Strangest Restaurant at which You've Eaten

[Moopheus]

And to think the Applebees and Red Lobsters of the world want to keep us safe from all of this.

[ned]

About seven years ago a friend and I decided to drive from San Francisco to Las Vegas. I'd probably read Fear and Loathing not long before and had some kind of early 20s lust for the road and aberrant behavior. Anyway around lunchtime, it's at least 95 degrees, we're in a cow town six or seven hours out of SF with a terrible need to relieve ourselves. I distinctly remember doing so in a bathroom in a bank the interior of which was covered in green faux marble Formica, walls ceilings, counters, everything (the bank and the bathroom), angles, cove ceilings, panels. Having solved the bladder problem we went on looking for nourishment and rolled by an art deco building with a red upholstered door. Went in and found a small bar, smoky and dusty with old men who looked to have been there for decades. In the back of the bar is a swinging door. We go through and find a giant room with long communal tables. Now this is getting good. So we sit down and a lady with very tall, stiff brownish-puce hair sets a water glass like you'd get in a high school cafeteria in front of each of us and pours wine in it. Everybody in the place is drinking this. She asks if we want lunch and we say yes. She leaves. The wine is undrinkably sweet. I think we may have chatted with the people next to us enough to find out that we are in a Basque restaurant. Hunh? I thought we were in mid-west California. Ok so the food starts coming out. Soup, then bread and then many many kinds of meat, from several different animals. The bill I think was twenty bucks for the two of us. We exit into the heat stuffed and disoriented. I can't remember the name of the restaurant or the town it's in.

[foodgeek]

Can't remember the name of the nyc French restaurant offhand but its on 9th ave in the 40s or 50s. And...while we were eating...the owner (or manager) was at the back table with a pile of cash. He was counting out money and giving it to employees, and cursing. And the waiters were complaining in Spanish about being undertipped. And the food kinda sucked. Never went back.

[Maison Rustique]

About seven years ago a friend and I decided to drive from San Francisco to Las Vegas.  I'd probably read Fear and Loathing not long before and had some kind of early 20s lust for the road and aberrant behavior.  Anyway around lunchtime, it's at least 95 degrees, we're in a cow town six or seven hours out of SF with a terrible need to relieve ourselves.  I distinctly remember doing so in a bathroom in a bank the interior of which was covered in green faux marble Formica, walls ceilings, counters, everything (the bank and the bathroom), angles, cove ceilings, panels.  Having solved the bladder problem we went on looking for nourishment and rolled by an art deco building with a red upholstered door.  Went in and found a small bar, smoky and dusty with old men who looked to have been there for decades.  In the back of the bar is a swinging door.  We go through and find a giant room with long communal tables.  Now this is getting good.  So we sit down and a lady with very tall, stiff brownish-puce hair sets a water glass like you'd get in a high school cafeteria in front of each of us and pours wine in it.  Everybody in the place is drinking this.  She asks if we want lunch and we say yes.  She leaves.  The wine is undrinkably sweet.  I think we may have chatted with the people next to us enough to find out that we are in a Basque restaurant.  Hunh?  I thought we were in mid-west California.  Ok so the food starts coming out.  Soup, then bread and then many many kinds of meat, from several different animals.  The bill I think was twenty bucks for the two of us.  We exit into the heat stuffed and disoriented.  I can't remember the name of the restaurant or the town it's in.

Sounds a whole lot like the Noriega Hotel in Bakersfield. A fabulous place! Dinner is better than lunch and you can meet some real characters there. Once sat next to an ancient Basque sheepherder--toothless and had great stories! On Saturday nights you'll often see limos bringing groups of people from LA.

[Susan G]

This was more *by* a restaurant than *in* a restaurant: It was Uigurville in Beijing in 1994: Long tables set up in the road next to an overhang with a rustic open pit made of concrete. Half carcasses of mutton hanging in the open air nearby. Shish kebabs of mutton rolled in cumin and black pepper and coarsely ground salt, delicious flat bread (which was a welcome change from white rice!); Ghana beer in huge bottles. During the meal the waiter asked our help in translating documents from the Central Committee: He was trying to get permission to make a hajj, and didn't understand enough of the Mandarin characters. He didn't speak English, but another of the waiters knew French, so among us the translation went Chinese-English-French-Uigurhua. It was such an odd juxtaposition: The skyscrapers of Beijing in the distance, the smell of woodsmoke behind us; Chinese-speaking waiters with green or hazel eyes and wearing crocheted headcovers. It was a series of very happy nights!

[ned]

Thanks Deb. Did some googling and found lots of text but no pics to confirm. Sure sounds like the place though.

[Maison Rustique]

Ned, try here. It's not a very big picture, but maybe it will jog your memory!

[ned]

Hmmm. That's not the one. It was in a free-standing building, taller. Apparently there are Basques in deco buildings all over rural California?

[Mabelline]

I know of one in Elko, Nevada, and one in Hooper, Colorado, as well.

[andiesenji]

The strangest restaurant in my memory was a place named Coulibah on Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana, California.

The chef-owner was a martinet and made his customers march to his tune.

First of all one had to make reservations months in advance. It was only open on Thursday, Fridand and Saturday evenings. As I recall there were only 8 tables. Reservations had to be made for the exact number of people who would be served. Show up with one less or one more and you would be refused admittance. Also if you showed up late or more than 10 minutes early, same thing. No bar at which to linger. The wine list was excellent but not extensive. Just enough to enjoy with the meal was allowed. Anyone asking for more than the owner thought was necessary risked the ire of the temperamental man. His attitude was that drunks could not enjoy his perfectly prepared food.

The food was exquisite and one had better praise it voluably or that would be one's last visit to the place. It was very expensive and worth every penny.

I don't know how he stayed in business. Some of us who managed to get reservations more than once or twice hazaraded a guess that he had a regular job somewhere else and this was run as a hobby.

I was sorry to see it go. I drove past one day and the sign was gone and later the wallpaper store next door extended into the place where I had enjoyed some memorable meals.

I also could never figure the name. Coulibah is in the song "Waltzing Matilda" and refers to a tree. The owner was certainly not an Australian and no one I knew ever had the nerve to ask him about the name.

[sjagielski]

I was on my way back home from college for the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at Iowa State. My mom and sister had picked me, and we had resolved ourselves to the fact that we would be on the road for a good six hours.

It was soon lunch time, so we stopped at a roadside diner. I believe it was called Country Kitchen, but I may have have been mistaken since it was a long time ago. Anyway, the diner was moderately busy, a small lunch rush, I'd say. But, we were seated right away and shortly thereafter our waiter, a young guy, appeared and took our drink orders. We were starving by this time; conversation was minimal. Everything in the place looked a little weary, worn, and frayed. The waiter returned shortly with our sodas and ice teas, then took our food orders. He walked off through the swinging kitchen doors.

We waited, waited, and waited. The clock ticked by. Our stomachs were growling. Half and hour passed. We were just starting to really grumble when the waiter reappeard with one plate of food. "I'm sorry it's taking so long," he said. "I thought I'd give you a complimentary appetizer to make up for it." We gobbled up the potato skins, but this only wet our appetites. We were now salivating.

The small clock above the swinging doors counted off another twenty. "Let's just leave," my sister said. As if on cue, the waiter reappeared. "I'm so sorry it's taking so long," he said worridly. "What's the hold up?" my mom asked." Instead of answering her question, he said, "You're food will be here in ten minutes, I promise." Again, he vanished into the kitchen.

Ten minutes ticked by, then twenty. No one was eating in the restaurant, but the strange thing was that no one looked annoyed - at all. Everyone was just talking and sipping their colas. "Are we in a Twilight Zone episode?" I said. We looked at each other and realized that were were suddenly a bit creeped out. After all, if we weren't in a Twilight Zone or characters in a Waiting for Godot-esque play, what were we doing here? And more importantly, what was going on in the kitchen? We didn't want to wait to find out. We left quickly, but not before we realized that we'd wasted a good portion of our day at this mealy diner. McDonalds does occasionally serve a practical purpose.

[bleudauvergne]

Ned, try here. It's not a very big picture, but maybe it will jog your memory!

Hey, the photographer who came to take photos at my wedding also took that photo of the Noriega Hotel!

My wierest restaurant experience was also in Beijing, at a restaurant that specialized in insects. They served beer and had an extensive menu of all of the insects you could imagine. It was a really wierd experience but fun. The person I was dining with was trying to scare me, but he didn't manage to do it. I thought the grasshoppers were pretty tasty.

[nixienox]

2 Chicago memories

Ashland Avenue near Division, over ten years ago there was a restaurant I remember as Donna's Notorious Italian Cheeseburger, and my husband remembers as Dolores'. It was tiny and decorated to suggest you were in an aunt's kitchen, one who hadn't redecorated for many years. This effect was intensified by the fact we were usually the only people there. Dolores had long gray braids, granny glasses, turquoise eye shadow and wore 1972 era maxi dresses. Her cross dressing partner wore gas station attendant style work clothes. Everything was made from scratch, and when you ordered say, a vegetable omelet, you'd watch Dolores reach into the refrigerator and pull out handfuls of raw vegetables (Broccoli, carrots, etc.,) and start to wash them. The notorious cheeseburger was ground to order, and it was a good one. The effect this restaurant left was its overwhelming quality of not being a restaurant, but having to be on your best behavior at a distant relative's house, (in some anonymous suburb) while just outside the door was Ashland and Division circa 1988, which was untouched by gentrification then.

There was also a japanese/greasy spoon coffee shop on Clark Street that perfectly married the 2 disparate sensibilities. Scrambled eggs with sprouts and soy sauce. Cranky japanese counterman, with unclean apron.

[naguere]

Foodgeek's memory of the restaurant with the moosehead reminded me of a bar in Utah I went to many years ago that had an extensive collection of mounted animal heads, small and large, the centerpiece of which was a St. Bernard.

ACK!

How deeply disturbing.

Perhaps it was Cujo, Brett Camber's ill fated pet

Edited May 27, 2004 by naguere (log)

[ned]

This thread could go on and on.

Mention of Beijing reminds me of a dinner I had while visiting a friend in there. We were in a part of the city that english-speaking expats call Uighurville (pronounced Weegerville). Uighurs are from far Northwest China and their food is pretty different from typical Beijing fare. We ate something not unlike spaghetti bolognese, which was tasty but is not at all why I write this. The street is packed with restaurants and in front of each one are a couple of guys whose job it is to convince diners to eat at their place. They do this by running out, grabbing an arm, a leg, then another arm suddenly you are aloft and being carried into the restaurant. It's worth mentioning that Uighurs are famous for their ferocity, all around toughness, and strength. I'm not a small fellow so they had more than a little trouble moving me but my friend, I had to chase him down as he was whisked away. When we finally sat down to the aforementioned plate of not-really-spaghetti (in the restaurant where my friend had been deposited) we were only interrupted once. Midway through the meal, shortly after tea had been poured from a pot with a spout three feet long tapering to a tiny hole from which tea is poured in a thin stream five feet from its target, man burst into the restaurant running at top speed. He ran through the dining room, back into the kitchen and then up over wall behind the restaurant. Moments later two breathless policemen entered looking not unlike the Keystone Kops. The waiters acted as if they'd seen nothing, cool as cucumbers and the door to the kitchen had mysteriously closed. The police angrily questioned the waiters. There were denials, shaking of fingers and finally the police moved on.

These people also do a brisk business--at least they did six or seven years ago--selling shishkabobs of meat cooked on braziers that are mounted on the back of bicycles. The reason for this hybrid BBQ-bike is that for some unknown reason, the Beijing authorities don't allow the selling of shishkabobs from the back of Uighur bicycles. So it's not uncommon to see a man furiously pedaling while looking over his shoulder, smoke trailing behind and a bouquet of little sticks poking out of a little metal box on his bike rack. The shishkabobs, by the way are a little spicy, and I kind of remember cumin being a dominant seasoning. Don't remember what kind of meat they use.

edited for spelling

Edited May 27, 2004 by ned (log)

[FunJohnny]

Ouigers are from far Northwest China and their food is pretty different from typical Beijing fare.    Midway through the meal, shortly after tea had been poured from a pot with a spout three feet long tapering to a tiny hole from which tea is poured in a thin stream five feet from its target, man burst into the restaurant running at top speed.  He ran through the dining room, back into the kitchen and then up over wall behind the restaurant.  Moments later two breathless policemen entered looking not unlike the Keystone Kops.  The waiters acted as if they'd seen nothing, cool as cucumbers and the door to the kitchen had mysteriously closed.  The police angrily questioned the waiters.  There were denials, shaking of fingers and finally the police moved on. 

These people also do a brisk business--at least they did six or seven years ago--selling shishkabobs of meat cooked on braziers that are mounted on the back of bicycles.  The reason for this hybrid BBQ-bike is that for some unknown reason, the Beijing authorities don't allow the selling of shishkabobs from the back of Ouiger bicycles.  So it's not uncommon to see a man furiously pedaling while looking over his shoulder, smoke trailing behind and a bouquet of little sticks poking out of a little metal box on his bike rack.  The shishkabobs, by the way are a little spicy, and I kind of remember cumin being a dominant seasoning.  Don't remember what kind of meat they use.

This is an intersting anecdote not only from the perspective of this topic but also from a Human Rights perspective. The Uighurs are a Muslim minority group who have been the victims of human rights abuses (according to the State Dept.'s Human Rights report) by the Chinese authorities. It's possible the guy you saw fleeing from the cops was simply a common criminal, but given the treatment of Uigers in China who knows. Anyway, sorry to digress...

Edited May 27, 2004 by FunJohnny (log)

[foodie52]

Twenty or so years ago a friend and I went to Laredo, right on the border of Texas and Mexico. We went into a restaurant that must have been recommended to us.

We were the only customers. The chairs were all red velvet. The windows were covered with red velvet curtains. The walls were covered with art prints: no rhyme or reason to them. Some modern, some Old Masters, all of them ugly. There were at least 10 waiters, all in tuxes, waiting to wait on us. We ordered. The food was .....let's say, faux French. We had shrimp, scallops, fish. Now that I think about it, it's a wonder we weren't poisoned at this land-locked restaurant.

But that's not all. The electricity went out and the waiters rushed around lighting candles. It had started to rain. Every time the door to the kitchen swung open, we could see buckets on the floor to catch the drips.

There was also a piano player. He obviously had had the same classical education I had had, because he played Fur Elise a couple of times. Then the childhood pieces that Mozart wrote and every kid in America who has ever taken piano lessons knows how to play.Every time he got bogged down, he started from the beginning. A few of the waiters stood around admiringly. He eventually ran out of his classical repertoire at which point he began playing Chopsticks. Over and over, variations on Chopsticks.

By this point, we were speechless but having a hell of a good time. The piece de resistance of the meal was the dessert. We ordered Cherries Jubilee. The waiter brought out the icecream and the cherries and a big bottle of brandy. Four or five waiters stood around while the icecream was ignited on a table next to ours. The flames were tremendous. Applause was loud.

The bill came to $10.

[Pan]

He eventually ran out of his classical repertoire at which point he began playing Chopsticks. Over and over, variations on Chopsticks.

That's hilarious!

[Romaney O'Malley]

Hi guys - I live in southeast london. Mr O'M and I decided to try a restaurant close to us to see what it was like as we were trying to break our creature of habit tendencies.

The place was called Dempseys (I think it's still there) and was kind of down a side road off the main street. When we got up to the door it was locked and there was just an intercom so we pressed and asked if they were open for dinner. They buzzed the door so we just went in.

There was bar at the front of the restaurant full of these skinhead football hooligan types drinking vintage bollinger so we knew something was up but we thought we'd better follow through. We were the only ones eating. The actual restaurant was really nice but blatantly a front for something and the pricing was cheeky which made me think they weren't too bothered if they got people in or not.

Was a really nice meal the guy could definitely cook. The chef/owner came out at the end, sat at our table and started asked Mr O'M heaps of questions - I think he suspected were cops or something. After his initial questioning though he seemed to relax. He was so lovely and seemed really chuffed that we thought his cooking was good. It was very odd. He bought a good bottle of Sancerre over and shared it with us which was nice and we all just chatted away.

Needless to say we haven't been back - was just too weird - not really scary just weird....

Actually I hope they don't read this and decide to come after us - now that is a good dose of paranoia...