Carmen's Cafe

Since R and I met, poor service has kind of become our thing. The first time I ever saw her was at a friend's birthday party at Brown's in Troy, where I ordered a soda three or four times and somehow never got it.  Since then, almost every place we've gone has featured long wait times, being completely ignored by waitstaff, kitchen errors, and stale/unseasoned food.  It isn't consistent, but it is unusually regular.  I suspect this is the reason we like to search out the little known, uncharted places in the area.  For one we both have pretty adventurous tastes, but also with this curse hanging over us, if we have a good experience then we know it's a genuinely great place.

Unfortunately, Carmen's Cafe fell completely flat on all the above issues.  It started well enough, we sat and were seen immediately for food and drink orders (although, oddly, by different waitresses).  The decor and floor were also nice, though my chair was set at the corner of the fireplace, forcing me to sit at a slight angle to the table.  Just enough to be annoyed but not enough to say anything or move once we had sat. 

The wait for our food was a good half hour for eggs. EGGS!  It was probably worse for R because it was her first meal that day (I take early classes on weekends), but regardless it's kind of long for breakfast in a dining room that's only half full.  Service fell down a bit here, as we finally had to ask what was going on with our food at the half hour mark (nobody had let us know the kitchen was backed up or checked on us in that time, though our water glasses were kept full which I appreciate).  Fortunately, at that point it was in the window anyway.

There was a...strange mix-up with the food.  We had wanted to try the house cured bacon, so R had ordered a side of that.  For whatever reason, the waitress had put it in as a substitute for the house chorizo hash rather than a separate side.  Mistakes happen, I know, it was just a strange one.  I should state that our waitress was very nice, kept my water glass filled, and brought free mimosas out to make up for the wait time and ordering issues.  Even though there were errors, I thought the overall service was fine.

The main issues with this place was the food.  I had the Ricardo Omelet, a three egg affair with chorizo hash, cheddar and manchego cheese, and a side of toast and plantains.  For what it sounds like, it really fell flat.  The hash, in spite of using chorizo, somehow didn't taste like anything.  Lack of seasoning was really the order of the day for my plate, and though it wasn't offensive it was really bland and overwhelmed by the enormous amount of egg. 

My biggest issue with the dish was that the egg was a solid inch and a half, folded.  It smothered what little flavor the chorizo and cheese had and made it kind of difficult to get through.  I ended up leaving a solid egg worth of food on the plate.  The other glaring flaw was the toast, which was pumpernickel.  The butter had been put on by the chef, so it was melted and cool by the time it reached my plate, and just way too dry.  All in all, I was really unimpressed and unsatisfied by the end of the meal.

R's meal was slightly better.  She got the Ranch Eggs, sunny side up with a red tomato chili sauce , mashed black beans with a pico de gallo of sorts, Texas toast, and the subbed in bacon.  The beans needed salt but were well cooked and had pretty good flavor otherwise especially with the pico.  The red sauce was delicious.  The rest, again, just fell flat.  The two glaring flaws, again, were the eggs and toast.  Like with mine, the toast was just dry and difficult to get down (R said it tasted stale).  Her eggs were undercooked, way too thin and runny for it just to be yolk.  Taste wise, again, missing on the seasoning. Not only did she not get a side of chorizo hash that supposedly came with the dish, the lime creme was also M.I.A.

The biggest disappointment was the house-cured bacon, a measly portion of two slices.  The flavor was ok, but the pieces were super chewy, tough, and thick and had no crisp to them whatsoever. Like most of the meal, it was shockingly mediocre.

Overall, I would say for the price there are worse things to spend your money on, I just don't see the point with Ilium Cafe down the street offering better food at comparable prices.  If you really want to try it out, definitely avoid the omelets and, frankly, anything with egg in it.  We didn't try the sweeter dishes, but the chef seems to hate cooking with salt so I don't have my hopes up for sugar. 

They've got 4 stars on Yelp so maybe the lunch service is better?  Has anyone else tried this out yet and had a better experience? Is it worth a redemption visit? Maybe it's just our bad luck.