The Boardwalk

Jonathan and I hadn't seen our friend, Kathy, in a while, so we made dinner plans. However, she needed to head to Los Altos later, so we agreed to meet her in that direction. We randomly looked up places until we found one that had good reviews, and that's how we ended up at The Boardwalk. It's pretty easy to find, and if there was a really big sporting event going on, I don't think there'd be enough parking. However, since it was just a regular basketball and hockey night, the place wasn't very crowded.

I honestly found a lot of faults with this place, and am not in a hurry to go there again. First, when you walk in, it's not really clear what the set-up is. Turns out, you walk all the way across the room to the counter where you pick up food. The menu is above that. You order at the register to the right of the counter. So, while you look at the menu, you're blocking the way of people coming up to get their food. And, if the restaurant had been crowded, this would have been a problem. Additionally, with the chairs and tables in the configuration we saw, I'm not sure where a line would even form if needed. I looked through the menu and was about ready to order when Kathy arrived, so we were able to place our orders at the same time.

Jonathan got 20 hot wings, I got the Boardwalk burger (but with regular bacon instead of Canadian and an upgrade of spicy curly fries instead of regular). Kathy ordered the chicken caesar wrap. When the cashier gave us our total, it sounded about a dollar high to me. I immediately mentioned it to Jonathan, who pointed out that I don't always remember that tax is so high out here (it is 9.5%). So, I waited to see the receipt. But, we didn't receive an itemized, only a credit card slip. So, I'm not positive that the prices on the menu were accurate. The cashier also wasn't the friendly type, so I moved on.

We chose a table and sat down with our waters, waiting for our buzzers to go off. It was at this point that I realized that they never asked me how I wanted my burger cooked, which concerned me (in the end, it was well, so that was fine with me). Kathy's buzzer went off first, and she went up to grab her food. She was surprised to find that it came with chips, as that was not noted on the menu. Our order did not come up for at least ten more minutes, which was disturbing. After the first five, Jonathan went up to check on it, but the woman was not able to articulate (at least in English) what the situation was, other than "a few more minutes." He was actually on his way up to ask again when it looked like our order was being placed on the counter for pick-up. Since it had been so long, we encouraged Kathy to begin eating, and she was almost halfway through when our food was finally ready. We also all needed water refills before the food was ready... which is a pain there since you would have to wait in the order line to ask for a refill had there been anyone else in the restaurant (there were maybe ten people in the entire place).

My burger was good. In fact, there was nothing to complain about. There was, however, a sauce on it that the menu did not mention. But, it was yummy, so I didn't care. The "spicy" curly fries were no spicier than you'd find at Arby's or Checker's/Rally's, but that was fine; I was hungry. Jonathan didn't care too much for the wings, deeming them a little plain. Kathy tried a couple as well, and thought that they were overcooked - Jonathan agreed.

In the end, we did take the remainder of the wings to-go, and Kathy also brought home half of her wrap. I finished my burger and opted not to bring home the fries... which tells you how mediocre they were. So, I'm not impressed as a whole. If there was a good sporting event on, I'd give them another try. They did have a nice arrangement of large televisions, though I would fear that it would be difficult to get them to put on a "non-regional" game, since there weren't tons of televisions. If we decide to return next football season, I'll be sure to give you guys a second report.