When your local café has given up on life

by Mikey

I wrote not too long ago about how to tell if a sushi restaurant is in trouble.  This article is a bit different because it is more about eating at joint that has just completely given up on life.  I usually eat at a place and it doesn’t get posted for a day or two.  I had to get this place up as soon as possible to save your stomachs, your taste buds, and your soul.

DW Café – Ventura at the intersection of Victoria and Moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the outside this place looks like your typical country kitchen kind of place.  In fact, I think a few years ago that’s what it was.  Now it’s a café that’s open from early morning to mid afternoon.  I was out and about on a few errands and thought I’d try it out for breakfast.  Damn me and my curiosity.

Pretty much from when you walk in, to when you leave, you get this sense of “Why is this place open?  Is it a front for something else?”  I sure hope they are dealing jewelry out of the back or something because this place sucks worse then the movie Spice World dubbed in French, shown on your great grandpa’s 12 inch black and white TV, while Scary spice and Posh spice give you a play by play with a laser pointer and all there is to eat is Walmart’s own grape soda with some old ranch flavored corn nuts.

So as you can read, I didn’t care for it too much.  The booths are falling apart and I was in a power struggle with the guy sitting behind me because every time he moved, so did I.  He’d lean back and I’d be pushed forward.  I’d push back to gain some space from the table I was being pushed into and he would go forward.  We played booth war for about 15 minutes before we found neutral ground.  The silverware is this light aluminum; I picked up the fork and almost threw it across the place.  Sure it makes you feel like your roided out, but it also feels cheap and flimsy.

The plastic glasses are from 1970 and normally that would be charming except for the fact they have grime on them from 1970.  The waiter speaks in a special waiter tongue that is only familiar to us who have encountered it a few times.  You might have, it goes like this:

You walk in and they say, “Howareyoudoingsgreatsitwhereyouwant”. Yep all in one string.

I sat where ever I wanted and then he said,”CanIgetyasomethin”.

“Um sure how about some water.”

“Surewatergreat”.

When he came back I asked for one of their fresh-made cinnamon rolls that they had advertised on the menu.  He said, “Wedon’thave cinnamon rolls”.

Not we are out.  Not we just sold the last few.  They just plain don’t have them.  They don’t exist here.  I guess they like advertising things that other country breakfast houses have, but they don’t really want you to order them.

I went with the Cottage Omelet, hash browns, and sourdough toast.  This time he didn’t say anything and just did a ninja vanish.

As I waited for my meal I started to notice something, it was the music they were playing.  I was actually hearing the red light special by TLC.  This is at 8:30 in the morning, in a café that is frequented by 90% elderly.  I looked around and they all looked confused and bewildered.  Apparently once you’re over 40 the chance you know what “red light special” means kind of decreases.  So I began to keep track of my breakfast soundtrack, it’s at the bottom of this article.

The DW cottage omelet is 3 eggs, onions, tomato, bacon and cheese. When he put it in front of me and said, “Yaneedthingelse?” I was in shock and could only shake my head no.

This had to be the greasiest pile of egg omelet, hash brown, hazmat disaster that I had ever seen.  I took a picture of it so you could see the grease begin to pool up on my plate.  That’s not cheese on my plate friends.  I gotta say one thing, there was so much grease that it actually created this wonderful protective shell that kept in the heat.  My omelet stayed warm they whole time.  Of course it tasted just as greasy as it looked, but for you folks I took it like a champ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The eggs were obviously very greasy, but also had that great texture you get when you put eggs in a pan or on a grill that’s too hot.  Luckily, I think they added more grease to keep it from burning.  The onions and tomatoes were ok, though it was hard to really tell through the greasy, cheesy mess.  The hash browns were burnt on the outside and raw in the middle which is always great.  Nothing like going from burnt to raw in the same bite.

The most perplexing part was the bacon.  It was in the shape of disks.  Like little roundish bacon disks, all the same size.  How the hell do they do that? My only guess is they found some untapped resource at Benny’s House of Greasy Bacon disks.  I wish I could say they were ok, but they were hard and virtually tasteless.  I guess at least they didn’t taste bad.

They even managed to burn my toast and give it to me ice cold.  I’m telling you the place has cashed in their chips and has given up on life.

In the middle of my omelet I got a call from my stomach.  It went a little like this:

Stomach: “Hey Mike, WTF?”

Me: “Yeah, I know stomach, but the readers are going to wanna know about this.”

Stomach: “Well you have to understand Mike, I’ve already spoken to the rest of the organs and we will be getting rid of this in about 45 minutes, as fast as we can.  Those errands you were going to run… yeah, I’d forget about those.

So I passed on the errands, went straight home and wrote this.  I apologize for the length, but it had to be said.  As promised here is my breakfast soundtrack.

TLC – Red Light Special
Dr Dre – Ain’t nothing but a G thang
Ice Cube – Good Day
Janet Jackson – Rhythm Nation
Eminem – Toy Soldier
Rihanna – Disturbia
Fergie – My Humps
Sir Mix-a-lot – Baby got back
And that song by Genuine where he just stands there naked, singing in the video, showing off his 16 pack.

I shit you not.  I wrote them down as they played.

“Haveaday!”