Throb: Good Grub, Stupid Prices, Sucky Service

See what’s pumpin’ in ‘Cruces!

G-Fresh, Throb Columnist

Attention all eaters: Restaurant Review! ‘Yo all, I been scorin’ real good lately with the perks of being the Throb columnist. Free booze at the Wine Fest, ridin’ dirty in the Skidmark hearse, and now...FREE FOOD! Shit yeah, biatches. It don’t matter what it is; if it’s free, I eat it. My boss had a couple apologetic 5% off coupons from International Disappointments over some wicked food poisoning incident last month, so I volunteered to return for the official review. I gotta say that I’ve been to this place about six times before, and every time there was something wrong with my order or with the price. But we gotta stay objective here and I’m really trying hard to like this place, so let’s pretend all those negative experiences never happened, k?

The IDC is a nice place. Almost “too nice” for ‘Cruces, if ya know what I mean. The furnishings aren’t made of plastic and they have fancy Egyptian mummy stuff decorating the walls. I was mesmerized by a big wide screen TV above the counter until I looked around and realized the TV was just showing still shots of the restaurant itself. Vain!

I said NO yogurt sauce.

I got neurotic as I approached the service counter. “They gonna fuck up my order again?” I wondered. You see homeslices, I don’t eat anything with dairy junk in it: no milk, no cheese, no cream. Call it intolerance. I eat it, I start staining my shorts and wondering how all those thirsty baby cows are doing.

For purposes of this review, I ordered the same thing as always: a falafel wrap for $4.79. I took a gamble and asked the cashier (hot young chick, like all the workers there) if she could replace the squirt of yogurt sauce for a smear of hummus. “Um, that’s like an extra dollar,” said the girl. And I was like, “Dayam!” So I said forget it and told her to make it without the yogurt. I also ordered their large bowl of lentil soup for $3.59 cuz they don’t have a smaller cup for cheap. You can’t go wrong with soup, right?

I was hungover from last night, so I also ordered a cuppa for $1.59. I got a mug 3/4 full with coffee grounds floating all over the top and I was like “WTF?” She said they just ran out of coffee and if I want she can add a shot of espresso to fill it up. I was like, no, and I asked for a splash of soy milk instead of dairy creamer. “Um, it’s an extra dollar,” she said. I snorted smugly, just shaking my head over such a retail robbery, and decided to drink my gritty coffee black. They don’t have free refills on the coffee, so if you want a little bit more you just have to buy another cup.

Dogs at restaurants suck.

I went out to the patio and saw an empty table next to the fountain, but tripped over a huge St. Bernard resting in the shade underneath. I hate it when people bring their fucking dogs to restaurant patios; I guess I should start bringing my pet bull snake and let it slither around everyone’s ankles while they’re dining. Fair is fair. As the server brought my food and disappeared, I could see the dog taking a massive shit in the bushes near the fountain and a small commotion started so I just put my iPod on.

VERDICT: My falafel wrap was drenched with yogurt sauce, as unrequested. This is like the sixth time now. I complained about it before and once they offered to make me a new wrap, but I don’t play like that because then the kitchen staff puts stuff on the new food. So I took the whole thing apart and scraped off all the creamy crap and quickly threw it in the fountain. The falafel balls were pretty tasty, but the lettuce was limp; all I could think about was the diarrhea that would probably rush through me in a couple of hours (it did). The “large bowl” of lentil soup I ordered reminded me of the time I went to that Phish concert and the only beer for sale was Miller Light in “Super Jumbo” size cups for $5, but they were just regular 12 ounce cups filled with piss-poor beer. False advertising, dudes. The soup was foshizzle fine, but then again I ain’t never had a bad bowl of soup in my life cuz I don’t think it’s possible to fuck up soup.

When I got home, I checked out their website as part of my field research. It’s one of very few websites in ‘Cruces that don’t look like total crap, but it was full of mistakes. First off, all the food prices were like two years old and each about a buck less than what I had just paid. I figured that’s just a result of Mañana Mood, and they’ll update the 411 when they feel like it. But then I saw all these spelling errors – chiken, babaghanoudj, estern, mronig, lattuce, cambo, cofee – and I was like “no ways!” Workin’ in the publication biz I catch these bombs all the time and it makes a writer look pretty retarded when they don’t use the spell chekc.

WHAT: Authentic foods from everywhere but here
WHERE: Las Cruces, New Mexico
WHEN: Mon 9:15am-6:10pm, Tues 8am-1:40am, Wed Noon-Midnight, Thurs CLOSED, Fri-Sun 23 HOURS. Closed on Groundhog Day.
WHY: Only place in town that don’t serve hamburgers or burritos