C's, D's, Skins and Fat...

Lunch, as I often have said is a nice chance to catch up with friends without the pressures of dinner. So yesterday I caught up with a regular luncheon companion and we decided to meet at CD Café on the Solomons.


I have often ragged on CD for their “no reservations” policy, and still do, but for lunch I will give them a pass. I arrived around 12:30 and gave my name and party size (2) and retired to the hard benches in the hall. At least they could provide comfortable seating. But no, only those hard benches. Five minutes into our “about 20 minute” wait my companion arrived and we chatted in the relative silence of the hall. A few minutes later we were beckoned, and entered the dining space. I will not regurgitate my feelings of the area, but it is too small for the amount of tables (you can touch at least two or three from yours) and the noise can be deafening. Table A is occupied by ladies who lunch and are having a good time and their laughter can escalate into upper registers. So, Table B, has to raise their voices to be able to converse, where upon Table A is forced to elevate their noise, and Table C is required to follow suit in louder terms just to talk. This upward spiral of dB’s is known as “cocktail party syndrome” and is a familiar phenomenon to acoustical engineers. If everybody would just “hush” it would work.

We were approached by our server who tried to announce her name and I think told us she would be “serving us” and enumerated the off the menu choices. We opted for a couple of glasses of wine and had a chance to converse in elevated voices. Eventually we got around to ordering, and my friend chose the Curried Chicken Salad, and I went with a special of Grilled Shrimp with Penne pasta.

I have often wondered why CD remains packed and a continual place of choice on the Solomons. Too many tables, not much atmosphere, zero view, too loud, under staffed, and no (dinner) reservations. Yet, they survive and prosper. Why? Because over the years they have honed a menu that provides a wide selection of good choices, all of which have proven the test of time. The specials are usually interesting. The food is always good to above average. I personally think that their spiced dishes are overly so, and that salads are under dressed. But, that’s just me. You are you.

So anyway, I ordered the grilled shrimp over Penne pasta special and my friend took the reliable curried chicken salad.

And geez, I am finally getting to the point of all this. My dish had three grilled shrimp, on a bed of Penne pasta with bits of tomato and wilted spinach, with a tasty garlicky broth. Okay, here it is: How freaking hard is it to peel tomatoes? You pay prep chefs, why not get rid of the skins? Yes, it takes longer, and maybe you lose a little bright red in the dish. I ate the pasta, but then had to pull the bits of skins from the tomatoes off my teeth. PEEL THEM! You see it all the time.. sandwich? Skins on the slices. Salads? more skins. It cheapens the dish. Please.

And then we get to the shrimp. The shrimp on the pasta were about thumb size. Have you ever noticed that the peeled and deveined shrimp usually have that little string of fat on each side of the cut on the back? It’s tough and not attractive and you’re forced to peel it or eat it. I always pick it off. I try to place it prominently on the plate for the server to observe, but mostly it’s ignored. What a better presentation if it were gone. How hard is that? Leave it on, it's not attractive. Pull it off, and it’s a nice piece of shrimp. I don’t want to have to do it, it’s your problem. Make me happy, remove it.

So we had a nice lunch, the food was good, but gee it could have been much more enjoyable with a little more care in the kitchen. Peel and pick!

I will give them high marks for consistency. As I said, the food is always reliable and good, and the specials give some flexibility for the diner from their proven standards on the menu. But they are also consistently crowded, loud, bustling, and you will most likely have a wait. You have to decide if the food justifies the other. You know what you will be in for if you go. Choices, choices..

And still you must be


DFD