Thursday, Oct 11, 2007
The Mercury Cafe
Jen's Pick
2199 California Street
Denver, CO 80205
Hours not posted on website
Attendees: Ang., Caroline, Jen, Lara
I picked The Mercury Cafe as it seemed to continue with my trend of choosing granola-y, kooky, vegetarian-friendly restaurants. I remembered it as being fun and atmospheric from the days when we used to hang out upstairs to watch our favorite band but had only eaten here once and hardly remember it. (Now I know why)
Altho they list an email address, the website says they would rather speak in person. This is curious as I emailed "marilyn" (who I believe is the owner) to let someone know we were coming. I'm pretty sure the website did not state that they would prefer to speak in person at the time I emailed or I would have just called. Either way, I never received a response. Makes me wonder why you would post an email address at all!? At any rate, I'm going to call it strike one.
Lara & Caroline arrived first and were sipping wine at the bar when Ang. & I arrived. I had to search for someone to seat us and finally approached a bar and asked someone. After some waffling, we were seated at a table in the middle of the room. There was a large book club or something next to us and apparently that is why it took our waitress what seemed like an eternity to get to our table. She was quiet, and somewhat spiritless and I had to ask her to repeat herself several times as she was very hard to hear. We ordered a bottle of wine and our dinners and wondered how long it might be...... We nibbled on the dry, flavorless bread while we waited.
In the meantime, there is this guy who seems to "work" here and he is wearing a fuzzy hat. For the life of me I cannot figure out what his job must be but I digress. He walks from the kitchen toward the bar and he is chewing food -- with his mouth open. Ewww - I think this is really gross and in poor taste. I do not mention it to the girls. Strike two.
I got a salad with my dinner - I chose the feta dressing. It was nothing special and the dressing was on the bland side. It was ok, but like I say, nothing special. Our dinners arrive, I ordered the Tempeh with Black Bean Sauce and quinoa - I find it surprisingly tasty. The tempeh is sliced not-to-thick, not-to-thin, and the black bean sauce is a nice distraction from the dryness of the tempeh. The quinoa was, quinoa, which is nice but the vegetables were probably my least favorite as the green beans were kind of... hard? Undercooked? I'm not sure, but they were weird.
Lara & Caroline ordered the "Tea" dinner so they got desserts with their dinners. Our dinners were gone but our plates sat in front of us, even as desserts were served. This is totally annoying to me - a total peeve. The desserts plates actually looked awesome, I think I had a bite but am not much for sweets right after dinner. So I do not count the desserts toward my review and offer a strike three for the dirty plates that never left our sight.
We finally paid our bill and got the heck outta there. The "Merc" doesn't accept credit cards, by the way, so keep this in mind should you choose to attend. I am pretty sure I was the most disappointed by this dinner but I'll let the other gals speak for themselves. I personally won't return the Mercury Cafe by my own choosing - I'll have to be forced.
On a positive sidenote - I love the water-recycling toilets at The Mercury Cafe. This is brilliant and should be used everywhere!
3 comments:
My experience was defintely better than Jen's!! I thought the bland bread was good and healthy tasting! I also ordered tomato soup which is ridiculous because I don't even like tomato soup and it was amazing! I had some type of italian tofu dish and I would love a plate of it right now! I love tofu yet usually only eat it in some type of stir fry. The tomato sauce was perfect and this strange-to-me combo melted in my mouth! I had chocolate mousse for dessert and it was the perfect amount of chocolatey and sweetness. My favorite mousse is very, very light and although this was good, it was still a mix between a great mousse and a pudding. Service was lacking, I agree. The "tea" meal I ordered had a lot of food and a great variety for a very reasonable price, about $12.50.
I had the same thing as Caroline and it was very good! The soup was great but the dinner was amazing. I got the sampler for dessert and it was good.
The book club and the service were quite annoying! I enjoyed their house wine. I enjoyed several glasses of it!
I had forgotten about there toilets. I want to get one for my house. I don't understand why more people/places don't have these.
I'd go there again and eat, but only if I was also going for a show or something fun.
My Two Cents By Ang.
The “Merc” is a weird place, man! It’s like a gorgeous hippy haven that is dying to be a upscale hip-ster urban hangout.
I want to start by saying that my dinner was delicious, I had some Tofu Special thing (the same as Lara and Caroline). I also had a big ol’ bite of Jen’s Tempeh and I thought that was yummy as well.
But I would have missed it because the special board was impossible to read having been written in gold and brown markers.
And since the waitress barely spoke above a whisper the entire time, if we hadn’t asked to repeat herself I would not have known about it.
What I am saying is that if you are going to charge folks between $12 and $15 per entrée, your service should be on par with the price you are charging.
Having waited tables before I understand getting overwhelmed and stuck “in the weeds” as they say but if you are swamped and can’t get to your new table to just take a drink order than you should really ask the bar staff or the hostess to help you out. (Note: I might could let this slide a little bit since both Lara and Caroline already had drinks from the bar maybe she didn’t realize that Jen and I did not…but, then again, if she would have stopped by the table to say hi or whatever after we had been sitting there almost 10 minutes…)
The menu was quite eclectic…I was impressed that there seemed to be something for everyone but it kinda bummed me out that the choices for sides were so limited…pasta or quinoa, and nary a potato (mashed or otherwise) in sight.
Also, we were seated in a very high traffic area, and it was impossible for the gentleman behind me to get up from his table without slamming into me. And judging by how many times he apologized to me for it, he must have felt very uncomfortable as well.
I don’t’ know who or what the guy in the fuzzy hat was all about (and I didn’t really see him coming from the kitchen with food in his mouth) but I could see him at the bar just chatting with the wait staff and I have to say he kinda grossed me out…he looked genuinely dirty.
Overall, I cannot say the I was all that impressed with the “Merc”.
I’m gonna have to go with 2 stars on this one…okay, 2 and a half as I, too, liked the house wine a lot.
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