Lies, more lies and deception

Wellness Cuisine, Progresului nr 2, 031 432 8783
A wiser man than I once wrote “how many truths make up a lie?” The answer: “It takes a multitude of truths to embellish a lie and thereby give it credibility.” These words hold true in the civilized world, but clearly the author had never visited Romania.

No smokescreen of truths are necessary to hide a lie here in the world’s capital of in-your-face lying, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the restaurant industry. So walk with me through a menu of lies in the absurdly named Wellness Cuisine restaurant.

It is situated in vibrant Drumul Taberei and the décor is perfectly acceptable. But those are the only good words I have to say about this utterly stupid place. So let me disabuse you of any notion that (as its name implies) this place offers you healthily designed food. The name is a pure deception. The menu is designed to impress you with a total of 115 choices of average Mediterranean food, which is simply 115 ways of the House making a fool of itself 115 times!

So Blondie ordered a ‘classic Caesar salad’ at RON 18. “What the hell is this?” she cried as it arrived. “It is nothing more than cheap lettuce with Parmesan, an unidentifiable sauce (probably from a supermarket bottle) and toast.” It was NOT a Caesar, it was a lie. It should have contained ‘cos lettuce’ (it did not) and a dressing made from warmed egg yolk, crushed garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcester sauce, and Parmesan with croutons fried in garlic oil. Oh give me a break! It was nothing of the sort.

Having established that our first dish was misnamed – even though all of the correct ingredients are readily available in Romania – we gave them a second chance with a further salad of ‘smoked salmon, with avocado, crispy capers, honey, lime juice, coriander and lettuce’ at RON 30. The description was yet another lie, as there was no honey, crispy capers, lime or coriander.

These people are taking the piss out of the customers, and the evidence was before us in the form of an empty restaurant, devoid of diners at peak lunch hour! But let us get back to a far from amusing comedy of errors.

Warm toast had mysteriously arrived at our table. We had not ordered it, and we eventually paid for it on the bill. So I reached for the olive oil to make an oil and toast dip. But beyond all belief, the branded olive oil bottle was old and its label was frayed with use and age. The House had re-filled the bottle and written on it, by hand, a new expiry date.
Was that gesture naïve, mean, stupid or just unprofessional? I think it was all four!

Next I ordered a ‘quesadilla’ – a simple corn flour tortilla (pancake) filled with cheese and flavored with fresh coriander. The whole point of this so-called Mexican dish is the flavor of the coriander and salsa.

But there was NONE! Instead, the kitchen substituted coriander with parsley. Furthermore, there was none of the promised jalapeno peppers, and, worse still, the menu stated that it came with a spicy ‘salsa’. This should simply be fresh chopped tomato, onion and hot pepper. But no. The ‘salsa’ was nothing more than supermarket ketchup. More lies. The dish was awful and we could not eat it.

It was now becoming apparent that everything on the menu was going to be compromised in favor of the House. But nothing could prepare me for the absolute outrage the House threw in my face when I ordered ‘chicken in Roquefort sauce’. In case you do not know it, Roquefort is the world’s most expensive blue cheese. It is distinguished by its salty, yet strong flavor. There were no such characteristics in my sauce, which was virtually flavorless. So did they use a tiny Roquefort or an alternative blue cheese? By this point I didn’t care any more.

But Blondie was still hungry and gave them a last chance by ordering a simple ‘guacamole’. How could they possibly get this dish wrong, as it should be nothing more than avocado and lime juice, mushed with the back of a fork. But no! They incorrectly put the avocado in a blender, and in order to give the dish added weight and substance added tomato, cream and onion. Yuk!

By this point I couldn’t take any more of this nonsense. But they had two sexy dishes on the menu based upon mussels and clams (vongole) respectively. I considered buying one of them to take home and give to Blondie’s cat. But we were informed that all the shellfish was frozen, as you cannot buy shellfish fresh in Bucharest. Another lie, they should just go to Metro and get it fresh.

You can perfectly defrost white fish, but NEVER freeze shellfish as you lose all of the juice and flavor. Ask any cat, and it will agree with me. So Blondie’s cat went hungry, and after leaving Wellness, so did I!

michaelbarclay32@gmail.com

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