A friend is visiting from out of town! Let’s go to dinner! Pizzeria Paradiso has a 45-minute wait? Let’s go to that newish place I always talk about wanting to try! Good idea, Kate!That’s a rough sketch of how the conversation went last night as my friends & I headed to Scion on P Street. Please note all the exclamation points, which denote my enthusiasm, which proved to be short-lived.
The night proceeded as follows:
- We order two sides to split. Jill & I order appetizers as meals; Jason orders a burger. I note that I am allergic to mushrooms & would like my dish without them; Jason asks for his burger without cheese. A weird conversation with our server ensues as she tells us the sides will come out first because they’ll be done sooner. Wait, what? I don’t want my fries before my meal, but... OK. I can deal, Scion.
- We wait.
- Our sides-as-appetizers arrive. They are delicious & all is well with the world & our stomachs.
- We wait.
- Jill’s meal arrives. Jason & I encourage her to eat without us.
- Jason’s burger arrives. With cheese. He sends it back & is told it’ll be awhile while they make him a new one. I inquire about my meal – without mushrooms? I inquire – & am told it’s on its way, without any offending fungi.
- Jason’s replacement burger arrives, sans cheese. Lucky him – I am still sans meal. Jill finishes her meal.
- I wait.
- My meal arrives. I cut into one ravioli & discover multiple mushrooms stuck to the bottom of it & to each subsequent piece. It seems the “bed of mushrooms” my dish was supposed to be served upon was simply scraped off – but poorly. Good thing I’m not anaphylactic, Scion.
- I send my meal back but tell the manager (who the website now tells me is the owner) I’m not interested in having them remake it because my friends are both finished with their food. She says they’ll remove it from our bill (oh, thanks) & asks if we’d like dessert. At this speed, no, we would not like dessert.
- I complain a lot.
- Our server delivers our bill, pointing out that she’s given me my meal for free – which is an odd way of wording it, since they delivered me a meal I couldn’t consume. Thanks for not charging me, though. I sure do appreciate that free dinner I didn’t eat.
- On our way out, the manager/owner shouts, “Thanks! Sorry about that!” ...Pause... I left your restaurant without eating a meal. I’m sorry about that, too.
- I stop at McDonald's for dinner & angrily consume my first Happy Meal in years. I subsequently feel both guilty & gross. Also, still mad.
There are so many things wrong with this situation, but the travesty of it all is that the food we did eat was delicious, especially the mac & cheese with prosciutto (be still my fat-kid heart). Someone in the kitchen was doing something right in terms of our taste buds – but everything else (read: the service) was a huge disappointment.
Scion, you have let me down. I went in for pumpkin goat cheese ravioli & all I got was this damn blog post & a six-piece chicken McNugget.
