Restaurant Review Times Two

Sunday we spent all day out so we ended up dining out for both brunch and dinner. 

 

For brunch we headed to Arcos Mexican Restaurant to use a Living Social voucher I purchased a few months back that would be expiring in early July.  Before I purchased the voucher I scoped out the website to make sure I would have some options and was really excited to see they have an entire vegetarian section on their menu.  Of course something's wrong with their website so you can't actually see the vegetarian menu online, but I thought just having it was a good sign. 

When we walked inside the place felt like it was about 120 degrees, but fortunately they have a pretty little (covered) back patio where we could sit.  Normally I would have preferred indoor seating with the weather (it was about 85 degrees), but not when it's hotter inside than out! 

 

Unfortunately the service was not so stellar.  I'm not sure why everything was so slow, because there was no one inside the restaurant at all, and only about 10 tables seated outside (and 3-4 servers - it looked like the host was helping out).  It had actually gotten to the point that everyone was clapping whenever a table finally got their food.  It was pretty ridiculous. 

 

It also took us a while to get our orders worked out because my voucher was for two entrees and two drinks, but when we were first seated our server said we could only order off a special menu he gave us - which of course didn't have a single vegetarian offering.   After a while of us trying to figure out what we could take off the items to make them vegetarian or vegan I finally asked if we could order off the regular menu's vegetarian section and he said that was fine - not sure why it wasn't presented as an option in the first place ...

 

I ordered vegetarian fajitas, which came with a ton of stir fried veggies, lettuce and pico, rice, and beans - unfortunately my beans were topped with cheese, so I just scraped some off the sides and left the rest to my boyfriend. 

And of course I ordered a margarita to drink!  But no blender for frozen margaritas :( 

 

All-in-all, we both gave this place a giant thumbs down.  The food wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't anything to seek out again.  And the service was just beyond horrible.  The wait staff didn't give the impression that they were all brand new at their jobs, but they were running around like it was super busy when it just wasn't.  When my boyfriend's order came he realized after the server left that he didn't have his guacamole.  When a server surfaced a few minutes later and he asked about it the server said he would grab some and then never showed up.  We actually both stopped eating hoping the guacamole would appear, but gave up after about ten minutes and just kept going.  Needless to say, no guacamole came and neither did an apology about it. 

Having been a waitress one summer in college, I'm usually really sympathetic about poor service, but this was just beyond the worst I've ever had.  No one was rude, so we still tipped normally, but there's no way we'll ever be heading to Arcos again. 

 

Later in the day we were doing more apartment hunting outside of DC, so we stopped into Matchbox Vintage Pizza Bistro in Rockville for dinner.  We've driven past this place a few times and always joked that they served you old pizza (what else does "vintage" mean?).  But we'd also heard it was good, so we finally decided to give it a shot. 

My boyfriend ordered a salad to start (and I helped by having a few bites) and then we ordered a large "fire & smoke" pizza to split - with no cheese on my half. 

It was delicious!  I definitely don't agree with their "very spicy" menu warning, but the roasted red peppers and chipotle tomato sauce gave the pizza tons of flavor.  Plus the basil on top made the pizza feel really fresh and summery - and almost healthy!  It was such a good choice.  We polished off the whole thing! 

So our day of restaurant eating ended up with one winner and one big-time loser.  I guess that leaves us pretty much even in the end ...

 

When we got home I was craving something sweet, so I decided to make a milkshake with some So Delicious Chocolate ice cream made with coconut milk.  This was my first time trying vegan ice cream (though I've been reading through online reviews carefully) and I was really pleased with it.  I really couldn't taste or feel a difference (some reviews talk about the "mouth feel" of vegan ice creams being off).  You could taste the coconut, but I think that was all the better.  My boyfriend described it as tasting like an Almond Joy - which is just fine with both of us!

I mixed a couple of big scoops of ice cream with a banana and some chocolate soy milk to make my milk shake.  It ended up tasting quite a lot like my regular chocolate banana protein shakes (maybe I should have left out the banana?) but that's not a bad thing.  Next time maybe I'll try making a big sundae instead to really get the best out of the ice cream experience!