grace b.'s Profile

I haven't written any reviews in ... a very long time, but the experience I had at this establishment made me dust off my keyboard.

I hosted a baby shower here and they made sure that every last detail was perfect and to my specifications. I have thrown several baby showers and I did the least amount of work for this one, but they made me look really good by making it perfect. I got lots of compliments, even though I hardly did a thing.

The tea is delicious, the food is fresh and tasty, and the service was wonderful.

While the location is a little... unexpected (it's in a strip mall between Steinmart and CVS) it's totally worth it to look for this little place.

I would definitely host another event here.

I needed to write an update...

I was just there on Saturday and I brought a friend who needed hair-help. Terry did a fantastic job as always!

But that's not why I needed to update.

She has a credit card swiper thingie now! YAY! I don't have to freak out if I've forgotten cash!!!

Also, her sister washes hair now. She does a FANTASTIC job. The water temperature is always perfect for me (nice and hot) and she speaks English! Terry usually had some help before, but they were usually older ladies who didn't speak much English. Now her sister is there and things are perfect at Terry's! :D

PS - My haircut is still only $25! And it looks pretty cute, too. :D

I forgot to mention his name! Dr. Cho!!!

We came here for a friend's 40th birthday party.

The service was pretty lacking. Maybe other people in my party got better service, but it wasn't great for us. My husband and I showed up slightly late (but not as late as a couple of other people who showed up like, 2 hours late) and they never asked us if we wanted anything to drink, we were shoved up against a corner so whenever I wanted to cut my food, my elbow would be rubbing against the wall, they never brought out any extra bread, and service was SLOOOOOOW.

Also, the waitstaff could've been more courteous. I was behind a waitress, trying to get into the restroom and so one of the waiters said to her"Hey, behind you!" He was basically trying to get her ass out of the way. And she looked at me, said, "OH." And then she rolled her eyes at me and made a sound of disgust. Like, really? I inconvenienced you that much? I mean, COME ON. I'm not a big person. I just need to slip by you.

Oh, and here's something else. One of the girls in the party gets her bill back so she can sign for it and she opens it up and there's no credit card in there. Her waitress dropped it. ON THE FLOOR! Somewhere. It took her like 5 whole minutes to look for it. Never in my life have I ever seen that happen. And she totally treated it like it was no big deal.

I don't know... There were some positives... The food was pretty decent and the prices weren't bad at all. But for the most part, I was pretty underwhelmed.

Or I'm pretty sure that I just hate San Diego unless I'm going for Comic-Con. :P

I have not written a review since mid-July of 2009. Blonde Martini has inspired me to write a review. THAT'S HOW BAD IT WAS.

It was literally the douchebaggiest place I've ever stepped foot into... and I've been to some serious douchebag watering holes in my life.

We went there after dinner at George's on Fifth (my next review!) for our friend's 40th birthday bash. Apparently, since we dropped a shit-ton of money at the restaurant, they "invited" our party to head down to the Blonde Martini.

Bad music? Check. Pricey drinks? Check. Idiots all around? CHECK, CHECK and CHECK.

Okay, maybe everything was just off because it was a 3-day weekend and Valentine's ... or maybe it's just because it's the area, but it was bad. I am not sure I can even explain how bad it was... Terrible vibe, terrible crowd, terrible music... and to top it off? Damn near impossible to get a drink. Thank GOD we didn't pay a cover charge because we left after 10 minutes.

I was really trying to have a good time and I tried to dance to the bad music (I pride myself in having a good time wherever I go) but there was nowhere to dance... Because the whole dance floor was filled with people trying to yell over the music at each other and idiots trying to look cool... with their stupid sunglasses on... at night... in a club... that doesn't have bright lights.

If you are looking for a good time and some dancing, I would definitely NOT recommend Blonde Martini. It was seriously amateur night there, especially with the stupid girl who spilled her drink ALL OVER HERSELF and the dance floor. That sloppy drunk before 10? Wow. Classy. Also, pretty impressive.

On the up side, we got a glimpse of the rare sabretooth (for those of you not hip to that lingo, just think of a cougar... but MUCH older) which was... half-fascinating and half-awesome, but alllll scary.

I had to find a new pediatrician because our insurance is apparently having some beef with my daughter's old pediatrician's office. (BOO, UNITED HEALTHCARE!)

The doctor's office is clean and there are lots of toys to keep your kid occupied.

HOWEVER, we did wait almost an hour to get put into a room to wait for the doctor. An hour? Really? THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE IN THE WAITING ROOM. WHY DID WE NEED TO WAIT AN HOUR?

Do you have any idea what it's like to wait for an hour with a toddler? THANKFULLY, my daughter and my cousin's girl were REALLY good. But honestly, waiting an hour for a toddler is like waiting for 4 hours as an adult. It must've been brutal for the kids.

Anyway, once the doctor did see us, I kind of liked her. She was pretty to-the-point and direct. A little different than I'm used to, but not in a bad way. She was good with my daughter and she was very nice and professional. We will most likely go see her again next year.

ALSO, they have lollipops for the kids after. The other doc only had lame stickers. The kids were quite pleased with that.

So, I have this "atypical mole" on my ear. It's really hard to see and I just noticed it for the first time in this past year. My regular doc suggested I find a dermatologist and she gave me someone's card.

I promptly lost that card.

So I did some searches online and I found the closest dermatologist to me. There weren't any Yelp reviews, so I thought I'd just take my chances.

Dr. Steinberg is pretty awesome. The first impression was that she was very nice and professional... BUT not to be rude or anything, but she seemed to have some kind of rash on her face? As a dermatologist, wouldn't you think that she would have the most awesome skin ever?

However, it was very easy to look past that. She was never condescending to me, she answered all of my questions and I never felt like she was trying to "sell" me something. I honestly felt like she had my best interests at heart.

The wait wasn't long and I was in and outta there within an hour. That's pretty awesome for a doctor's office.

I'd highly suggest going there for your dermatology needs.

I'm not really a CPK fan. Sure I've eaten at CPKs every now and again, but it's not exactly the place I'd choose to go get something to eat. I mean, I've gone years without going to CPK, if that gives you any indication. But we were with friends last night and we went to the Kodak Theater to see Ricky Gervais, so we figured we'd just eat there since it was close to the Theater.

We get there and put our name in. For a party of four, it was a 45 minute wait. It's about 7 so we figured that was an okay wait. Not too bad. We walk around for a bit, show up at 7:20 and they seat us. Good thing we didn't come back after 45 minutes like all those other suckers who were in line. They seriously need to figure out a new time estimation system. I'm not REALLY complaining about there being a shorter wait... okay, I am a little bit. If we weren't totally anal, we wouldn't have been seated. We would've come back around 45 minutes later and STILL have had to wait because EVERYONE else would've come back at the same time. Just seems retarded to me. But you know, whatever. I've never worked in the food industry. Maybe that's just the way they do things.

I ask the girl who seated us if CPK had any nutritional information. I just like to know what's in my food. She acted as if I asked her the most inconvenient (and stupidest) question EVER. She said very condescendingly, "No. We don't have that information." Dude, I kinda thought that was mandatory. I thought that if you asked a restaurant for nutritional information, they had to have that information available for you. But I guess you don't have to? I don't know. Regardless, I didn't appreciate her attitude. There is a polite way to tell someone something and she... didn't do it.

I know that CPK is casual dining and I'm not expecting STELLAR service, but on the other side, I'm not expecting to be treated like total SHIT.

Jessica (from Las Vegas, apparently), our server, is obviously trying to get "discovered" and being a waitress isn't her primary goal in life, and that's fine and all, but I don't know... I would think that if I were in Hollywood trying to catch someone's eye, I wouldn't treat my customers like crap because maybe someone you were serving might actually have some connections somewhere. Just because it's not some A-list celeb, it doesn't mean that the person you're serving couldn't help you out in some way. Or at the VERY least, that person could, I don't know... LEAVE YOU A GOOD TIP if you were helpful... I mean, helpful at ALL.

This girl showed up when we first got seated and took our drink order. And didn't take too long getting back. She took our food order. And then didn't come back for FORTY MINUTES. I was the angriest person EVER. She never came back to ask if we needed refills or anything. She was too busy attending a bigger party, in hopes of a good tip, I guess. She came out multiple times to help just about every other table and completely ignored us.

When she finally came back around, I asked her for some silverware and plates and some bread... Which apparently, you need to ask for now? But HOW WAS I TO KNOW THIS? When I asked her why there was no bread (when there was bread on EVERYONE ELSE'S table) she replied VERY rudely to me, "BECAUSE YOU NEED TO ASK FOR IT NOW." Oh, really? Wow. Apparently, I didn't get that fucking memo. How the fuck would I know that? Has that been going on for a while? I don't know. And apparently, every single table around us was in the know because they all got bread.

But whatever.

After the large party left, she started being more attentive, but you know, the damage has been done. You treated us like crap, you were rude and unhelpful... why would I want to give you a good tip? I seriously wanted to leave her a DIME for a tip, but the people I was with were nicer. They didn't leave her 20% (which is my customary tip amount... more if they were good, of course) but in my opinion they still gave her too much.

Oh, and the food? Still fucking mediocre.

Why do people love it so much? I don't know. I avoid CPKs normally, but I would REALLY suggest avoiding this particular CPK. If you really NEED to eat at the H&H center, I'm sure there are plenty of other eateries that don't have the level of SUCK that this one does. I'd suggest... just about anywhere else. But if for some reason, you just fucking love CPK and you just HAVE to go here, just try to NOT get seated in Jessica's section. You will be able to tell who she is, not only by her handy dandy name tag, but also because she's the one with dull, vacant eyes.

If I could give this place ZERO stars, I would. First of all, there are literally no more than 4 places to go in Downtown Monterey. And apparently, this is one of them. There was a LINE to get into this shithole. They also wanted to charge us a $10 cover. Uhm, say what?

Since we were in a bachelorette party, he decided to cut us a break. He let the bride-to-be in free and the rest of us he charged us $5 each. Thanks... I think.

We get in there and the first thing I notice is that MY FEET ARE STICKING TO THE GROUND. The horror.

The second thing I notice is that... there are NO GOOD LOOKING PEOPLE. I have never seen SO MANY FUGLY PEOPLE IN ONE LOCATION IN MY LIFE. Also, I realize that I'm not exactly a 10 or anything, but I'm not a 3, either. So, tell me why the grossest guys in the joint think it's okay to hit on me? HELL NO. HELL FUCK NO.

The only good looking girls were the tall, blonde bimbos with the enormo-fake-boobs. (And of course the girls in our group. hehe.) And there really weren't that many of those blonde bimbo-y girls, either.

They SERIOUSLY need to upgrade their sound system. It sounds like shit. No joke. My ears started hurting because it sounded so damn "tinny." Also, their music choices were crap.

I guess if you don't know any better, Doc's is the place to go? But if you actually know what fun and good music is? Then you want to avoid this place. What a shithole.

I love me some buffet action. So when the server came by asking what we wanted, I was pretty sure I wanted the buffet, but I thought I'd check out what was going on there first.

Eggs and omelets to order? Fresh made waffles? Pastries, biscuits and gravy? Yes, please. Breakfast potatoes and bacon and sausage... yeah. I love all that shit. hehe.

The only thing that concerned me, though, was that they didn't have any hash browns. Only corned beef hash. And that's just not the same thing.

So instead of the buffet I ordered an omelet (hash browns came with it) and some yogurt. He promptly told me that he'd just get me the hash browns free of charge and that I should get the buffet because it would be cheaper that way.

Why, thank you, nice waiter dude! So, the 3 of us just ordered the buffet. It hit the spot, but I wouldn't say that it was super delicious or anything. It was just conveniently located since we were staying at the hotel and I'm not from that area so we just went there since we didn't know where else to go. The waiter was nice and also helpful.