I'm staying at the HI Express next door for a few nights, so I'm thinking, Basil Leaf and Mucho Burrito. Winner gets a second visit. I tried Mucho Burrito, it was meh. Next night, I come into this place. The asian gal really needs to get better speaking English, it was a struggle. I ordered one of the rice dishes, beef something. Had a spicy icon next to it. When it came, it was drowned in a sweet syrupy glaze. These things were almost had as croutons but all I could taste was the sweet syrup. Not spicy at all, and not very good either. It was like really bad Teriyaki. But hey, I had been on the phone the whole time with a coworker, so the next night I thought I'd give them another try.
I decided on the pad thai because hey, that's basic, right? Every thai place has to make a great pad thai, it'd be like an Italian place has to make great spaghetti and meatballs. So I go to order, and I ask about the Gyoza appetizer, because it sounds yummy but a lot of their items have fish sauce and I am allergic to fish sauce. So it does, and I order the ribs appetizer instead. But she comes back a minute later to tell me the pad thai also has fish sauce. So we look over the menu together and she suggests a curry. They offer red, green, and yellow curry. Yellow is vegetarian, but I want some protein so I opt for red curry. She stops me and says, no, red and green curry have fish sauce. So she's pigeonholing me into one item on their entire menu, that I don't want to eat. I look at her and say, can't I just order what I want and you tell them to leave off the fish sauce? She looks at me with a deer in the headlights look. I mean, she's dumbfounded and I can't tell if she doesn't understand me or if she's just appalled that such a request to change menu item has been made. I dunno, perhaps its the food of a dynasty made for thousands of years but frankly, hey, we're in Kelowna, CA and can take the effin' fish sauce off. I won't miss it, really. After her look of bewilderment or confusion (I can't tell) I get up and walk out. She goes to have a discussion with the cook, but hey, for the customer's sake you should have bent a little more.
Mucho Burrito didn't get my business as I stood there for two minutes being completely ignored. Instead I walked to the more upscale burger joint, where the service was excellent, though the burger was overpriced. read more