Name: Il Nido Cafe (Robson and Thurlow)
Location: 780 Thurlow Street, Vancouver, BC
Phone: (604) 685-6436

Alright, so Il Nido has recently launched a new menu. Hope they re-launched their front end staff as well since they totally suck.

I didn’t make it down for their “Sights and Tastes of Summer” fall menu launch party last Thursday and given the opportunity, I’d probably decline.

As for my experience?

First and foremost, I suppose I should have known what was coming to me when, during the date with an ‘in the know’ girl last year, I was told that the restaurant has, on previous occasions been shut down for lack of hot water. Go figure, I guess you need hot water to CLEAN THE DISHES?! How someone could run a restaurant without such a necessary resource baffles me. Sure, put the lives of your clientele on the line, would you like some Hepatitis C with your order, sir?
Anyhow, that’s not my bitch, here’s the deal:

• Il Nido’s staff couldn’t pour a drink if their life depended on it

I feel like drinking a 25 year old scotch, ask ‘em what they’ve got, the waitress returns to the table with some 12 year old shit. What gives?

Okay, in all fairness to the waitress, she could hardly speak English which brings me to the next point…

• At Il Nido, ESL seems to be a prerequisite

So, this is supposed to be ‘inventive Italian dining’, right? So it’s acceptable if the staff there are going to speak a bit of Italian – that’s authentic but when the waitress asks if I’d like some p… pp.. *stutter* ‘poivre’ with my food? What’s worse is our ‘gracious host’ (yeah right) didn’t even bother to understand the finer points of the language (like more water please) and looked at me like I was some numbskull until I started making requests in French.

I have a bunch of other gripes but these two stuck out and for the sake of keeping things simple, I’ll leave it at that for now.

So what about alternates?

Decent food in the area is really easy to come by. There’s the obvious, Joe Fortes or The Keg. There’s the izakaya and Brazilian place downstairs a block away… there’s event Saltlik which at least has decent eye candy (food’s just okay, you’re paying for over-priced Earl’s but that’s a whole seperate rant).