Too fast food

Dinner with the family at Bertucci's tonight. Kids like it cause they give them dough and crayons to play with, and they like the mac and cheese. It's a slightly better than average chain restaurant. Generally we avoid chain restaurants, but when you are bringing the kids, you are limited for options. It beats the 99, or TGI Fridays. It's about as high-end as you can go with a three and four year old. For mom and dad it's the illusion of a decent dining experience. Food is alright. Atmosphere is alright. You can get an alrightglass of wine. But there is always something that annoys me.

This is the second or maybe third time we've had this particular issue with Bertucci's. You go, sit down in the faux-elegant dining room, with faux-elegant lighting. Order some real italian-sounding dinner: trenette al bolognese (rather than spaghetti with meat sauce). You almost can pretend that you are at a real italian restaurant in the North end. They bring your alright glass of wine, your alright salad, and your dough balls. You just are getting settled in, and then within two minutes, your meals arrive. So much for the illusion of a real dining experience. You couldn't have gotten served at McDonalds that quickly.

And its not that the food tastes bad (although I always feel somewhat gross after eating there.) It's just a little unsettling to go out to a relatively decent meal that's going to cost you 60 bucks, and have the food thrown in front of you in two minutes. How can they get all the other details of the illusion right, and then screw up the pacing that badly. And, like I said, this is at least the second or third time, we've had this experience at Bertucci's.

Couple hours later:
You know, I have to strengthen my suckiness rating for Bertucci's. I feel like shit. And now that I think about it, I always feel like shit after eating at Bertuccis.