In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants have had to adapt and evolve to survive. The sad truth is many fine restaurants and bars simply could not survive this unprecedented chapter in American history. The ones that have survived so far have found ingenious and inventive ways of doing business whether it's upping their curbside-to-go game or adding delivery options, or coming up with family meal packages. I'm amazed at their tenacity and determination as well as their ability and willingness to think outside the box.
I always want to do my part to keep these savvy-yet-struggling businesses going and I've been determined to try some new restaurants as time and budget permits. A local gal even created a very nifty Facebook group for local takeout options. I followed it and saw everyday how folks were raving about all the offerings from local restaurants. The coolest thing about this group is 99.9% of the posts were positive. No bashing for bad service and mediocre food. I think, collectively, everyone realized that restaurants were operating under extreme circumstances and had a myriad of new COVID-related rules and regulations to follow.
Well, now we're almost a full year into this pandemic. I figure the restaurants that are still here probably have a better-than-average shot of seeing this thing all the way through. I'm still supporting the local restaurants and I'm still trying to spread the love by trying new places where I've never eaten before. I guess my only complaint is that the social media "hive mind" has steered me wrong so many times now that I have to wonder if any of the people raving about some of these restaurants have any clue what truly exceptional food is. I'm not talking 'good' food or 'OK' food, I'm talking about a level of culinary quality that makes you cry out in joy and inspires you to jump on social media and proclaim to the world, "This is the best food I've ever tasted!" It's very common for me to read these types of reviews; people who have had seemingly transcendent. life-changing experiences with the food they ordered from a local restaurant followed by others who join in the chorus of praises on the original review.
Tonight's dinner was a prime example. We decided to try a local pizza place that we've never tried. It's a newer place that seemed to offer some unique specialty pizzas. This place intrigued me since it opened a few years ago but for one reason or another, I just never made it there to sample their food. Well, tonight was the night. I had spent a good while a few days previous reading all the posts from people raving about this place. Someone had posted on the aforementioned Facebook takeout group asking if anyone had any input about this restaurant (which, out of respect, shall remain nameless). What followed was an avalanche of unsolicited rave reviews about the various specialty pizzas as well as the wings, the calamari, the salads, etc., etc., etc. I was impressed. Although this group had a tendency to steer clear of bad reviews, there were just so many people more than eager to gush about how awesome this place was. The very next day I told my wife, "Honey, we gotta try this place soon!" Tonight was the night.
This place has easy-to-use online ordering. Their pizzas only come in 'personal' sizes: 10-inch or 14-inch. This was fine with me; everyone in my family seems to like a different kind of pizza. All four of us ordered our own specialty pizza and then we added in an order of calamari for good measure. Four pizzas and an order of calamari came to $65. A little pricey, sure, but all the rave reviews told me this place was worth the premium price. Picking up the order from curbside-to-go was easy-peasy as well. Pull up to one of their designated curbside-to-go parking spots, call them, and then a friendly gal brought the food right out to our van.
When we got home, we handed out the pizzas to their respective recipients, and everyone dove in! Sigh. I was immediately underwhelmed. Let me first state that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a pizza aficionado or expert. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. This pizza was certainly not unpleasant, but it did not come anywhere close to the level of excellence that I had established for it in my mind. I looked at my wife and my son and asked how theirs was. "OK." Certainly not the level of excitement I was looking for after spending $65. But wait! What about the calamari?! Well, again, not awful, but nowhere near the best I've ever had. These rings were dry and pretty much tasteless. I was extremely disappointed. Everyone was disappointed. My daughter, who had quickly squirreled away her pizza in her room to share with her bestie, actually emerged looking for more. She stole a piece of mine and a piece of mom's. She avoided her brother's since it smelled scary (it had crab on it -and it did smell scary, but tasted OK). So, out of the four of us, I'd say my daughter had the least negative attitude towards our pizza dinner. Again, I want to stress that this food wasn't "bad." It just wasn't as great as I expected it to be based on (a) all the rave reviews and (b) the price. Lesson learned. The hive mind on social media doesn't seem to know much. Either that, or we're just particularly finicky foodies. I'm really hoping it's the latter. Because this sort of thing has happened time and time again where we go to check a place out based on the reviews online only to be disappointed. Sometimes, we come away completely baffled as to what all the hype was even about. To witness so many people shower so much adoration on a restaurant only to discover that their food isn't all that, well, it just frustrates me. It also makes me think my wife and I should open our own restaurant.
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