Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Did Lemony Snicket write the script for my day?

Champagne Mill Valley

Yesterday was a strange one. But more on that later. In sync with the evening, unfortunately my pre-cinema experience at Champagne in Mill Valley was not stellar. I've had a number of fine experiences here, but it was a bit off last night. Upon leaving, I noticed that the closing hour was 7 p.m., but they advertised breakfast, lunch & dinner. We arrived around 6:30 and it looked a bit ragged with crumbs and empty pastry shelves at first greeting. However since we weren't there for pastry, but a quick bite, it wasn't too noticed.

Flatbread

Dad ordered one of their newish features, a flatbread. L'Italien Flatbread to be exact. It was rather smaller than the photo made it seem, and too cooked around the edges. It was tough to chew for Dad who thought it was going to be a bit thinner and crisper. Not recommendable.

French Onion Soup

I tried a cup of French Onion soup, and was suprised that the broth was flavorless and watery, except that it definitely tasted BURNED. There were even burned bits of something floating around. The bread had no life either. And it took about 25 minutes to deliver this up! There was only one other person in the restaurant who was already served when we arrived. The person serving was quite charming, but at the point we were served it was really too late to have a change and be on time for the movie. Not a happy turn of events, but we'll come back again to see if it is a trend or an anomaly.

Yes, Lemony seemed to have written a series of unfortunate events for our evening with a little dark humor. I thought it a fine idea to have a quick dinner then movie since CineArts theaters have a Monday all day Senior discount for $5.50 and Dad loves the movies. We'd already seen "The Visitor", and were surprised to see that "Fool's Gold" that we intended to see (not rated highly but it looked light and full of adventure) had never played there, and was not playing despite The SF Chronicle listing. The darker "Then She Found Me" was playing, so we saw it. That one hit a little too close to home, and as the universe would have it, the antagonist in that particular time in my life called my cell and left a message while we were watching the movie!

Previously reviewed:
March 22, 2007
July 20, 2005

1 comment:

  1. I'm totally all over this post!!! I actually got go irritated Champagne (in So Cal) last week that I wanted to go in there and just tell them that they sell over priced, sub-standard food!
    I bought a croissant, which was almost $3!, and it was so soft and soggy. I swear that it looks just like a CostCo croissant from the bulk package!

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