Mood:  chatty

Although it's been a habit of mine for many a weekend over the last couple years, I don't think I'll be going to Donna's for brunch anymore.

First, they've increased their prices from "moderately high, but within reason for a smock yuppie food place" to "a tad ridiculous for some eggs and vegetables, plus terrible service." Mind you, this is like maybe, only a dollar increase, but for some reason $9.95 for a smock egg dish seems much more unreasonable than $8.95 (especially when you're also paying around ~$4.00 for an espresso drink). I can go across the street to Karma's for equally delicious food that usually runs at an average of 5-7.95. (The only reasons I went to Karma's less often is 1. Donna's has an Italian-influenced eggs benedict that's gorgeous (but not worth $10.00), and 2. Karma's isn't open on Sundays.) And if I want to spend $9.95 on eggs, I may as well add another buck and go to The Golden West where I can get a plate of gorgeous, can't-find-anywhere-else Huevos Montulenos that will feed me, plus a small army.

Second, yes, you will note the "terrible service" remark. The service has varied at Donna's, but usually people are at least somewhat courteous, if slow. My waiter was constantly late and inattentive. He never refilled my water or asked me if I wanted anything else. When I was ready for the check, I looked up to see him chatting with the cute girls at the coffee bar... for a good 15 minutes, before I finally was able to catch his eye. (I was also completely unable to catch anyone else's attention in the meantime.) When he brought me the check, I again had to wait forever. He was again at the coffee bar -- now mind you, there were two other baristas at the coffee bar, plus a cash register attendant doing absolutely nothing up there except talking and laughing to each other -- and I had no hope of signaling him. I finally gave up and brought my check to the cash register myself. I mentioned quietly to the register attendant that I'd been waiting for him for nearly 20 minutes, and her only reply was a nonchalant, "Yeah, he does that to everybody." Not, "Very sorry to hear that," or "I'll let the manager know." I also had to calculate my change for her. When I have to do arithmetic for someone else, that's not a good sign (though I can calculate things in terms of currency better than simply doing standard adding and subtracting).

I left him about an 11% tip (I wouldn't have left one at all, except the one thing he did right was bring me my food as soon as it came up. The waiters at Donna's are sometimes bad about letting food sit out for ages before they bring it to the customer). I normally tip about 20% if not more -- I like to support the college students in the area, most of whom work in these places, but not if they're twits.

It's a shame because the food is still quite good. In fact, the benedict was the best iteration I've had of that dish of late. But with the price and the service, it's just not worth it. At least it was a good last meal there.

But at least having a 90 minute, by-myself meal at Donna's enabled me to give the Urbanite a good read. This month's issue had very good coverage of Baltimore's problems with public transit and discusses solutions being looked into. It was interesting to note that 44,000 people ride the Metro, and 23,000 ride the Light Rail. Now, the Light Rail has a wider range of people and is advertised more agressively; there are two lines and more stops; it's supposed to especially serve both working commuters and tourists who want to go into downtown for a game or visiting the Inner Harbor. But its security is so awful it's dubbed the "Fright Rail" and its travel times notoriously slow. The Metro has two problems: it has one line that serves a very specific group of commuters, and therefore no one has heard of it. Many a Baltimorean has been heard saying, "Really? We have a subway?" Yet even so... it has nearly twice the ridership of the much more accessible Light Rail. Has anyone else noticed this but me?

BTW, check out the Urbanite if you haven't. It's free and found in many areas, and for a free magazine (heck, for a subscription magazine) its production values are very high, and the writing quality above standard. Of course there are a lot of ads, but the layout makes that as unobtrustive as possible. I've thought about submitting my resume to them, maybe for some freelance work. I should at least submit something to their monthly creative non-fiction feature... I just need to come up with a good idea.

And thanks to the Urbanite, I found out Baltimore Comic-con is today (I swear, it's the most poorly advertised comic convention ever. I know about comic conventions going on in Chicago more than I do ones at home). It might be a little late, but maybe I'll go check it out if the admission isn't too ridiculous.