Forty Bucks of Mediocre
It’s Labor Day Weekend, so I’m in Santa Clara playing bridge. We’ve been here for 25 years or so, and have a few more left on our contract with the hotel–but now that Levi’s Stadium is up, we’ll have to find another place. Cheapskate bridge players cannot compete with free spending NFL Fans.
Between sessions tonight, Mike wanted to go across the street to the Hilton for dinner. They have a restaurant named La Fontana. I know I wrote about it a few years back, and wasn’t impressed. It’s gone downhill.
Tonight might not be fair, I suppose, because the restaurant was closed. Closed except for the fact that it was open, if you wanted to eat in the bar. Well, there were 3 television with sports on, so Micky thought this was the greatest idea since chocolate Tootsie rolls.
The first thing to mention is hotel diners are expensive. The second thing is that they tend to be very corporate and not especially good.
We got our drink orders. Linda had red wine, and instantly noticed that it was quite cold–the bottle evidently is kept in the refrigerator. That isn’t something you do with red wine apparently.
We all had the house salad. A large triangular plate full of the weeds I picked for 75¢ an hour when I was 12, but now they are “micorgreens”. Still taste like weeds to me. $8 for the plateful.
The hamburger was $18, which seems kind of outrageous. I opted for the salmon burger, which was $19. Big mistake. I was hoping for a piece of fish, but got the ground up odds and ends of what they can’t sell, on a huge bun. One bite convinced me to toss the top half and try eating it with a knife and fork. Then I gave up on the bottom half and just ate the fish. The plate was finished with a fruit medley, good pineapple and not so good honeydew.
Here’s the best thing–the waitress smelled like an angel flew by. I don’t have a particularly sensitive nose, but I sure noticed that.
A plate of weeds, a salmon burger with cheap salmon and waaaaaay too much bread and not-ripe melon, plus tax and tip, set me back forty clams. I notice on Urbanspoon.com that the place get a 45% thumbs up–the worst I’ve ever seen.
If you ever hear Mike suggest the Hilton in Santa Clara again, please hit me upside the head and remind me that I hate the place.
Totally Unauthorized 
We went to David’s and I had iced tea, Caesar Salad, and Scallops which was quite good and the total including tip was $28!!!
Take that batman….
Sent from my iPad
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Chris, Don’t think I ever mentioned, my daughter works in Hilton Corporate, back east. I forwarded her your review of your delightful dining experience. (Not that she could do anything about it, just FYI for her). Hope you all have scooping up lots of these needed red points. Andy ____________________________________