Slumin' it in the hood!

The other night begins as all other nights do around our house.  I am at work, Mike is at home trolling the interwebs for somewhere to eat.  This one proved to be an easy decision for him and we left the house as soon as I was changed out of my grubby work clothes.   The long drive up Deerfoot Trail leads be to believe we are headed to the 'hood.  Ah, how right I was!

Juliet's Castle is right on 16th ave (the Trans-Canada highway for you non-Calgarians) just off Deerfoot.  I describe it as in the 'hood for two reasons... 1) it is and 2) it is next door to a trailer park and flea-bag motel.  Enough said.  We've both been there before, separately, so it doesn't count as a new pub, but since our visits they've gone through a big renovation.  Has something to do with 'revitalizing this area of town'.  They got rid of the 'adult store' next door, so maybe they are trying to clean it up.  Good for them.  It worked well enough to get our butts from the very, very deep south all the way up north.

But, man, I wish we had have gone anywhere else.   Juliet's has a "thing".  It's wings.  They have been around forever and are routinely called "The Best Wings In Calgary".  (But, come to think of it, a bunch of places lay claim to this - even one I'm about to write about).  This place has been around long enough that Mike's dad remembers eating here back when Mike was, oh, 3 months old.  It's gotta have something good going for itself to stay open this long.  And the new renovation seems to have spruced things up a lot!  The tables and chairs are still the same as any other dirty grubby pub.  Bad fabric, ass imprints in all of the seats, five times repainted table top.  But then they went all club-like and have huge glowing red and blue lights over white leather booths.  Seems far too "downtown" for this neck of the woods.  I digress, a seat is a seat, and we are here for the food.

*Still weirded out by the new decor.  If you're gonna be a ghetto pub with great food be that.  If you're gonna be a Friday night dance club with bottle service be that.  Don't be both.*

So Mike is really down for the wings, he hasn't had them in years and is craving them.  I am so torn over the menu I an getting angry at myself.  The menu is enormous.  I have visions of Chef Ramsay going all Kitchen Nightmares on this joint and throwing the whole menu in the bin.  Just too much to chose from, how do you produce any quality?  K, Tammy, relax on the Food Network Rage.

Turns out, my rage is justified.  I ordered mozza sticks and nachos.  Seems simple enough, Mike ordered a bunch of wings.  I don't even know what kind, just wings.  Doesn't matter.  What does matter is that I was very very hungry and couldn't wait to eat some nachos!   And I did, three mouthfulls.  And that's when I saw the hair.  I hadn't put it on my side plate yet, but it was there, just hanging out on the nachos that I was about to reach for.

T: Oh no.
M: What?
T: Hair. *gag* in nachos
M: Where?  (as if I'm making this up!)
T: Here!

I reach over to point it out and touch it... half to see if I'm losing my mind, and half to confirm that yes its there.  My freaking god.  It is BAKED in to the meat.   It's one thing to be on top, and get a new one made up.  But this is stuck.  Attatched to meat and cheese.  FFS.

Our server is no where to be found, and really has been quite absent all evening.  Finally we get her attention and she comes over.  She does apologize, which is decent of her, but then the does the unthinkable.  She picks the hair/chip up and starts shaking it.   At the table.  In front of me.  As if I planted it there.  Mumbles something about "oh, it's baked right into it, hey?".  As if I want to have a fucking conversation about it.  Holy fucking christ.  Pardon my french.

She wants to know if I want a new one made and I tell here that no, I've lost my appetite.  I push away the rest of my mozza sticks and cross my arms like a 3 year old throwing a tantrum.  I finish my beer and decide that I might as well have a barley dinner, because I sure as hell am NOT eating anything else here.

In this kind of pub, I don't expect to see a manager, let alone have one come over and apologize, so I wait patiently for the bill.  Tits McGee (our servers nickname, by yours truly) brings the bill and she has taken off the nachos.  Rejoice! Something is done right!  And upon further investigation I see that she has still charged me for the extra sour cream (that I did not eat) and the ranch dip (that I did not order) which comes to 3 dollars.   And this is where I turn into Douche Bag Tammy.

I took the bill and my pen and made some changes.  I circled the sour cream and wrote "didn't eat - not paying for" and circled the ranch dip and wrote " didn't even order - not paying for".   Then I took the 62 dollar total at the bottom and rewrote it to show 59 dollars.   And tipped her, terribly, on the 59 dollars.

Now many of you are probably thinking: but, Tammy, you're a server, how would you feel if someone did that to you?"   My answer is, I deserved it - I wouldn't care.  I would voided those two items so I don't suffer and then everyone in the back of the restaurant would have had a great laugh.  Maybe she just did the nachos and forgot to do the two sides.  Who knows.  Who cares.  Days later, I'm still gagging at the thought.  There you go Juliet's Castle.  You didn't even make it to three strikes, let alone two.  One strike here, and you're out.

Mike doesn't even ask as we leave.  He's known for an hour.  Not a chance in hell.