Feeling Crabby

It seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact, it seemed like a GREAT idea at the time.

Walt had come home from the Farmers Market and announced the Caffe Italia, an Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town, was having an Easter weekend brunch and that they were serving crab omelets until 2 p.m.

And y'all know how I love crab.

I was in the middle of writing an e-mail to Jeri, but left it instantly and ran out to the car so we could get there before the deadline.

We were surprised when (a) there was no line at the door, and (b) there were few cars in the parking lot.

But the place was flashing an "open" sign and there was a menu on the front door, with "crab omelet" the first item on the list.

We went in and were seated by a nice lady who brought us glasses of water (because we didn't want drinks). Then our waitress came to introduce herself and give us menus. The table across from us was empty. She asked if she should explain the specials and I said that there was no need. I was just there for the crab omelet.

It was too late for breakfast, she informed us.

We protested that the sign on the door said they would be serving the breakfast menu until 2 p.m. and it was only a little after 1. She was gone a long time and then came back and said that the sign actually said that they would serve champagne on Saturday and Sunday and that the special menu was for Sunday only. We had missed breakfast and the kitchen "was very strict about not cooking breakfast after breakfast time."

We took the menus and tried to decide if we should leave or not. Walt left the decision up to me and I finally decided that if we had a big meal at 1:30, we could have something light before we left for the theatre, since I was reviewing "Cyrano de Bergerac" tonight.

We ordered salads. Cold salads. Walt had an Italian antipasto salad and I had a thai chicken salad.

While we were making our decision, two girls sat in the booth across from us, looked at the menu a long time, had a long conversation with the waitress, which I gathered was about which dishes were vegetarian, and they finally ordered some cooked dish.

Finally, the waitress took our order. We sat. And sat. And sat. And sat.

At one point I told Walt that she wasn't going to be able to serve us lunch because by the time it came it would be time for DINNER service.

It was 30 minutes before our food arrived...and that was AFTER the girls across the aisle had been served their COOKED meal and were nearly finished.

The Thai salad was good, but when your mouth is all ready for crab and you get chicken with cilantro, it just isn't the same.

The waitress merrily invited us to come back tomorrow for crab omelets. We declined. Not only do we have other plans, but if the wait time is any indication, with the crowd which will probably show up for breakfast, we could easily spend the entire day there and I have better things to do with my Easter Sunday.

When we left, I looked at the menu and yes, it does say it is Sunday's menu, but the way it is written, it was a very easy misinterpretation to make. I dunno...If I were running a restaurant and knew that a customer had come specifically for a certain dish, I certainly would not send the waitress back with an admonishment for coming too late. And if I were the waitress, I would certainly not keep the customer then waiting 30 minutes to get the food she didn't really want to order in the first place.

But then I am finding, sadly, that this kind of attitude tends to be becoming more the norm than it used to be. Just another indication of how fewer and fewer people in customer service situations even care any more.

(Do I sound like a cranky old lady?)

However, we came home to lively puppies. Gosh these guys are cute. Walt and I sat in the back yard (because they won't really go out without someone with them) while they chased each other around and around, and explored all corners of the yard.

I've finally decided that the only way to keep Jack out of my office is to block the dog door and CLOSE my office door. It's the only thing that he can't get through--wood (though if he were to live here long enough, I have no doubt that he's smart enough to figure out how to get up high enough to turn a door knob!)