Joe E. Lewis
I had the most bizarre appetizer I have ever tasted last night. Finally the nadir of the state of American food as we know it has been reached. Leslie and I had been invited to attend a dinner and wine pairing at Aqua Terra, a restaurant at the Pala Mesa Resort in Fallbrook. We rarely visit Pala Mesa and it is a bit odd that we don't because the food there has always been pretty good. Just not on our normal geographic flight plan.
Last night St. Francis Winery was having a wine pairing at the restaurant and we had planned on going with some friends that we rarely get to break bread with. Yesterday the call came that the dinner had cancelled, a large block of guests had unfortunately pooped out at the last minute.
We decided to suck it up like troopers and show up anyway. We will bring our own wine, damn it! And we did. The meal kept skirting disaster. Our thirteen quickly became nine when the hostess mistakenly sent a bunch of our party away, telling them that the dinner was not for another hour. They never came back. Service was interminably slow. Food was pretty good, although my lamb shank arrived cold. I know that it is tough to synchronize so many orders so I will cut them a break. After all, Mercury is retrograde.
I will say that the appetizer in question stood out on the menu like a train wreck. I had to order it, the same way you have to rubberneck a bad crash on the freeway. It just sounded so perverse from a culinary perspective. But ample proof that Americans will eat anything.
Peanut butter, jalapenos and raspberry. H-m-m? I asked the server wtf and he said that the chef came from Colorado and it was a real smash there.
It wasn't really that bad. It could have been another flavor instead of peanut butter, the jalapeno tended to dominate. Very discordant, nothing I would ever order again but I had to jump off the bridge. It was too big of a dare. Like a spicy peanut butter sandwich. I think it might have had a bit of cream cheese added too to soften the blow and add further disparate elements. Yes it was an abomination, but we live in a hideous world of reality television, Louis Gohmert and all sorts of other strange perversions.
I guess the restaurant doesn't cater to food snobs like yours truly, the mere mention of the dish on the menu sending me tittering into a fit of paralytic laughter. I salute them for their courage. Most people enjoyed their dinners, as I did. Desserts were very good. Leslie loved Jim's ahi salad but did not care for her own seafood pasta.
The nine of us, with one teetotaler, drank eight bottles of red wine, two courtesy of our gracious hosts. I left feeling a bit sauced. Will give the place a few more shots. Just hold the Skippy.
1 comment:
I too was compelled to order said appetizer during our last visit to Aqua Terra. We had waited about 20 minutes for two chefs to prepare one sushi roll earlier in the evening at the bar but we were willing to give the restaurant a chance. I decided to just order that nutty dish and throw caution to the wind based on the servers recommendation - I figured it would have some sort of Thai flair. When said peanut butter/jalapeno arrived I dove right in knowing that tempura should be eaten while hot. First bite sent my taste buds spinning - all I could think was "this is definitely stoner food - someone was super baked and had mega munchies and simply assembled whatever they had in the fridge and threw it in a fryer". Anything fried is good, right? Ugh. No one else at the table would even look at the dish. I smiled and nodded sheepishly at the waitress when she inquired about the taste of this "amazing" appetizer. The next appetizer of short ribs arrived looking like some left over beef jerky that had been baked, boiled, dried and then baked some more. I could not believe they seriously put this plate in front of me to EAT. I asked for a "to go" box thinking that maybe the next day somehow this food would become appealing. Or I could give it to the dog maybe? I opened the clam shell styro pack the next afternoon, took a look down at the scary contents and threw the whole thing in the trash. This goes against all my eco-crazy beliefs...but I love my dogs too much to expose them to such horrors. Sigh.
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