My girl M. and I were on our way to a comedy show in the suburbs, and we had time to kill. So we figured we'd get Indian food before going to the club. I picked out this place from Yelp because it had the best reviews in the area.
Fast forward to a few hours later as I'm writing this review in my head while waiting for the comedy club waitress to bring us overpriced burgers and nachos... because at Cool Mirchi WE NEVER EVEN MADE IT TO THE F'ING MEAL.
When we get there, things look good. Easy parking. The place smells great. Semi-crowded with Indian families, and it's always a good sign for a restaurant when people who are native to that cuisine choose to dine there. So, we get seated, handed menus and water, and we're psyched.
A few minutes later the waiter comes to take our order, and we already know what we want. No problem, order placed. We've now been here 5 minutes, maybe less.
Now the place is getting a little busier... in fact, soon it's nearly packed. It's been about 10 minutes now. We start noticing little things: the pictures on the wall are all slightly crooked. The table and fixtures are smeared with grease. A bunch of loose wires sticking out of the wall, wrapped in masking tape, and painted over. A random paint can is just sitting against a wall in the dining room. The whole place is just... dingy.
But, no big deal, we're hungry enough to not care. Another 10 minutes go by. The waiter passes our table, bringing appetizers to people that arrived after us. We give him an inquiring look, and he says "two minutes." M. is slightly annoyed that another table is getting food, but I reason that we didn't order appetizers so it's not a problem. Two more minutes. We're so hungry! Can't wait.
Ten more minutes go by. It dawns on us that there is only one waiter. On a Saturday night. In a packed restaurant. Although it's not his fault, this is just poor planning. So, M. gets up and walks to the front counter to politely ask what's up. "Two minutes," she's told simply.
She sits down. It's been half an hour, we're starving, and at this point we're assessing how much time we can spend on the actual meal in order to to get to the show on time. At any other spot we'd be halfway through our Chana Masala by now.
Five minutes later, dude walks by again. "Two minutes," he says, bringing appetizers to yet another table. Clearly time operates differently in this strange, dingy dimension. M. says, "let's give them 10 more minutes," figuring we can leave at that point and grab a slice of pizza somewhere before the show.
Ten more minutes go by. Then 11, 12, 13... The dude is nowhere to be found, a baby is crying, and we are considering mauling the other tables for their appetizers like it's 28 Days Later. Finally we get up and walk out. No attempt is made to stop us, or apologize, or even acknowledge that we were there for 48 minutes without being given so much as a pice of nan to gnaw on.
I know that things happen. Maybe a waiter called in sick. Maybe they had a new cook and that was his first day. Maybe there was an unforeseen chutney shortage and the owner had to run to Jewel-Osco to get some.
Even if all of those things were true, we should have been treated like the paying customers we were. We should have been given some kind of explanation, apology, free drink, some bread, ANYTHING more than just some idiotic "two minutes" mantra meaninglessly repeated to us. Instead, we lost about an hour of our lives (including the 10 minutes it's taken to write this silly review) with nothing to show for it.
I'll never go back to this place and I urge anyone reading this to avoid trying it as well- unless you are the ONLY customers, in which case you may be able to order, be served, eat, and leave before you notice the looming crapiness around you.
And oh yeah, those comedy club nachos were so, so, so, good. read more