Evening in Florence

<obligatory note about how this is my first post using Windows Live Writer>

Following our late afternoon departure from Cinque Terre, we arrived in Florence. We trekked from the train station over to our hostel, which was our nicest one up to that point. We actually had our own private room and there was free Internet access available (little did we know that was the first and last time we'd see that at a hostel.) On top of that, it was in fairly easy walking distance from the train station; a welcome difference from the other places we stayed.

That evening we went out and looked around the city a bit. We decided we'd stop at a restaurant for some dinner and had really the only lousy dining experience we had in Italy. It started with the guy at the front of the outdoor patio area where we chose to eat. Apparently it was only like his second or third day on the job. Of course, we didn't know that as he told us about the place and tried to get us to stop there. The deal that got us in the door was the 14 euro 3 course meal, for which we were told we could pick any one item from each of three sections on the menu. What followed was a series of misunderstandings on our part, mistakes on the newbie's part, and what we have to believe were deliberate misrepresentations on the owner's part.

As it turns out, we couldn't pick the 13 euro fish entree that we had both seen on the menu which made us like the deal so much. We couldn't pick the 12 euro fish dish below it either. This bait and switch stuff ticked us off. We saw a "scallopini" dish on the menu that we were allowed to order and Kevin asked if that meant scallops. We both decided on that one and ordered some white wine to go with it since that's what you get with seafood. We also both ordered gnocchi for our first course. Italians eat salad as the third course in a meal. For the third course, Kevin ordered one kind of salad and I picked the other kind we were allowed to order (that part of the menu was limited for the "deal" as well) mostly just to prevent us from ordering the exact same thing. We also both ordered some water.

The wine came and he gave us a whole bottle even though Kevin told him we didn't need it. We had asked for a carafe which he said would be 6 euros. He left the bottle saying he would only charge us for what we drank. The cost for the bottle "for us" would be 10 euros. The water came and he gave us the wrong ones (Kevin ordered the carbonated version, I like my water without bubbles.) Ok, no big deal, we switched. The gnocchi came and it was actually quite good. Now at this place they have these little things that hold salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar or some such stuff. Throughout the meal the guy kept bringing it to us and then taking it away to give to another table. I think they only had like 2 or 3 of them to service the whole patio of roughly 20 tables. Same deal for the grated cheese in a bowl that we were given (which is served by hand.) That's really sanitary. Everyone's hands in the same cheese bowl. Yum.

The salad came out next. This was out of order, since it was supposed to be third. Whatever. As it turns out, the salad I ordered was something a lot closer to what I would call greasy home fries. Admittedly, this one was my bad. Kevin said he knew and thought I was aware of what I was ordering. That didn't make my "salad" any more appetizing. Oh, I forgot to mention that he reversed our salads when he brought them out and we had to switch again.

Last came the main course. It appeared to be chicken. Wait... chicken? We thought we ordered scallops? I asked if what was on the plate was scallops. The guy said "yes, scallopini" and left despite our confused and skeptical looks. We sat there for a little while, trying to confirm that what we had was chicken and we were not crazy. I went over to the guy who talked us in to this place and asked him to identify my dinner. He said it was chicken, but he wasn't sure which dish (that's when he told us how new he was.) Apparently he was fresh from Australia and just got this job. I asked him what "scallopini" was and he said it was scallops.

Kevin and I sat there looking unhappy and not eating for a while while our server walked right past us multiple times. That guy was either blind and oblivious or he was hoping he wouldn't have to address the issue if he ignored it long enough. I believe the second theory. He was wrong. He eventually stopped at our table and asked if everything was ok. I told him it wasn't.

We explained that we had ordered the scallopini looking for scallops. His response was something along the lines of "scallopini... is meat, and today it's chicken." We told him that the other guy said scallopini was scallops. He was not convinced. Kevin told him how he is a vegetarian who doesn't eat meat that isn't seafood. After some arguing, he took the plate of chicken back and left. He had wanted to bring something else (for which he would charge the full price without the "deal" no doubt) but Kevin ended up getting him to just take back the dish. At this point we were skeptical and unsure of what to do. The guy had made no attempt to apologize or make amends for the situation. Even if it was entirely our fault, he could have at least said he was sorry for the misunderstanding.

Based on the way he was treating us, we didn't think he was even telling the truth about the scallopini being chicken. We remembered at this point how we had specifically asked about that dish being scallops and talked about how we were getting white wine to go with it since it was seafood. We weren't positive, but we were pretty sure he had agreed when we asked about it being scallops before ordering. We debated getting up and leaving right then. Unfortunately we didn't have any kind of unbiased reference to check the translation and we needed to know if the guy was lying to us. At that point I decided to go ask at another restaurant. They all had people and servers out on their patios, so I got up and walked over to a nearby one.

I asked the woman there what scallopini meant. She said "veal." Not the response I was expecting, but also not chicken. I asked if she was sure. She said yes. I asked, "so it's always veal, it can never be anything else?" That's when she revealed that at other restaurants it could be pork or beef, but here it was always veal. I confirmed that it could be chicken too and walked back to my table.

I finished up my scallopini and we asked for the check. Our friend asked how much of the wine we'd had and we told him just the one glass each. He wrote down the charges for all the items on the paper tablecloth for us. He charged us 3 euros each for the glasses of wine (recall that the carafe was going to be 6 and the whole bottle was 10.) He also charged us 3 each for the water. He charged Kevin the full price for each of the 2 dishes he got which would have been in the 3 course deal. We paid the bill, added no tip and left. As we were walking away I noted to Kevin that despite all that (and to add to the crappiness of it) there wasn't even a single event that really made it a good story. If the guy had actually outright lied, it probably would have been better. I vowed to make a story out of it anyway.

On the way back to the hostel, we grabbed some gellato. We wanted something to redeem the lousy vibe that had been given to the evening. That's about as good of a something as I can think of.

[EDIT: this post got deleted and I recovered it from a backup. Man I am not having good luck with this blog.]