Cafe Rouge – two different ways to think about a bad experience
A few years ago, things were rough at school and I was a bittermelon*. I got upset easily, turned people away from me, was critical of everything and mostly found faults in mankind. Long story short, I became a misanthrope and immersed myself in two things: anime and foreign language. Ironically, the former taught me to think more positively, and the latter brought me new friends. Then I realized that when I suppress my negative thoughts, eventually they dissipate on their own and I would feel so much better without bothering anyone with my complaints. In America, we are encouraged to express our negative feelings. People like to see and hear about problems (that’s why the daily news are mostly bad news and the reality shows are full of anger). Some people say that it’s good to let it out. That’s true, but it’s only temporary. Complaining is like eating chips, it’s impossible to stop**. Anger multiplies when it’s let loose. The more cynical I feel about a situation, the more depressing scenarios I envision, and it only goes downhill from there.
These days I try to appreciate everything more, and when some incident doesn’t seem so appreciable at first, I find it funny, which clears my mind and then I can see something to appreciate. But sometimes I lapse back into the critical mode, especially when it’s about food. It’s easy to lower my expectations and like everything. It’s also easy to write a very bad review. But it’s hard to find the good points while maintaining my high expectation. A bad review gives the temporary satisfaction of being in the position to judge. A good review for a not-so-good experience makes me appear goody-two-shoes and lose my credibility. One solution is that I only write about the good experiences. But I think that defeats the meaning of a blog. A diary doesn’t have only happy entries, why should a food blog talk only about the good food?
Every bad experience at a restaurant puts me into this dilemma. Cafe Rouge is the most recent one. Here’s my first draft when I sat down to write about it:
On my birthday, we went for drinks at Teance and then we got famished. Drinks for me are not alcohol but a few pots of tea. That’s the great thing about tea: it gives you an appetite. If you ever feel like you ought to eat something but just don’t feel hungry, drink some tea on an empty stomach, the next thing you know is that all you can think about is food. So we were famished, and we headed over to Cafe Rouge next door.
I should stress again that I was famished. Everything tastes better when you’re hungry, that’s a known fact. I could hardly wait to spread the velvety duck liver flan on my tongue and sink my teeth into a succulent slab of steak. The good thing is I didn’t have to wait too long. The problem, though, is that neither of my dreams came true. The duck liver flan was underseasoned and not smooth enough. The steak was so tough I thought I was chewing on a coil of rope.
Would a rare sear make it better? The full story goes like this: on the menu it said “Grilled bavette steak with sweet potatoes, broccoli, red wine cippolini onions and herb butter 24.” — I didn’t know what bavette steak was. The waitress asked me how I’d like my steak, I told her somewhere between medium and medium rare, she said let’s do the medium rare and if it’s too rare I can send it back to the kitchen for more sear. Turned out the cut was extremely sinewy. Even in the middle, where it’s still bright red. I told the waitress, and she said yeah well this is not like New York steak so hmm too bad…
So I gave up halfway and grudgingly waited for desserts.
We narrowed it down to 4 choices: vanilla panna cotta, chocolate streusel cake, granitas, and chocolate ice cream profiteroles, then we asked the waitress what she thought. She highly recommended the panna cotta, and said the following about the granitas: “it’s like a sorbet, if you’re into that kind of thing then it’s good”. We’re into sorbet, so we got the granitas. But granitas ain’t no sorbet, it’s water ice. Seven dollars for a tiny cup of water ice is too much. And not even very flavorful water ice at that. Huge disappointment.
So that’s my luck with Cafe Rouge. The seafood cioppino and the cassoulet that my friends chose turned out a little too seasoned for my taste, but a hundred times better than my steak.
I’ll file Cafe Rouge under “Won’t go out of my way to revisit”, although it’s really on the way every time I go to Teance.
The view from upstairs.
Here’s what I should think:
The restaurant is well-designed, I enjoyed looking from the upstairs at the people’s plates down below. My friends enjoyed their seafood and stew. Today Cafe Rouge’s dinner menu has “Grilled hanger steak with flageolet beans, radicchio and almond bread sauce”, so I wiki-ed “hanger steak”. This cut is “prized for its flavor”, which means its texture is tough. Then I clicked around and read about the other beef cuts. In the end, the steak taught me something new.
We should have listened to the waitress in the matter of desserts. Again, we went in not knowing what “granitas” was and went out knowing exactly what it was, so we got wiser by paying 7 dollars. That’s a cheap price for information.
Most customers around us ordered the burger ($14). While fancy burgers are like Rothko’s paintings to me, some people appreciate them. Maybe the rest of the menu also connects to people at such levels, which I simply couldn’t comprehend.
I probably won’t go out of my way to revisit Cafe Rouge, but its menu changes often and I go out of my way to Teance all the time anyway. When I have a more forgiving heart, and maybe a lot of hunger, I’ll stop by.
I prefer the mild, more positive view, although it’s like steamed rice. Next, I need to figure out how to make it funny. 😉
FOOTNOTE:
(*) Actually, I LOVE bittermelon! Bittermelon soup, bittermelon stir fried with egg, stuffed bittermelon. I love it so much that the first word I could think of that contains “bitter” was “bittermelon”.
(**) In high school health class, the teacher showed us a video about two anorexic twin sisters. When asked how they became anorexic, the surviving sister said that they were chubby when they were little, so one day they decided to lose weight and competed with each other to see who could lose more weight. The only detail that I remembered is that they would eat only 2 potato chips when they ate any chips at all. The interviewer asked her “How could you eat only TWO chips?!” With a lot of willpower.
Housemade charcuterie plate ($15) – rabbit pate: ok; duck liver flan: I’ve had better’s; air dried beef: well, it’s dried meat… Good pickled onion though.
Cafe Rouge bar ribs ($7) – Not fall-off-the-bone tender, but I liked the sauce.
Cioppino ($27) — dungeness crab, rock fish, mussels and clams in red wine tomato sauce. Good but too spicy for me.
Cassoulet of duck confit, garlic sausage, pork, baked beans and bread crumbs ($24) – good beans, tender duck, the sausage was too grainy (and doughy(?!)). Read more about it from Kristen’s point of view.
Blood orange and grapefruit granitas with shortbread cookie ($7) – The flavor wasn’t there.
I am glad to be a visitant of this staring website! , regards for this rare information! .
1My partner and I stumbled over here from a different website and thought I may as well check things out. I like what I see so now i am following you. Look forward to looking into your web page yet again.
2I like this website its a master peace ! Glad I found this on google .
3Thank you for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do some research about this. We got a grab a book from our local library but I think I learned more from this post. I’m very glad to see such magnificent info being shared freely out there.
4Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I’ve truly enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. After all I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
5Someone essentially help to make seriously posts I would state. This is the very first time I frequented your web page and thus far? I amazed with the research you made to create this particular publish amazing. Magnificent job!
6magnificent points altogether, you just gained a new reader. What would you suggest in regards to your post that you made a few days ago? Any positive?
7I have not checked in here for some time since I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂
8Hi my friend! I want to say that this post is awesome, nice written and include approximately all vital infos. I’d like to peer extra posts like this .
9I am curious to find out what blog system you happen to be utilizing? I’m experiencing some minor security issues with my latest blog and I’d like to find something more secure. Do you have any solutions?
10I am no longer positive the place you’re getting your information, but good topic. I must spend a while studying more or figuring out more. Thanks for fantastic information I was in search of this info for my mission.
11Can I just say what a aid to search out someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You positively know tips on how to bring an issue to gentle and make it important. More folks must read this and understand this aspect of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular since you definitely have the gift.
12I do not even know the way I finished up here, but I assumed this put up was good. I don’t recognise who you might be however definitely you’re going to a famous blogger for those who aren’t already 😉 Cheers!
13It is in reality a nice and useful piece of information. I am satisfied that you simply shared this useful info with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.
14Whats Going down i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve found It absolutely useful and it has helped me out loads. I hope to give a contribution & aid other users like its aided me. Good job.
15great post, very informative. I wonder why the other experts of this sector do not notice this. You must continue your writing. I am sure, you have a huge readers’ base already!
16I’d perpetually want to be update on new articles on this internet site, saved to fav! .
17Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Thanks
18I gotta favorite this internet site it seems very useful very beneficial
19It’s really a great and helpful piece of info. I’m happy that you shared this helpful information with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
20There are definitely numerous details like that to take into consideration. That is a nice point to carry up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration however clearly there are questions just like the one you bring up where crucial factor will be working in trustworthy good faith. I don?t know if finest practices have emerged round issues like that, but I am positive that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Each boys and girls feel the impression of just a moment’s pleasure, for the remainder of their lives.
21I always was concerned in this subject and stock still am, thankyou for posting.
22I have been examinating out some of your articles and i must say clever stuff. I will definitely bookmark your site.
23Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very well written article. I’ll make sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I’ll definitely return.
24I found your weblog website on google and check a number of of your early posts. Proceed to keep up the very good operate. I simply extra up your RSS feed to my MSN Information Reader. In search of forward to studying more from you afterward!…
25Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!
26I will right away grab your rss as I can’t find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or newsletter service. Do you have any? Kindly allow me realize so that I could subscribe. Thanks.
27I would like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in writing this blog. I’m hoping the same high-grade site post from you in the upcoming as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own web site now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings quickly. Your write up is a great example of it.
28Heya i am for the primary time here. I found this board and I in finding It really useful & it helped me out much. I hope to provide one thing again and aid others such as you aided me.
29