Havana Road - Towson, MD

Yesterday we ate at Havana Road.  Amy had a Groupon for $20 that I think she paid $10 for.

http://havanaroad.com/

There was nothing to be impressed about.  And I tried.

We got there, went inside, and told the lady that we would sit outside.  It was a beautiful day.  Warm with nice breezes blowing.  As with so many of these outings, we chose something we could walk to from work.

Sidebar:  We didn't realize that it was Restaurant Week. Oops.  There was a guy with a camera on Pennsylvania, and a girl with a microphone.  The stopped us to interview us.  I quickly stepped out of frame, leaving Amy to bask in the glow of the camera.  The interviewer said "Are you going to just leave her like that?" with a smile on her face.  I said, "Yup."  And smiled right back.  Amy is the more outgoing one.  I am a programmer for crying out loud!  TV is for watching other people on, not myself!  Haha.  The lady asked how we relieved the guilt about eating at Restaurant Week.  Amy smirked and answered, "Well, we walk here from work, so we are getting our exercise!"  The funny thing being that neither of us remembered it was Restaurant Week before they had stopped us, and we try to walk to lunch whenever possible.  Gotta take all the exercise we can get!  :)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We ordered drinks while inside.  We had been here once before and remembered that it was very, very slow last time.  Then we sat down.  She brought us our drinks, and Amy made the fatal error of telling the lady we needed more time browsing the menus.

She finally came back like ten minutes later.  Yep, this is the slowness I remember.  She came back as I was getting up to go get her.

We ordered the Arroz Con Pollo.  I remember it as being good last time.  When it finally came out, my memory was breaking apart around the edges.  I didn't remember this taste!  It was very tomato saucy.

Well, we finished and needed boxes.  So we waited for what felt like ten minutes or so and finally got the boxes and the check.

Walking away, I told the waitress Thank You.  She said "Yeah".  I think they call that service here.


Ratings (0 bad -5 fantastic)
Food: 2
Service: 1.5
Ambiance: 3, cause it was a beautiful day in Towson

Take home message:  You better have a pretty compelling reason for dragging me back here if I am not feeling like having a leisurely lunch.

India Palace, Cockeysville, MD

Today, Amy and I went to India Palace in Cockeysville to use a Groupon she bought last week.

I think we had both been there before, but neither of us recalled a remarkable experience, so it was time to try again.  And we had a Groupon.  And we wanted Indian.  Not too hard of a choice really!

The Groupon was bought for $15 and gave us $30 worth of spending power.  It was not available for use on the buffet, but that wasn't surprising.  For the most part, they never are.

First of all, we got there and the place was packed.  Our memories of this place was one of abject emptiness, so having almost every table full was a complete shock.

Eventually, one of the two guys running things in the front found us, and took us to a table.  Amy grabbed a couple of menus on the way, correctly surmising that this guy thought we were here for the buffet.

We sat down.

And we waited.

The other guy gave us some water.

And we waited.

He finally came back and took our order.  Amy ordered a diet coke, chicken tikka masala - spicy, and some naan.  I, being entirely unoriginal and not very experimental, ordered a coke and chicken tikka masala.  The waiter kind of grunted noncommittally, we weren't entirely sure that he had really paid attention, then ran off to somewhere else.  I don't think he even wrote my order down.  Amy said, "I hope yours doesn't come back spicy."  I agreed.  In addition to not being very experimental when it comes to food, I also don't like spicy.

Then we waited.

We were at lunch, and lunch is supposed to be one hour long.  Well, looks like an extended lunch for us.

And we waited.

I was starting to wonder if he had forgotten about us.  In that time, we had plenty of opportunity to speculate that the large party taking up most of their resources was probably a retirement party, that there were only two waiters working the approximately 30 or so tables, that the two men behind Amy took their dirty plates back up to the buffet for their next fill, the fan kept tickling my neck, causing Amy to wonder why it hadn't actually sucked up my ponytail and try to kill me, that is was getting a little bit warm in there, and finally, the idea to start a blog about our dining experiences.

We were both so intrigued by this idea, that we talked about it quite a bit during our incredible wait, and, as such things go, a blog is born!

Finally our food arrived.  Well, the chicken tikka masala and the naan arrived.  We still hadn't gotten our cokes.  and he hadn't brought us rice yet.  I'll be the first to admit that I don't really know much about Indian food, but I was reasonably certain that chicken tikka masala came with rice.  We nibbled on the naan, dipping it into the sauce.  Amy's dish had come back pretty spicy, and mine, not so much.  He was listening to us after all!!

I mentioned to Amy that I thought he had forgotten our drinks.  Then lo and behold, I see him coming back with two cokes and some rice!  Finally!

First, a drink of my soda.  I waited so long for that soda, I thought it might be something special.  Well, it was just coke, but whatever.

Then rice went on my plate, followed by some chicken tikka masala.  This was the result:

And it was good!  I very much enjoyed the food.  I never got my soda refilled, but the water was always refilled, and at least the food wasn't terrible.  Quite the opposite in fact.

Finally finished, it took us a while to get the boxes for our leftovers.  But he brought out some more rice for us to take with us, so that was nice.  Then he brought the check and some rice pudding stuff that wasn't really sweet, and some donut like things that were pretty sweet, soaking in honey.  They were both fair on their own.  The donuts were a little to sweet for me at first, but when I followed it up with the rice pudding, it kind of evened itself out.

Overall, not too bad of an experience, though the service wasn't all it could have been, but considering the place was packed and there were only two servers, I got the idea this wasn't their usual speed.  And while at first the waiter seemed rude, by the end, he just seemed harried.

On a side note:  We scoped the buffet out a little bit.  It looks like it has a good selection, better than some other places I have seen.  They had naan on the buffet, the classics - chicken tikka masala and tandoori chicken - and two soups.  I didn't look to see what kind of soup they had, I am not really a soup kinda gal.

Ratings (0 bad -5 fantastic)

Food: 4
Service: 2.5
Ambiance: 2.5

Take home message:  I would go back for the food.