Christopher "Reviewing All Over the Country" E.'s Profile

I'd call it awful, but that's an insult to other things I've called awful in the past.  My wife and I have a "banned list" of restaurants...some are perhaps eligible for reinstatement down the road and some are not.  This is one of the chosen few places that we will never, ever even consider eating at again.  

Here in Nashville, there's an abundance of these types of places.  You have Baja Burrito, Moe's, Salsarita's and Blue Coast.  If you want a quick burrito or taco, it isn't hard to find.  The best part is, most of the places I mentioned are pretty good.  And for some reason, they tend to have better attitudes than many in the quick service food industry.

Then there's Qdoba.  Where do I even start?  I ordered 3 chicken tacos...a departure from what I usually order at these places.  They placed a miniscule amount of chicken on each (and it turns out, the chicken is pretty fatty...huge problem) and asked me what I wanted on them.  

Well, I asked for lettuce first.  The lady who obviously hated her job from her demeanor placed lettuce on the first 2 tacos...but not the third.  WTF?  If you have a job, do it right.  That isn't a complicated concept.  Then, I asked for onions.  They didn't have them.  Again...WTF?  No onions?  Wow.  So then, I asked for sour cream.  She put a huge dollop of it in the middle of the taco.  No care given to spread it out.  So, when I bit into my tacos, the edges had no sour cream and the middle part was like eating nothing but sour cream.  Lovely.

We decided we wanted chips and queso.  The problem was, the chips tasted burnt.  For us, one of the biggest reasons we go to places like this is for the chips...and they were the worst I've ever tasted.

All this for 20 bucks (!) for 2 people.  Are you kidding??  Well my bank account tells me they weren't kidding...but that meal wasn't worth even half of that.

I didn't enjoy being in Miami, and I know that it's coming out in these reviews, but I can promise that I'm being 100 percent honest and objective.  So with that, I'll say that calling the Cocowalk a "shopping center" is a joke.  There are only a couple legitimate stores to shop at there, the rest of them could be in any strip mall in America.  By night, the area becomes a place for people to come out and try to impress one another with popped collars, tons of cologne and really short skirts.  The scene didn't impress me.

Let me say both times I've been to Miami I've stayed at the Sonesta, which is a block away from it.  So by now, I think I've had a pretty good opportunity to see the positives in the place...and I just really can't see it.  Apart from the lack of actual shopping, the tiny shops that can be found anywhere and the couple bars filled with people you'd probably find on "The Real World"...there's nothing else.  And it's obnoxiously loud with crappy music at night.  So if you stay at a hotel in the area, ask for a room NOT facing it.  You'll thank me later.

If you do not live in Miami, I am willing to bet you have a good burrito place in your city.  Miami, however, being so overwhelmed with Cuban cuisine seemed lacking in many departments...one of them, a good and fast place to get a good burrito.  

Here in Nashville they're all the rage, and we have quite a few good places to get them.  So when I stepped into Chipotle, I was hoping for something at least nearly as good as what I can get back home.  

And it failed.  Pretty badly.  Gauging from other reviews here, I'm far from alone.  What, you want back-up evidence??  I'll give it to you:

1)  First, the menu.  Worst menu I've ever seen.  It really shows just how much of an assembly line this place is.  First, select if you want a burrito, quesadilla, etc.  Then select your meat.  Then select your sauces.  Etc....

2)  They don't have queso for their chips.  Really??  No queso??  First place I've ever seen that lacks that.  Almost everybody loves queso.  Not everybody loves guacamole though (count my wife & I among that crowd).  

3)  The chicken I had was fatty.  At 3 different times I had to take the chicken out of my mouth because I thought I was chewing on a piece of a tire.  Gross.  

So I guess what I'm trying to say is....it was a letdown.  You don't have to take my word for it, read the other reviews too...and then avoid.

I walked up to the guy at the door and said the following:

"It's my wife's birthday, and if I don't find a good place to take here where they play loud dance music, she's going to kill me."

This was, in fact, all true.  We had left Ocean Avenue in search of better places on LIncoln Road.  It was looking grim, I won't lie.  I was getting nervous.  She was getting grumpy.  Then, the guy answered me with the following:

"You know this is a gay club, right?"

Well no, I didn't.  But, if they play decent music and make her have a good time, I don't care who is in there.  I'd never been to a gay club before to be honest.  It was everything I expected that it would be.   I'll give it 4 stars for never creeping me out as a straight guy and the fact my wife LOVED it.  I will only deduct a star because the drinks were pretty spendy and the dance music seemed extremely repetitive to me.    However, they did save the night for me and I have gratitude for that.

Oh, and one more thing.  Kudos for allowing me in with open toed sandals.  I got rejected from another club on Lincoln Road because of that.  From the looks of it, they could have used any clientele they could get.

If it ain't here, you don't need it.  They even have a huge furniture store in there.  All stores from really budget level stores to ridiculously expensive ones for the large pretentious crowd....they're all here.  And really, for the number of stores contained under this roof (and some stores outside), it wasn't that long to walk a complete lap around.

I scored a couple of awesome sportcoats from Marshalls (which is the best store here in my opinion...it is HUGE) and my wife enjoyed the Disney store, which sells overstocks from Disneyworld.  

The main drawback to it, in my opinion, was that parts of it were outside in an awkward fashion which made navigation a little confusing at times.  I don't pretend to be a human GPS system but this hybrid did throw me off...plus, who wants to be outside in Miami summer heat??  That's what I go to the mall for...to get OUT of that heat!

All in all though, it's worth a trip if you're in the area and need to do some shopping.  Plus, being shaped like an alligator is too cool.

My trip to Miami wasn't that good, really.  We basically came to the realization we won't be coming back anytime soon because it lacks the things to do of other major metropolises.....BUT, the shining light in the few days we were there was this little shop in Little Havana.  I'm not at all kidding when I say that without this experience, I'd have came away a lot more jaded.

When you're in Miami, if you smoke cigars at all, you owe it to yourself to go to a place that rolls the cigars on-site.  Cigar shops are a dime a dozen, so finding a place where you can buy them where they make them is pretty neat.  There are a few in Miami, and El Credito may be the most famous, but this shop across the street is where I'd recommend going.

We got there right before closing.  The owner lady came out and greeted us.  She recommended cigars at length based on my personal taste (I don't smoke often) and went into great detail about different blends they use and the sizes of cigars.  Then, we started talking about where we're from and the conversation veered into a more chit-chatty direction.  She was extremely friendly, spoke excellent English and we never felt as if she was talking to us just to humor us.  In fact she did most of the talking.

She even took us back into the cigar aging room and showed us boxes of cigars rolled earlier that day by their workers.  When I mentioned I would like a Cuban coffee as a pick me up, her husband went across the street and bought it for me!  I was actually only asking where to get a coffee, but he went the step of getting it FOR me, because his wife said that they make it "especially good" for him.  Well I wasn't complaining.  That Cuban coffee was another experience onto itself.

She then made restaurant recommendations for us and implored us to Email her after we got home to let her know what we thought of the cigars.

As a footnote, the cigars were good AND were cheap.  2 pretty large sticks for 8 bucks??  Wow.

Totally out of my element here.  I think I should have altered my speech patterns to fit in, but I was with my wife and it wouldn't have worked so well because she doesn't like douchebags:

"Yo dude, this party is totally awesome.  Let's go get some bitches, bro!!  I'm gettin totally wasted tonight....chicks will totally dig my frayed American Eagle hat and Abercrombie shirt.  I'm gonna go get a 7 dollar Bud Light yo!!  PARTY!!!!!  LETZ GET CRUNK!!!!"

Did I do a good job??  It's painful for me to even do that.  But I felt that was the vibe of this place.  Very frat boy-ish with ample women there to be seen.  Again, not really my scene.

The thing that I thought was odd was that there wasn't any dance floor available for people to use, even though they were playing dance music.  The stage that I'm guessing is typically used as a dance floor was being used for talent shows of people playing with fire and doing dance numbers.  I felt like I was at a talent show...an overally cheesy one, that is.

There was also this girl on stilts walking around, hamming it up with people....she was part of the talent show, too.

Here's the real crime, though....the drink prices.  20 bucks for a mixed drink and a cheap American beer??  REALLY??  Is this how you get back at us for not paying a cover??  But the kicker is that they automatically include 18 percent gratuity to every check....so, a mixed drink that's 10 bucks becomes almost 12 automatically.  A 2 dollar tip every time??  Yow!!  I wouldn't mind as much if the drinks were reasonably priced...as it was though, I felt like I should bend over and grab my ankles.

But, if you and your frayed American Eagle cap need a place to "party it up" and look at "hot biatches" ....and money is NO option....then this will work for you.

I've been to a lot of the most famous beaches in the USA...from Daytona to Panama City to Venice to Pacific Beach in San Diego to Santa Monica...I've been to quite a few.  And I'll tell you why South Beach doesn't quite measure up to most of those....

1)  There's no boardwalk.  What kind of high-profile beach doesn't have a boardwalk, anyway??  That's one of the most "beachy" things there is...it's almost criminal not to have one.  And no, Ocean Avenue is certainly not a boardwalk...it's a street with a bunch of hotels and bars full of people who want your money and people who want to be noticed.

2)  The "look at me!" quotient here is extremely high.  I know that every beach has the type of person who is there to attempt to solicit attention and act like they're God's gift to the opposite sex, but it's extremely rampant here.  

3)  In order to park you'll either need to be extremely lucky or shell out 15 to 20 bucks for parking.  Lots here absolutely gouge people.  I've never seen such a parking situation at ANY major beach, I can honestly say it's pretty unique to South Beach.  And what a downer it is...it always rubs me wrong to have to shell out a decent amount of money to park.

The only clubs I went to were ones that weren't overally snobby but I've heard awful things about the pretentiousness of many of them there.  I think a lot of people go there just because it's something people feel they HAVE to do to say they did it.  In this great country though, there are many better options.

The problem with Apple stores in general is that they get way too overcrowded and lose their functionality.  I remember when my wife had an Apple laptop and had to bring it in for service.  That had to be the most painful computer experience I've ever had -- and I've been to Best Buy!  

The last couple times I've been to this location were in regards to iPods.  Because Apple apparently doesn't believe in setting up more than 1 store in a metro area of approximately 1.5 million people, this place has been ridiculously packed both times.  Getting a person to help you can be an arduous task, but at least once you do succeed in receiving help, they're pretty friendly and knowledgeable.

So, this store receives 3 stars.  It'd be 4 or perhaps even 5 if they would do something about the difficulty in receiving service or fighting with crowds.  Can you imagine if all the teenyboppers only had 1 Abercrombie and Fitch in this area??  Not convenient....

For the people who don't live in Nashville and are looking for somewhere "neat" or "trendy" to go, I feel I must write this update.  It is absolutely necessary.  I did go back to Las Paletas....I wasn't super impressed last time with what you get for $2.50 but I figured I may as well return if for no other reason how much people seem to love this place on here.

So return I did.  I paid $2.50 for a popscicle again.  This time, I chose a chocolate chocolate chip.  Should be pretty good right?  Mindblowing because of the price?!?!  Well, first off, they didn't take care to make sure all of the chocolate chips dispersed in the popscicle...they were all gathered at the tip.  So, for the top third of the confection, it was chock full of chips.  The other 2/3 of it was like any regular old chocolate popscicle.  I paid $2.50 for this, remember.  

And then I think....I can get 6 Klondike bars for 3 bucks.  What the heck am I doing??