Adventure Four, Don Pablo's: It's Morphin time!

Each day is a different adventure; I tend to find myself adventuring more often than your average person.

This weekend my party of adventurers were motivated to go to take an arduous trek out to the sterling Don Pablo's. Now you may be thinking: “why would you take a decently long journey to go to a chain restaurant?” There is one reason and one reason alone: we heard rumors that the first Red Power Ranger, Austin St. John, was employed as a waiter at this establishment. Were the rumors true? Could we in fact meet the esteemed defender of justice in a chain family restaurant? With the childhood dream of being served tacos by the protagonist of a classic television show we set off.

One brave member of our party stepped forward to speak with the hostess. She was apparently a new employee and took the words “hey does the red ranger work here?” to mean “table for 4”. After a brief and awkward conversation with the hostess, we learned that the Red Ranger was not actually employed at Don Pablo's. This was incredibly disappointing, but that was why they were called rumors. However we were very hungry, and we were willing to eat just about anywhere at that point in time.

We were quite wary of our waiter when he first seated us, because he seemed a little bit slow. Even though he kept this sort of tone in his speech throughout the entirety of the experience, he quickly proved to me that you can't judge based on outwards appearance. Not only did he make fantastic recommendations, being that we should all get this appetizer sampler. He also gave us twice as much of everything for free. On top of that he made sure that the best part of the whole thing, being the bad assed chips, were kept coming, I tip my metaphorical hat to him for that.

No coffee in sight

Its morphin time!

Scores:
food: 3/5
service: 5/5(varies based on employee)
coffee: 0/5
cost: average

Adventure Three, Sweet Water, Bitter Coffee

Each day is a different adventure; I tend to find myself adventuring more often than your average person.

So this week I went to a little place called Sweet Water Tavern, it was interesting to say the least. Upon entering, me and my group of adventurers were quickly scuttled to a remote table in some far away corner. Well away from service land, but not quite in the same realm as the orks and trolls. Needless to say throughout the entirety of the situation we were barley serviced. At one point I was thinking about throwing my unused spoon at our depressing waitress in an attempt to procure another flagon of their rancid self-brewed beer. That seemed to be Sweet Water Tavern's claim to fame, I would believe it on the grounds that I saw plenty of people walking out with 2 liter jugs of if, but I got the sampler and could not find one that I actually enjoyed.
I also happened to order some a hamburger for $13.99, I found it lacking in the field of duty and subsequently wished to execute it on the spot. After stabbing it through the bun several times I turned my attention on a golden ball of light, yes there was one fantastic aspect of this restaurant: the rolls they had were delicious and free. Almost like little buttery balls of delight and awesome, kind of like a jet fighters or punching. My party of three managed to cleave through about five baskets by the end of the meal. Then came the end of the meal, they had several desert options, however I elected to not choose from any of the overpriced options. Instead I turned my attention to a part of the thesis of this blog: the coffee. I ordered a cup, it was presented rather nicely with a little cup of cream on the side. However it was too bitter and not very tasty. I drank it anyway. Remember if you want sub-par overpriced food, nasty beer, and just o.k coffee, go to Sweet Water Tavern. But hey those rolls are delicious!


Scores:
food: 2/5
service: 2/5(i'll take my chances with the orks thank you)
coffee: 2/5
cost: expensive

Adventure Two, Ba Le: you order TEN

Each day is a different adventure; I tend to find myself adventuring more often than your average person.

I found a little sandwich shop called Ba Le a while back. Now usually sandwiches are not really my forte`, essentially I just go to subway and forget the rest of the details. However this shop had an interesting twist attached to it: Ba Le is a Vietnamese/french hybrid sandwich mutation. They put together these fantastic sandwiches made out of shrimp, pork, beef, or chicken prepared through all sorts of cooking methods. Seriously, these things are like the Wolverine of sandwiches. They also cost a measly $3 for about 9 inches of sandwich, which you really cant go wrong with.

Do note, that this place has the 24 hours a day sign on its window. So whenever you get that 3am “i am hungry lets go get some food” you can pick up some good cheap eats. There is however one little note to about the staff and service: the night staff is generally unhappy. For instance, several trips back I made a slight mistake in ordering, one that I will advise to others to never make.

As I approached the counter I asked “Hey, could I get a number ten..err sorry. A number eleven” a simple mistake of speech that many people make. Under normal situations this would be no big deal, the person taking the order would recognize the mistake and everything would be okay. However Ba Le apparently does not put up with this shit. I received a number ten, so naturally I went up to get the order corrected. “No, you order number ten” the clerk told me. I told him that I actually ordered a number eleven, “NO, you order TEN” he told me again. So I ate the number ten that day, it was a little intense but I got over it, the number ten is still just as good as the eleven. They also had coffee, it was terrible.

Scores:
food: 4/5
service: 2/5(the day crew could be nice)
coffee: 1/5(never again)
cost: inexpensive

Map

Adventure One, Sweet Assed Ginger

Each day is a different adventure; I tend to find myself adventuring more often than your average person. As an adventurer, I require adventure fuel; and this week I stopped in Vienna based sushi and Asian restaurant, Sweet Ginger. This happens to be one of my long time favorite spots to eat for a two reasons. First, they make this awesome dish called “spicy tuna donburi” which consists of raw tuna with an orange spicy sauce dubbed “spicy mayo”, mixed in with some crunchy tempura bits, with vegetables on top of rice. That being said this dish is not cheap, get over it. The secondary reason is because I happen to have become acquainted with the owner, he hooks me up with excellent little freebies each time I come in. For example, on a cold snowy day this past Sunday, I stopped in and picked up a hefty order for my family, he sent me home with a whole pot of tea on the side. Which happened to be pretty awesome on a day with 5 inches of snow on the ground. The owner, Pete, treats a lot of his regulars this way(he even gave out Christmas presents, they were chocolates). This not only affirms the idea that I would still eat at this place even if it was named something as unappetizing as “Pete's Sushi”. But it also puts forth the notion that while we might want the end product to be fantastic, we also need to value the service that we give and receive on a daily basis as well. I strongly urge that people get to know the proprietors of the local food places that they regular. This can sometimes serve to get you tons of awesome extras. Maybe those 2 orders you just made actually totaled out to equal one, maybe you don't have to pay at all, maybe you just have an interesting conversation. Finally, I don't believe that Pete's sushi serves coffee, so the quest continues...

Scores:
food: 4/5
service: 5/5
coffee: 0/5 (that was tea damn it!)
cost: expensive

The above picture was not from sweet ginger, it was just really awesome

Located here