Spengers Grotto

What a gross disappointment. I had heard great things about it from friends and acquaintances, so I had been eager for the chance to try it. On an idle Saturday night, Anna and I decided to go to 4th street for dinner. Its quiet and dark there at night; the options are quick food or expensive resturants.

After a 15 minute wait, we were seated and handed menus. The menus are printed twice daily, for lunch and dinner. At the top lists the fresh seafood of laptop batteries the day; many of these were alive in the past 24 hours. I ordered the Salmon stuffed with cheese, shrimp, and crab; Anna the mixed grill, and we sat back to wait. Our waiter arrived with the food, and we spent time taking pictures of it before taking a first bite. I found the food was not hot; rather it was only lukewarm. Since my dish was $18, I asked for it to be reheated. Seafood is not good lukewarm. At my suggestion, we both asked for our plates to be reheated. However our waiter nor any of how long does it take to get weed out of your system the waitstaff were to be found; finally i hailed down one. I didnt care if they even microwaved my food, i wanted that cheese to be melting when it went in my mouth. The dish wasnt just cheese inside salmon, the whole bite should melt in my mouth. The manager came out with our dishes; he apologized for them not being hot enough and said the chef cooked 2 new plates rather than reheating. We thanked him and he left; i took a bite and it was still only slightly warmer than the last! I dont know whether the dishes had just been sitting out or what; it was clear that the dishes would have to be cooked above the temperature they were currently at. I gave up and we just ate. The flavor was pretty good, but the full flavors dont come out unless the food is hot. The vegetables were stiff and flavorless; anyone could have easily cooked better by just tossing them on the grill and letting them get soft. We packed the rest in takeout boxes so we could actually HEAT the food and make it taste better at home.

Throughout this, we saw dessert trays being presented to finishing tables. We decided to try a dessert since we had heard much about them in my Decal class. One of my groupsSara, Simon, and Sean had gone there and talked about the desserts. Among the choices were a fruit cobbler, cheesecake, the birds nest with ice cream, and a chocolate bag. The chocolate bag intrigues us the most, along with the name. It was in the shape of a box, the waiter described it to have a 1 inch thick slab of chocolate at the bottom and filled wiht ice cream and berries. I said, 1 inch?? He said yes, and pinched his fingers together to form a 1/4. He brought out he dessert and lay down 2 spoons. We found they were soup spoons! By that time, it was too late to get the waiter. I noted if he came by, Id ask for the right spoons. It was really good, the dark chocolate was rich and bittersweet. And wow, the raspberry sauce on the plate was amazing. Spengers had a chance of redeeming itself at the moment. The cream has a tanginess to it, we wondered if it was lemon. We got to the bottom, and the chocolate slab was unbreakable. We were like, how do you eat this?? I pressed as hard as I could but was unable to chip off any chocolate. It was not well-designed. A regular pointy spoon would probably have worked better; I asked for a knife when the waiter came back. Thus we were holding down the chocolate with our soup spoon and slicing it up with a large steak knife. Quite a ridiculous scene as you can see At the end, we inquired about the dessert and learned it was pomegranate cream and raspberry sauce. It was NOT ice cream as he advertised. we knew the cream had more calories and fat than we wanted, and we left a small piece of chocolate unfinished. As we were paying our bill, he asked if we wanted a box for that.

We split the bill by writing down how much each person was putting on her credit card, he thought it was an innovative way to split the bill and said he had never seen it before. Ive done it many times, when we have to split bills individually for business expenses.

During our whole dining experience, I got the vibe that the waiter thought we were unsophisticated diners, taking pictures of food, and taking things to go in boxes. He was subtly rude and demeaning in his responses to our requests and questions. Even if he had any such thoughts, professionals should not reflect that in their service and comments. Nowadays it is very common to take food pictures; I see others doing it too, even those who are not food blogging. Some cameras even had a food picture taking mode. And people often ask about a dish to learn more of its ingredients and see if their tongue correctly discerned the flavors. At the end, he even asked if we wanted a box for the little pieces of cream-smeared chocolate that were left, in a joking but crude way. I was very unimpressed with this restaurant and would not return unless someone can convince me my experience will be 10x better.