Recently, about a week ago, I had a worst dining experience ever. That day, I didn’t really have any possibility to reach home for a meal, so I faced the need to eat somewhere else. The restaurant where I decided to go was a pretty cozy one not far from my place of stay. I had been there for the last time a couple of months ago and as far as I remember, it was not too bad. However, either because the owners had been changed, or simply because a chef had been replaced, the mentioned restaurant obviously lost a great deal of the quality of service provided and meal served.

I was rather hungry while the day was quite hot. I was dreaming of a refreshing dinner through the whole of the day. Thus I have decided to order a cold yellow tomato Gaspacho soup with grilled cheese. The fact is I really love the one dish and even familiar with the recipe, since I had recently made several attempts to prepare the soup at home. Even though I rather failed than succeeded in these culinary endeavors, I knew perfectly well what it had to taste and look like.  I also had to order a sweet ice tea. I originally wanted to have some mineral water, but I was definitely out of luck that day, because they had run out.

Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I observed one of my favorite dishes being irremediably spoiled. The soup was really bad, as bad as it could possibly be. First of all the soup wasn’t served as cold as it was supposed to be. The original recipe tells to cool the soup in the refrigerator until it is very cold. Well, this was hardly done, I believe. As to its taste quality, it was seasoned really badly: it was too spicy and too sour. According the original recipe the soup is not supposed to be too sick. The liquid made of blended yellow tomatoes, chopped cucumber, jalapeño, cilantro sprigs, garlic, vinegar and olive oil has to be really smooth and delicate. The consistence of the soup is actually one of the most important criteria for measuring whether the soup is a good one.  Unfortunately, the anonymous restaurant master chef failed completely to fulfill this criterion. The soup was watery, with numerous ugly chunks in it.

The grilled cheese was no good as well. It was so salty that I could hardly make one bite without sipping the ice tea (not sweet at all by the way) from a rather dirty glass. It was also so tough that the biting was very hard. As far as I know they usually use parmesan as for grilled cheese, and it can taste really amazingly. I didn’t actually know what sort of cheese had they chosen to grill, yet I must confess it was perfectly tasteless. Either it was freshly cooked or not I am not sure, yet it tasted like rubber.

The quality of service at the restaurant was far from compensating the unpalatable food. A waitress, young girl of about 22 years old, was rather rude and looked demonstratively bored. She didn’t smile to me even once. It seemed like by serving my table she was doing me a favor. Moreover, the coziness of the very place turned out to be deceptive. The tables were badly cleaned; the floor was covered with tiny bits of food all over the restaurant. Even the music was detestable.

As a result, I tried to finish my meal as soon as possible, paid a rather tidy sum, and disappeared promising myself to never experiment with restaurants’ visiting again. No need to say, I never finished my soup and cheese, though I had to finish the ice tea to get rid of the tastes of previous two. The funny thing, I am not an admirer of going out for meal. My sad experience support the idea that eating at home is always better than eating out, since you never really know whether what you order will satisfy your expectations, as well as you never know how it all is actually cooked.

However, going out for a meal is good when you feel like changing your habitual environment, as well as when you want to spend time with your friends. Moreover, there are some dishes that you just cannot cook at home conditions, either because of lack of needed ingredients of because of lack of needed culinary skills. There also happen to be such situation when you do not have possibility to reach home for a meal, and have to eat somewhere not to die of starvation. When one of the mentioned situations occur, it is extremely depressing to become a victim of some poor quality restaurant. In my opinion, when you decide to go out for a meal, the process has to be a delight, not a torture. And when instead of enjoying your dinner you strive to finish it and to escape as soon as possible, – the very idea of eating out looses all of its attractiveness. Probably, we just have to watch out for dirty tricks and to avoid being attracted by fanciful, well-promoted places. What I believe is a good method of avoiding such sad incident as mine is always considering own experience and the one of those whom you trust.