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After we visited the delightfully quirky Calefs General Store in New Hampshire last week, we were hungry for lunch. Not being familiar with the area we asked the ladies who worked there for a recommendation.
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They directed us to Dante’s, an Italian restaurant we were assured was popular, crowded and always delicious.
Unassuming from the outside…
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And not at all crowded on the inside, I was beginning to doubt the review.
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The bar is always my husband’s preferred seating choice and since it was completely empty, we got started.
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I like arincini, but have never in my life been served any this large.
Seriously, they were the size of tennis balls.
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Almost as big as my blood orange and vodka spritz.
Shame they were cold in the middle and virtually tasteless. If they’d been tasty I could have eaten them as a meal.
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This was supposed to be ravioli carbonara, but instead of pancetta they used ham and instead of garlic there were large chunks of onion.
The portion was huge, but again… rather tasteless.
Vowing never to return to this disappointing place, we noticed a woman walking out of a doorway adjacent to the bar with a brush and a can of hair spray.
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Turns out it’s a hair salon.
Right there.
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And next to the hair salon? A fitness center.
It was a regular one stop shop!
You could work out, blow out and pig out all in the same building.
Now that’s multi tasking.
🤣
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Gotta feel sorry for people who think that’s great.
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It’s a small town, but still…
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That happened to us in a small town in Nova Scotia! The diner/hair salon got excellent reviews from the locals and also on Yelp! I decided that the Canadians really aren’t that into seasoning but totally into starch and lard! Hey, we didn’t get sick and the it was cheap and the folks were very friendly!
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Hair and food are not my idea of a great combo!
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I’d prefer watching folks get their hair cut to watching them sweat as they worked out!
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True…
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Sorry the food wasn’t good. Otherwise you could work out, get a new do and have dinner!
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Too bad the taste didn’t live up to the presentation!
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Oh my gosh. That’s hilarious. (the variety of stores, not the tasteless food!) What? No Scotch Tape Store? 😂
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There could be…
🤣
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Well, since arancino/arancini is derived from the word that means orange in English, maybe they thought they should be the size of an orange. Reminds me of the coffeeshop in western Minnesota where I asked for an espresso and she said “8 or 12 ounce?” I held my fingers about an inch apart and said it should be about that big. She said “You must be from Canada. That’s how they drink it.” I guess she thought the bigger, the better. She did her best and came up with an Americano. At least 6 ounces of water for that shot of espresso.
And the ham; well, pancetta is sorta like bacon, and Canadian bacon is sorta like ham, so it’s sorta like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Does that make onion within six degrees of garlic?
I do like the snow cascading from one roof to the next, where it’s ready to dump on you when you go to the woodpile.
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A 12 ounce espresso? If you want to stay awake for a week, sure.
The ham in that dish was closer to Oscar Meyer than Italy. Or Kevin Bacon for that matter.
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The 12 oz espresso would have been mostly water – an extremely weak Americano, which is already a heavily-watered espresso.
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Ugh.
I’ll pass…
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Wow, it’s also a disappointment to the readers of your blog when you do a food review and it’s bad. Because by looking at it, you wouldn’t be able to tell, they both looked delicious. Sorry the food sucked, at least I hope the cocktail was descent.
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The ravioli itself was fresh, shame the rest of it was awful.
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Oh my
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“work out, blow out and pig out all in the same building”
Quite a slogan.
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Funny how food can look so delicious but lack flavor.
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Bummer when a recommendation falls flat like that. You have to wonder: Did you just get the chef on a bad day? Does the recommender own a share in the restaurant? Does the recommender just have no taste whatsoever? Why? WHY did they recommend that place?!
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Supporting another local business owner? I don’t know…
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