Rants and Raves

Hmmm. 10 seconds ago, I had plenty of motivation to blog. Now, I think I'm gonna repaint my nails instead. They're very chipped from last night and I just can't handle looking at them for another minute. Be be back soon.

Update: I'm back! My nails are a lovely shade of OPI's "Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees" (a dark gray inky blue) and I'm ready to rock. I feel much better about the state of my nails. Woot. Love the color!

First off, let's discuss Monk's Kettle. This very small "gastropub" in San Francisco's Mission District offers, like, five full pages of different beers (Typed in 9 point font. Single spaced.) Right away, one can see why DJC chose this place for his birthday celebration. They also have a pretty decent food menu. The problem: its VERY small, fairly pricey for beers and is overrun with an abundance of trust-fund hipsters. What could go wrong?

When we arrived, we were told that our entire party needed to be present to be seated, but because there were eight of us, we couldn't all be seated together. Ummm, ohhhh- kaaay. The place is so small that they literally couldn't seat eight people together. The host was flustered and flitted around until he figured out a way to get a booth for six and then a small table for two in close proximity. Despite having to wait over ninety minutes to be seated, all was well.

Our waiter showed up and told us we had to order food immediately. He rushed us through our entire meal. After our dinner plates had been hastily cleared, he informed us that he had been told by his manager to "move the table along". What that meant was that we either had to order more food (dessert), or we had to go. Apparently, there is a very long wait for a table on Saturday nights and they couldn't afford to have us sit there and only order beers. Ahem. Take a gander at their beer list and tell me if you've seen beer prices that outrageous before. Its not like we were all ordering glasses of water or sodas and simply taking up valuable space. I flashed my pearly whites and told the waiter that we definitely wanted to order more beer and planned to spend more money. He still booted us out. I guess when you've got a line out the door of people wanting buy your overprices libations, you can do whatever you want. The thing is WE WERE TOTALLY THOSE PEOPLE.

Fine, ass clowns. We decided to take our little party three doors up the street to a place called Gestalt Haus, but before we left, I hit the restroom. The ONE restroom in the whole place. Of course there was a line. While in line, I overheard our waiter bitching and moaning about the conversation he had with DJC about the table situation. Ok, I get it...I used to wait tables and I sure complained about a customer or two, but I made DAMN SURE that the customer was nowhere in sight. He carried on while I stood right behind him. One of DJC's friends convinced me not to confront the guy and so I didn't. But I heard everything he said and it was most certainly not professional. Ick.

When we arrived at Gestalt Haus, DJC's buddies ordered three ONE LITRE mugs of Hop Stoopid beer, an 8% IPA. The price: $18. For all three. That's $18 TOTAL. Insane. We totally could have skipped all the Monk's Kettle drama and gone straight for the good stuff at Gestalt. Well, at least we know better now. Can't say we'll be going back to Monk's Kettle any time soon. I just wanted DJC to have a good time with our friends and I believe he did. So, no biggie. YAY for Gestalt Haus saving the day!

But, I still Yelped about our experience. Yeah, I gave them two stars only. One for the beer selection, and one for the giant pretzel on the appetizer menu. Damn hipster establishment with their bullshit attitudes toward customer service.