Sneha "The Sne" A.'s Profile

hot damn, tam. two of us got the california cuts of prime rib and the third person got the ribeye. we requested they be cooked medium, and medium and appropriately juicy they were.

hefty sides were involved. creamed corn or creamed spinach (or as i termed it, palak paneer for white people), mashed potatoes with gravy and yorkshire pudding (little did i know yorkshire pudding was...bread).  

this is comfort food to the nth degree. it's guilty food, too. i inhaled it in record time, but then 1) a girl needs a steak every now and again; 2) i'd had a killer workout; and 3) only eaten yogurt with a sprinkling of cereal that day, which does not a meal make.

we sat in the bar since the dining room was packed and the wait promised to be epic. the drinks were meh but there were better options fo' sho.

the decor was quaint-kitschy-comfy-Scot-Irish. tartans and irish music and all.

the demographic was definitely 55+, but we're young and fabulous wherever we roam.

our conversation topics of the night ranged from:  how irish jigs/river dancing are strictly-business on the top, party central waist down; and determining unequivocally that the one thirtysomething couple we saw were definitely on their first date and mutually interested.

i've been here once with a gentleman caller (nothing like someone else paying for high tea), another time with a girlfriend (went dutch), and for my last visit i took my father and mother. (they did after all provide years of no rent and free food.)

might be important to note that it is beautifully appointed, but it's not so frilly and stuffy that a man even marginally comfortable in his...er, man skin (or, um, the lack thereof)...would feel ill at ease. unlike, say, tea rose garden, which not only makes men uncomfortable, it also makes any woman under 60 feel like she sacrificed her youth at the shrine to helen thomas.

the tea menu is even more daunting and exhaustive than the cheesecake factory. (a restaurant that i by no means endorse, as evidenced by an earlier review. but the sheer length of the cheesecake factory menu AND chado is enough to make a grown communist cry.) you know it's a lot when an indian and her indian parents are overwhelmed by the staggering number of tea options available in one tea house. we are the original purveyors of chai, after all. long before western idiots everywhere marketed it oh-so-redundantly as "chai tea."

methinks this is a far better value than the huntington gardens tea room. i know, that place is all-you-can-eat. but all-you-can-eat is overrated. this is tea, not souplantation. tea should be a more delicate affair, pinkies in the air and gentle nibbling. that said, there's plenty of tasty food involved when you order the three-story rack. high-quality ingredients, lovely presentation, better service and far less expensive than the huntington.

also, i left my sunglasses there once and they held onto it 'em for a month.

go. eat. drink.

o, romeo, romeo, wherefore art thou, romeo? lucky for me, just around the corner. (humor me for a moment. this will be brief.)

romeo's shrimp pizza rocks my mouth like handel. a single bite and i can hear the crescendo of the "hallelujah chorus" in stereo. (don't tell my therapist.)

after conducting an independent study last night--i brought it to a friend for dinner--100% of those surveyed had the same rapturous encounter with this pizza pie. i witnessed him melt into the first slice, the second slice, the third slice, the fourth slice...so i started guarding my plate.

shrimp, generous fresh garlic, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. the flavors are strong yet balanced, with a crust that reminds you why you didn't stop in at domino's or pizza hut or resort to digiorno from the deep freezer at the grocery store.

it's a mini market compared to the pasadena and south pasadena farmers' markets. but i prefer to call it "fun size." you know, like candy bars and short people.

i'm hoping it becomes permanent. the location is fantastic--all of the businesses in the south lake district assure great profit for the vendors. people can pick up good eats, good drinks or fresh flowers en route to their commute home. if it continues to be successful i'm sure more booths will appear!

the time slot is perfect, too. finally! we non-morning people have been extended some farmers market grace.

if you pay they will stay! if you go, it will grow! so pay! go!

dear friends and i have *popped*  (groan) in here for  dessert and champagne. great for your metrosexual date, your gay best friend, or better still, a lovely night out with the girls--reveling in your fabulousity, sipping pink champagne flights and chocolate souffles.

bonus: it's open 'til 1 a.m. on fridays and saturdays.

truly terrible. everything already said by fellow reviewers is true. as per an MRI i'm developing arthritis. i waited about 3.5 weeks to get an appointment for physical therapy. so if you're hurting? sucks to be you.

after talking to my GP, she canceled the physical therapy and transferred me to pain management upstairs. dr. levenson was very helpful.

for any number of reasons my extracurricular activity is doctors' appointments. and dr. levenson spent more time talking to me than the sum total of visits over the course of 6-9 months (and that's a LOT of appointments).

but the problem was that PRI still processes referrals. dr. levenson authorized injections, but after repeated calls to check on the status, dr. levenson's receptionist/admin discovered that the PRI peeps didn't even enter it into the computer, and PRI succeeded in delaying my urgent treatment by almost one month.

barring dr. levenson, i'd say run for your lives from PRI. except that if you're lookin' into physical rehab, running is probably a wee bit difficult for at least some of you.

five stars go to the fabulous janet, whose mad skills made me realize that i'd finally found "the one." i followed her to salon luxe, a new salon in claremont--which is lovely and amazing, btw.

i have enough hair for 3.5 heads--and it's of the stubborn, coarse and curly variety. it bites back. i was 14.5 months overdue for a decent cut with highlights and she delivered with aplomb.

taming my tresses is quite an undertaking; i have hunted high and low (very low) and have struck fear and elicited expletives (english and armenian) from too many stylists upon sighting. which makes for an uneasy start, and usually a poodle cut or the ever popular triangle. so my hunt commenced with panic and trepidation.

praise be, i found her.

janet was at ease, painted in a lovely hue, stayed well past closing hour, threw in a blow-out (hair, people) and sent me home with styling samples to maintain it.

she's my new hair BFF. ask for her.

it doesn't merit a single sweet star, but yelp doesn't let me leave the rating box blank. in fact, there needs to be a rating option with negative stars. a generous review would be: -5 stars.

DO NOT sign up with this business. there's a reason the better business bureau (BBB) gave this rental vacancy "service" an "F."

it's only fair to you for me to heed to the honest angels of my nature and give you an honest warning. make sure to remember that "F": they should more accurately be named "apartment f*****s." i will stand by that designation unequivocally.

the particular site i used was http://apartmenthunter.... this business operates under other names as well, so do your homework. cross-check.

if it's a match, go elsewhere. anywhere.

i'd checked the rating beforehand, and armed with that information, i started chatting with the online customer "service" rep--if i recall, his username was kevin1. i presented the major complaints listed on their BBB report (visit: http://tinyurl.com/6yfsho). kevin1 really didn't have anything to say, except that the business had been around for years, was time-tested, yada, yada. i decided to give the "service" a shot after he informed me that if i wasn't pleased i could request a refund. so well aware of the risk, i decided to give it a shot, knowing that if things turned scammy i could lodge a complaint and request my refund. i genuinely hoped that this would prove to be helpful.

not helpful. harmful. it was scammy from the get go:

1) i initially submitted my email address for the two free listings promised for guests, which I never received.

2) i sent a message shortly thereafter and never received a response.

3) i waited for an operator on chat for 3+ hours.

4) many--no, most-- of the listings provided have wrong information regarding price and amenities (the same listings on other sites had the correct information).

5) many of the listings are wrongly labeled as "New Today."

eventually, i received some sort of auto-reply. nothing was resolved.

6) i didn't receive the listings they promised.

i followed the wording of their terms regarding a refund, within the time frame they say they use. they did not respond, they did not refund.

i called the office and spoke to a woman (i wrote her name down somewhere), who allegedly took down my complaint and passed it on to steve shayan (remember that VP's name, although it probably won't do you any good) or one of his counterparts. no callback from him or anybody. even a robo-call would have been a step in the right direction.

i never received a response. i never received a refund. they told me cancellation was not an option. thereby ignoring and violating their own words on their own site. that should be their subtitle: no response. no refund.

so consider this a public service announcement: go elsewhere. do not let "apartment f*****s: no response, no refund" have their way with you.

i haven't eaten in the restaurant itself, but the wine bistro is excellent. sweet service, great selections, tasty bites and generous pours. it's an intimate nook off the hell-beaten old town path (praise be!) that's perfect for languid conversation...

... and it's dimly lit so that you and your companion(s) look marvelous.

an open letter to mike and anne:

dear mike and anne,

first things first: your food was relatively tasty (between the three of us we had lamb sausage and lentils, steamed mussels, sweet potato fries, flat iron steak, braised short ribs, horseradish mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts and carrots and some other side that escapes me at the moment). personally, i was quite impressed with the plumpness of your mussels. not your run-of-the-sea skinny shellfish. your sweet potato fries had the right ratio of crunch and meatiness (potatoness?). your food went down nice and easy.

...but your hostess that night (5/3)...aye dios mio! she was neither nice nor easy (to deal with, i mean). that's where i start snatching stars away.

we were greeted with something approximating a sneer. we sat down in your patio chairs (simply waiting) and were told with a curled lip and a terse voice that these were reserved and she asked us to move (there were maybe three other people at the restaurant at that time, we kept our eyes on that table and nobody came for a good hour at least).

so, our spirits still hopeful, we asked for seats in the shade. she walked us to a table where two-thirds of us were in direct line of sunshine. we politely told her this and were informed, "well, the sun will set." after sharing this jaw-dropping solar concept, she left.

our server on the other hand was delightful. i wish i knew her name.

something we did notice was that while we were the first ones there, we waited an inordinate amount of time for our food to arrive compared to the other patrons. we thought perhaps you were culling the ocean or slaughtering the lamb.

we may return. most likely not for dinner though, since your costs are prohibitive. our trio agreed that we could get better food elsewhere for the money we spent. word on the street is that your brunch is quite good. however, we're hoping the hostess is in a kinder, gentler mood. and that she's nowhere near the steak knives.