Et Tu, Caesar
While I am not usually a food critic, I am compelled to comment on the dinner I experienced this evening at the Marriott Courtyard Downtown in Philadelphia, PA. Tim (my husband) and I are here because he is attending a criminology conference. Not being a criminologist, I am accompanying him, doing touristy stuff, and visiting friends.
We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant-cum-sports bar this evening. At the same time, the World Series was being televised (Yankees vs. Phillies). When I got up to bring our check to the cashier, I was amused by the fact that every male patron in the place, including Tim, wherever he was sitting, was glued to the TV set above the bar (the Phillies lost BTW). I even changed seats with Tim so he could watch, and he doesn’t follow baseball regularly.
But, as they say, I digress. I ordered Caesar Salad with grilled chicken. I couldn’t understand why the chicken tasted fishy to me, and finally asked the server if they had accidentally substituted tuna fish instead of chicken. She sad no, it was chicken, but it probably tasted fishy because the dressing was really anchovy dressing(!). Tim said he has read that some people make Caesar Salad dressing with anchovies, but I have never heard of that. My salad was basically iceberg lettuce garnished with a few overlarge tomato wedges, topped with very little dressing and something that looked like chicken and tasted like tuna fish. If a restaurant is going to include fish-flavored dressing in a salad, it should advertise it as such in the menu. Caesar salad with grilled chicken should NOT taste fishy. If I wanted fish on my Caesar Salad, I would have ordered the grilled salmon topping. In that case, I bet someone would complain that it tasted like chicken.
We also had “dinner rolls” that were so hard that I asked the waitress (giving the restaurant the benefit of the doubt) if they were actually breadsticks. She said no and ended up taking them away. They had obviously been sitting around for a long time and were not fresh. If I had thrown one at Tim in a fit of pique, it might have inflicted severe damage. The rolls in question were better suited for hockey practice than ingestion. It’s a shame, because the turkey pesto sandwich I got for lunch from this very same restaurant earlier in the day was pretty good.
It is also a stupid idea to have the same person tending bar and serving food. The restaurant, while not too crowded this evening, was still understaffed, to the detriment of all. One person to tend bar and serve food and one person to bus tables is ridiculous in a downtown hotel restaurant that regularly hosts conferences. This is not fair to patrons or staff.
On another note, I guess all Marriotts are not created equal. The Hunt Valley Marriott that hosts Balticon boasts free parking, not valet parking for $45/day. Maybe it is a space issue in Philadelphia. The Hunt Valley Inn is out in the Baltimore suburbs, surrounded by huge industrial parks.
One thing that seems consistent are the carpets. The Hunt Valley Inn’s carpets look like they were designed by an interior decorator who was on a bad LSD trip. The carpet in the Philadelphia Courtyard Marriott restaurant is not as bad, but is still way too busy.
Tomorrow I’m planning to check out the Reading Terminal for lunch.