because the owner of said parts grabbed my arm when I shouldered past and ignored him.
This prompted the bartender to stop talking to Eeyore (for probably the first time since we had arrived) and come around to tower over me, as if she could use her height to make me let go of the punk. You would think she would have tried to use that height to her advantage to be able to quickly get to the top shelf tequila earlier, but instead she tried to use it here.
Service rapidly picked up after this incident, which I think is an indicator that being blunt will get you results. By the time I let go of the college boy’s head, our bill was waiting and ready for us to pay. However, it was once again impossible to communicate with the bartender without Eeyore translating and sugar-coating my perfectly understandable (if admittedly not worded in a family friendly fashion) rationale.
Overall this place is the worst and I would not return even if I could.
Also if anyone is inclined to want to call an inept bartender giant at 4 a.m. everyday just for fun, I have her number on a napkin that I am willing to give away for free. Send me a message.