Last night Kristen and I discovered a fun little place in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego called Picasso Tapas. Walking around the neighborhood we settled there purely because it was busy when nothing else was. (Little travelers tip right there.) After wiggling our way past the door we found a nice seat and settled in to enjoy this cozy hole in the wall.
If you’ve never done tapas you need to know this is a place to skip the entrees… tapas is all about ordering several “little plate” appetizers. The owner suggested we get 2 each and share, we were hungry and so we ordered 5. Also, tapas places typically have a European approach to a meal. So if you want something fast and have high expectations for minute attention to detail you’ll be disappointed. Since Kristen and I came with the idea that we’d be there a while so relaxed and enjoyed their famous sangria. Originally, we were going to grab a bite to eat then head to a movie but we ended up staying so long that dinner was plenty for one night.
A couple of the things we ordered were good. Tasty but not special. But two items really stuck out and are worth the hassle of parking down on 4th & University. First, the turkey meat balls were about the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Full of flavor and tender, not dry, we actually had to cut the 5th one in half and contemplated another order. Second, the almond shrimp was stellar. I’ve had my fair share of shrimp in my life and I’ve never bit into a shrimp to taste almond. It was a great flavor and this order came with an abundance of very large shrimp. Both items were recommendations and I kind of wish we had just asked for more instead of taking chances on some of their other 37 tapas to chose from. One negative, like was mentioned in a few reviews elsewhere, we never got all of our 5th dish. I’d tell you about the mushroom tapas but it never arrived. That didn’t disuade us though as we just ordered a dessert, flan, and were quite pleased.
The service was quaint and added to the cozy factor. I think midway through our meal we graduated from the owner, a man from southern Spain, to a “real server.” I can’t lie in saying that I preferred the owner talking about his wife (the chef from northern Spain) better than a boring server. All-in-all though the service was very typical of something I expect on the Continent.
The price was right. We ordered a lot and I was stunned that the bill was so little. If you arrive before 7 PM there are some great deals to be had from the $5 menu. I actually suggest coming early as this small place fills up with locals and gets louder as the evening progresses. Also, if you have a party larger than 4 it may be hard to get a table.
Overall, I highly recommend this place. No website and none needed. Check out some other reviews on Google and you’ll get the idea. Locals love it and critics don’t. My kind of place.
It seems like every day I either have great customer service or horrible. Here are the last few that I’ve encountered.
- #1 Delta Airlines. To say that our flight from San Diego to Atlanta on Monday was a disaster is an understatement. We’re a family of four traveling together. Do you think you’d seat children with their parents? It would seem logical that a parent would be seated next to a 4 year old, wouldn’t it? But not on Delta. They seated Megan and Paul together and Kristen in the same row, just other side. Then they stuck me way in the back. Long story short, I had an empty seat next to me. I asked if the flight attendant could go to Megan’s seat and get her for me so that I could sit by her and then Kristen could move to sit by Paul. He said… “No problem. Actually, there is a way to all sit together if you move up to their row.” So I got up… and as soon as I got up he moved a lady/child into my seat and then told me he couldn’t really get us together. He tricked me out my seat to solve his problem. Thus putting me in a worse situation! I went from a window seat with an extra next to me to a middle seat surrounded by other adults. I said to the flight attendant, “You know you just totally screwed me right? I trusted that you were telling me the truth.” He went on to try to say that the other lady wouldn’t sit apart from her child and that it was the only way the flight could take off. When I, rather bluntly, told him that what he did was lie to me to prioritize that family over my own and that he was wrong… he tried to be empathetic with me and offered us “free videos” on the flight. Of course, being Delta even that didn’t work. So Kristen and I were roughly near the kids but not next to them. It gets worse… so we were scrunched next to people and the kids were alone. Of course, our seat mates promptly fell asleep so that no one could easily go to the bathroom. Then to make matters worse, the flight attendants spent 4 hours peddling food and credit cards to us! I can’t believe that in order to fly I have to listen to a credit card offer and buy $6 snacks. Give me a break Delta. Kristen got off the plane and aptly described the flight as “the worse flight of my life.” So if you fly Delta, look out for flight attendants who lie and peddle stuff to you the whole time. Totally annoying.
- #2 Semco Energy. This is our local natural gas vendor. Their billing system is totally jacked up. I never get bills from them anymore. I don’t even get late notices. Their phone system calls my cell phone all the time but doesn’t say anything… literally just blank air. The only time I hear from them is when they drop off a disconnect notice! The crazy thing is that I typically pay via their online payment system. Well, starting in May they started rejecting my online payments. I have no idea why. They keep telling me that my routing numbers are off… but they aren’t. (Pay almost all my bills online!) Then about 3 days after I try to pay I get this really ugly letter from them. Then I get a hand delivered disconnect notice. Calling their customer service line is nearly as much fun as calling AT&T. After 40 prompts and entering my account number 2-3 times, giving them my SSN a few times, and verifying my billing address at least twice. I get told the same thing over and over again. “Our system is fine.” The best part about our latest disconnect notice is that it’s for so little money AND our bill isn’t even late! So my bill is due 7/28 but they are going to disconnect our gas today. Brilliant customer service. Morons.
What about you? What companies are treating you like dirt?
Sometimes we think that computers can solve all of our problems. Obviously, in this case the sign got printed because a person trusted that a computer had translated their business name into english correctly.
There will never be a time when human touch isn’t needed to fact check the computers. Communication and commerce are simply too important in our world to blindly trust websites.
You do have to wonder though, was this anywhere near a place called “500 Server Error?” link
If you are like me you didn’t notice the tiny asterisk in this image. But there is one. Do you see it?
This morning I intended on lining up at the Partridge Creek Apple Store to upgrade both of my AT&T phones to the smoking hot iPhone 3G.
Since I’ve been a loyal AT&T customer since 1998 I knew I needed to call their customer service and make sure there weren’t any surprises. And boy am I glad I did.
Not pictured here with Steve is the asterisk. You have to be a new customer or have an expired contract with AT&T to get this price. In the dozens of articles and videos I’d watched about the new iPhone I somehow missed this little detail. Stupid Adam, fooled again.
So, people like me who have been loyal to their wireless company are getting hosed. No love for us on the iPhone. The loyal customer price is $399. Even on the Apple site I can’t find $399 mentioned as the price, but that’s how AT&T has always treated loyal customers… horribly.
So, I talked to customer service. If you are like me and are looking to get an iPhone 3G for the advertised $199 instead of the loyal customer price of $399, here are a few tricks the customer service agent told me to try.
#1 Cancel your existing account. Yes, she told me that! After 10 years as a customer, I was told the best service I could get with AT&T was to cancel my account.
#2 Add lines, suspend lines. To get the $199 I could add 2 lines to my family plan for $10 per month and suspend my current 2 lines for free. Eh? She even told me I should just give away my other 2 lines “to anyone.”
#3 Keep calling AT&T until you get someone to agree to give you the upgrade price before your current contract expires. (Mine is in September)
#4 Open a new account under a new name. If you are like me and have a family plan, just close your account under one name and start a new account under the other.
Of course I am not going to do any of these. Next month we are moving across the country and I know
from experience with AT&T that they’ll offer me a new two year contract than. This may also be our time to try a new company, like Verizon.
AT&T has always had the worst customer service in the mobile phone industry. I’ve long held that AT&T is a great company as long as you never call the 800 number and that is re-confirmed every time I talk to “customer care.”
Here I am, a customer of 10 years that would like to re-up his contract for 2 more years at a rate nearly double what he currently pays and I’m told I can do one of 4 “tricks?”
Last night Kristen and I discovered a fun little place in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego called Picasso Tapas. Walking around the neighborhood we settled there purely because it was busy when nothing else was. (Little travelers tip right there.) After wiggling our way past the door we found a nice seat and settled in to enjoy this cozy hole in the wall.
