Excuse me waiter?

There is no food on my table!

:::Warning - general rant in process:::

Margie has a new job! After what seems like an eternity of phone interviews and in person interviews and online personality tests, comprehension tests (which she did very well with) she is finally leaving "The Little Troll" behind in her dust and head on to greener $$ and happier pastures!

What happens when you celebrate? You go out to dinner or something.

I chose a restaurant that is close to home, has a wonderful view of the Metedeconk River and supposedly has wonderful food.

And it was all true - basically.

So let us start from the very beginning - it's always a very good place to start.

I called "Antonino's Sunset Grille" to see if they took reservations. They did! (This is on a Saturday night). I asked if they had any openings for 7:00 PM. They did.

That should have been my first red flag. What restaurant along a coastal town in the middle of summer takes last minute reservations for the prime dinner hour?

OK...whatever.

Margie and I promptly arrive at 7:00 with our bottle of wine (BYOB) let the hostess know we had a reservation, she found our name and said it would just be a few minutes.

No biggie.

Another couple arrived after us, they too had a reservation at 7:00 - hostess gave them the same spiel. They decided to wait outside by the docks. We waited inside, which was our first mistake because it was probably 20 degrees warmer inside than it was outside which was about 90 F.

Apologies, apologies...we'll have your table in a minute folks...yadda, yadda, yadda.

No worries - it's Saturday night, during the summer...you expect this here.

About 15 - 20 later we got our table. In the spillover room with no way to view the docks, the water or the sunset.

(red flag #2)

Alan - our charming and somewhat humorous waiter told us he would get some glasses for our wine, the busboy came over and filled our water glasses.

Approximate time: 7:25 PM

Busboy - brings the obligatory bread/olive oil and seasoning dipping things in it and overfills the olive oil just a weeeee bit. No worries - we munch on the bread and enjoy the wine.

10 - 15 minutes later the hostess comes out and asks us how everything is?

Wait - what? everything? We only have bread and water.

I make the snarkey remark: "I feel like I'm in prison and we're only being given bread and water." She chuckles. Poor thing, she was about 12 she had no clue that I was serious.

Sometime later the charming and delightful "Alan" brings our wine glasses and opens up our bottle!

Thank you JEEESZUS!

Approximate time: 8:00 PM

Party of 4 comes in...sits down. Definitely a wiseguy...right down to his little leather loafers and shorts and his slicked back 5 strands of hair. His "real" wife and 2 boys were with him. Meanwhile he must have gotten up about 4 times during dinner. (maybe he has a small bladder...I dunno)

Alan comes sweating in...and announces the specials to both our table and table of 4. Then tells us he'll be back in a few minutes to take our order.

tik tok

:::drumming fingers::::

Oh..here he comes!

He takes our order and also the table of 4's order. (meanwhile there to 2 tables in the spillover room that have been sitting empty for about 30 minutes. Lot's of laughter and food in the "main" room while Margie and I enjoy our wine (on our 2nd glass now) and bread and water.

We were kind of glad we didn't get the window seat because the sunset was blinding the other people in the room who did have the view. (Poor bastards)

The sun was heating up the spillover room and I'm sweating like a horse. I excuse myself to go to the ladies and the AC is crankin' in there. I actually linger a bit just to cool off.

We get our appetizers: clams casino for me, fried calamari for Margie. Both very good.

Meanwhile we try to slow down on the wine because it's going fast. Busboy had refilled my water glass about 20 times to keep me hydrated because it's so freakin' hot in there. (we like busboy)

Salads come - Alan forgot we ordered the dressing on the side. Not a big deal...we nibble because we ate the whole basket of bread, our appetizer and a bit of salad now so we want to leave room for dinner.

Approximate time: 8:30 PM

Meanwhile our 12 year old hostess as come to us about 5 times and asked how is "everything" and I removed all snarkiness and just said: we would like our dinner please!

8:35 - charming and delightful "Alan" serves family of 4 who came in 30 minutes after us their food.

WTF? Obviously Mr. Wiseguy made a "few phone calls" and got preferential treatment.

Charming and delightful "Alan" does not even look at our table when he waits on them.

::::my Irish is getting up:::

Table of 2 enters the spillover room...they have a very pleasant waitress, takes there order, gets their drinks, and their salads all in a fraction of time that we've been sitting there.

Margie and I decide that if and when our dinner comes we will tell them to wrap it up we are going home.

Approximate time: 9:01

2 seconds later...our dinner comes.

Do we tell them to wrap it up? Nooooooooo, we did however tell "Alan" to bring us our check because we need to leave. He tries to be charming again, but it doesn't work.

Ha, ha, ha...heh, heh, heh. fake laughter ensues.

The wine is long gone, it's a sauna in the spill over room, we've been there for over 2 hours and I'm cranky.

Margie and I both had one of the specials: steak and shrimp with Jamiacan jerk sauce.

eeeeeechiiiiiiiwawa

That shit was spicy! But...to their credit, it was grilled to perfection, and it was very tender.

12 year old hostess asks yet again "how is everything". I don't know how to answer her anymore. The poor thing looks so pathetic. She knows we aren't happy, she is afraid we will yell at her, she had nothing to do with this fiasco so I just mumble...food is good, we need to leave" and she timidly takes our bill to process.

2 hours, wine is gone, sweating like a horse AND I have Jamaican spices making it worse and we are DONE.

I made another trip into the ladies to cool off for a bit in the mean time.

We take our little styrofoam containers and leave. "Alan" says..."good night Sharon...good night...oh...what is your name again?" Margie says: "Margarita", "Alan" tries to put on some last minute charm and says" oh not...it is NOT Margarita...I thought you were joking!?"

Fuck off asshole and enjoy that measly little tip we left for the busboy and the hostess because you're an idiot!

All in all - Margie and I had some great conversation, a nice bottle of wine and great story to tell anyone who asks us about "Antonino's Sunset Grille".

If they still want to go after hearing all this...that is their problem!

Good night all!