Harold’s House of WTF?

by Brian

Yesterday morning I decided to renew my search for the world’s first good vegetarian omelette.  And what better place to go than a place that calls itself a house of omelettes, right?  Wrong!  In case you missed the first episode in my omelette saga, you can read about it here.

The first rule of being a good restaurant:  If it’s in the name, it better be good.

How cheated would you feel if you went to IHOP and the pancakes sucked?  Like I said, I went to Harold’s House of Omelettes in search of an OMELETTE.  Here’s what I got instead…

Harold’s House of Omelettes – Thousand Oaks Blvd near Hampshire Rd.

See that red spot near the bottom of the plate?  That was a lonely piece of tomato that managed to stow away in the scrambled egg frisbee that was my “omelette.”  The rest of my omelette was shoved underneath the frisbee along with some hashbrowns that I didn’t order.

Let’s take it back to the beginning.  I showed up at Harold’s at about 10am on Sunday morning.  It wasn’t crowded and I took a little table for one. I was looking around at the old school vibe of the room.  I liked it.  It seemed like the little hole-in-the-wall type of place that I am comfortable in.  The wall paper was a little grandma for me, but still, the place felt lived in.

By the way, if you ever want to find out about the service at a place, eat there alone.  I know for a fact that I tipped more on my omelette and coffee than the entire cast of the Golden Girls that was sitting across the room from me.  Still, the waitress felt free to treat me like I was inconveniencing her.

The busboy took my drink order, which happened to be a cup of coffee and a glass of water, and ran off.  When he came back with just the coffee I figured that my water was on its way and everything was fine.

About 5 minutes later when the waitress took my order, I let her know that I hadn’t received the water I asked for.  She looked down at the coffee in front of me, looked back at me and said, “So you don’t want the coffee?”  Since I had just been drinking it a second earlier, I kindly told her that I wanted water AND coffee.  She looked at me like I had just asked her for a lapdance.

Eventually I did get my water and it didn’t taste like anyone had spit in it, so there’s that.  Also, no hair either

In the interest of full disclosure, I drank the coffee black and it wasn’t bad.  I didn’t want to ask for soy milk in addition to ordering the vegetarian omelette for fear of being punched in the face by my waitress.

My omelette arrived in good time, but the order was wrong.  I had ordered fruit instead of hash browns, but I guess they didn’t get that part of the order.  The hashbrowns were half blended into the tomato, mushroom and onion that comprised the “filling” of the omelette.  The problem with this is that the “filling” isn’t really cooked enough.  The mushrooms were my biggest complaint because they were way too underdone.  Also, the avocado wasn’t the freshest, but that’s pretty hit or miss anywhere.

The portion sizes are large and two people could probably share one omelette.  The prices aren’t bad, I was just upset by the fact that my omelette wasn’t an omelette.  I mean, at least Eggs ‘N Things is called Eggs AND Things so if the “eggs” suck, you have “things” to fall back on.

On a side note, my buddy Jack, from Chili my Soul fame, swears by is willing to vouch for the pancakes here.  So if I go back, maybe I’ll go that route.  Until then I’ll just keep searching for a decent veggie omelette.  Any ideas?  Leave ’em in the comments.  No suggestion is two stupid.  Except this place: