Where have I been and Restaurant Review

Dead. Wrung out. Sapped. Dry.

That about describes it. I just have not had the will to write lately. Haven't had much interesting to say, much less think.

However, I am going to change that today and write about something that has been stuck in my craw for a long time... a restaurant review.

I want to review East West restaurant in Fresno.

The food is good... you can select from some tasty Chinese (the East) or other tasty items, like pastrami or burgers or salad (West). And the food is consistently good.

But I will NEVER eat there again. Why, you ask? Consistently poor customer service. Let me give you a run-down of some of the things I have encountered at the restaurant:

• The first time I ate there, it took 40 minutes before a waiter took our order.
• On almost every visit, someone at the table does not get exactly what they ordered.
• On a recent visit, I was told by my waiter that he did not have time to take my take-out order. Strange... he had time to take my order for inside the restaurant a few minutes earlier. I kind of felt like telling him, "That's OK. When the bill comes, I doubt I'll have time to pay for the food."
• On my most recent visit, I was with a group and had no cash, so I asked for a separate check. I was told by my waiter that the management was "trying to get away from doing separate checks." I wonder... if I came in all by myself, would they give me my own check or would they put me on someone else's tab? This was the staw - one of very may - that finally broke the camel's back.
  
• Oh yeah, not only would they not allow me to pay separately (BTW, I was the only one in our group who wanted a separate check - was it that hard to write up two checks?), they also got my order wrong - steamed rice instead of fried rice. And instead of saying, "I'm very sorry, sir, let me get you some fried rice," they took my whole order back and I waited for 5 minutes for my plate to come back while my friends ate their lunch. Are times that hard that a restaurant can't afford to take a dime's worth of rice as a loss?

So, if you in Fresno, don't eat at East West. Yes, the food is good, but is it worth it? I think I have some to the point in my life where I am looking for good service AND good food. East West doesn't have it.