My wife and I spent a pleasant weekend down in Orlando at her annual convention for flute players, so she was having more fun than work compared to her usual routine when we go to her scientific conferences. On our way back home, we stopped for brunch at a place we had tried last year and liked.
We both got excited when today's brunch menu included chilaquiles. That's a dish we both love, so we both ordered it rather than getting two things to share back and forth.
What a shock when the plates came out! For $12 each, what we got was a fried egg covered with a small amount of a thin sauce. We each got about three micro tortilla chips. I swear they were a quarter inch at the wide end and tapered to nothing over the expansive run of a half inch. There was also a tiny dab of sour cream (maybe a teaspoon?) and three or four very thin slices of jalapeno. That's it. That was the dish.
I tried a couple of bites and decided that this was just not right. I called the host over and explained that these plates simply didn't qualify as chilaquiles, which is based on a heap of chips doused in a very spicy sauce and eggs. (I didn't do the full lecture that there probably should be some cheese involved and usually even another protein like chicken). He didn't react too well at first, claiming that they have their own take on dishes. He did remove the plates, take them off the ticket and allow us to order something else.
I'm glad I didn't lose my cool, because he came back a couple of minutes later and apologized, saying he'd never worked before where they serve chilaquiles and that after discussing things with the manager, he was told that we were entirely correct about what the dish really is.
I'm pretty sure I've never before told a restaurant something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but that dish just doesn't qualify as what you called it." But that plate just didn't cut it. And I was too hungry to pay $12 for an egg and call it brunch. The $10 burger filled me up...
We both got excited when today's brunch menu included chilaquiles. That's a dish we both love, so we both ordered it rather than getting two things to share back and forth.
What a shock when the plates came out! For $12 each, what we got was a fried egg covered with a small amount of a thin sauce. We each got about three micro tortilla chips. I swear they were a quarter inch at the wide end and tapered to nothing over the expansive run of a half inch. There was also a tiny dab of sour cream (maybe a teaspoon?) and three or four very thin slices of jalapeno. That's it. That was the dish.
I tried a couple of bites and decided that this was just not right. I called the host over and explained that these plates simply didn't qualify as chilaquiles, which is based on a heap of chips doused in a very spicy sauce and eggs. (I didn't do the full lecture that there probably should be some cheese involved and usually even another protein like chicken). He didn't react too well at first, claiming that they have their own take on dishes. He did remove the plates, take them off the ticket and allow us to order something else.
I'm glad I didn't lose my cool, because he came back a couple of minutes later and apologized, saying he'd never worked before where they serve chilaquiles and that after discussing things with the manager, he was told that we were entirely correct about what the dish really is.
I'm pretty sure I've never before told a restaurant something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but that dish just doesn't qualify as what you called it." But that plate just didn't cut it. And I was too hungry to pay $12 for an egg and call it brunch. The $10 burger filled me up...
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