We went out to dinner last night to Valle Luna, a Mexican food restaurant that we used to really like and enjoy. The last couple of times we were there, however, the food was served only mildly warm and the tamales looked like they had been getting old, but since we had really liked the place and it had been some time since our last visit, we thought we’d give it another try. Last night, unfortunately, was no exception.
Not only was the food barely above room temperature, but the plates — although I’m sure they were clean — were so scraped and roughed up, especially around the rim, that they looked absolutely filthy. Worse, nobody was paying any attention to what was said and didn’t really seem to care: the hostess seemed put out that we wanted a booth instead of a table, although I asked politely both times; hot-sauce was an apparent commodity since each request for multiple dishes — one for each of us — resulted in only one dish being delivered; although the one special order dish was carefully explained and, we thought, confirmed, it arrived wrong with their claiming ignorance of any special requests — although, they did offer to replace it with a meal prepared the way we had originally asked; when we mentioned the unappetizing appearance of the dishes to the Manager who, naturally, delivered the re-prepared dish, we got nothing more than a blank stare for the few seconds it took for him to make his getaway; when we finally got tired of waiting at the table to pay our bill, the young lady at the register argued with us that our waitress would have to take our payment at the table or, at least, be the one to enter the payment at the register.
I think we’re finally done with this place — it will be a very, very long time before we consider going back again.