Gabriella Cafe
$$ American (New)
910 Cedar St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
There’s an Aphex Twin song called ‘Come to Daddy’ that reminds me of this reaction I have when they finally delivered my food. I was anticipating a vegan requested plate that had I emailed the chef a few days before and about fifteen minutes after my friend got his food, mine had cheese smothered all over this damn plate.
This was after forty minutes of initial waiting. Before I reacted, the awful server disappeared back into the mood lighting atmosphere, forever. I was running around this empty establishment with the plate in my hand wanting to kick tables, lamps and the decorative bric-a-brac and the few old-timers dining here. I found someone, not the server, either in or near the kitchen almost looking at me as if I landed at the front of the kitchen from Mars. I was irate but polite enough to bite my tongue. It took another fifteen minutes to either de-cheese this $30 vegan-requested pasta option or boil more pasta, sauté more vegetables and drizzle olive oil on top of it.
Paul Cocking, the cook or manager here at the time who probably resonates with his last name, wrote me a few days before that a vegan option can be provided before I booked a reservation on Open Table. I don’t like to make people go out of their way to provide something BASIC but warn them to have something available, as the guy emails me in caps that the “CHEF CAME FROM MILLENIUM AND WILL PROVIDE.” I was unaware that the “chef from Millennium” would provide a Barilla pasta with sautéed vegetables and olive oil and then dump cheese on it. EVEN AS SELF-PROFESSED HORRENDOUS COOK, I COULD HAVE MADE THIS AND IN LESS AMOUNT OF TIME! Whether it was lack of preparation or not in accommodating me, I would be willing to entertain eating an expensive $30 gourmet Barilla vegetable pasta with olive oil had everything else not happened because I was here with someone else for a birthday dinner. Watching one person eat while two people are hungry kills the mood for both people.
This was quite a while ago and I don’t think I have ever been more repulsed by a restaurant’s existence, ever. I wrote about this bad experience on Open Table, and their lack of response reified never directly writing reviews to people who don’t care to read them. In summary, the two plates not only took a long time to arrive, they came at different times, they were small, one was messed up, nothing extravagant and pricey as hell. We went to Saturn Cafe after this $65 joke meal and had taquitos and milk shakes delivered at the same time and for about 1/10th the price, and that were actually filling.
As for you, you horrible Gabriella Cafe:
I WANT YOUR SOUL
I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL
Useful: 4 Funny: 7 Cool: 2
7/14/2014