'Aura'ble Service

Apparently there isn't a bad pun I won't try!

Anyway... there once was the Black Pearl and then there was Gianni's. Now there's a brown suede restaurant and bar called Aura that has opened up between Centro and GV Hurley's on that coveted strip on J Street. According to the sign out front their grand opening was to be July 19th, but my friend and I wandered in on July 18th to check it out.

We're not going back.

When I arrived 10 minutes late, Nancy was sitting at a table in the bar. She had already ordered a glass of Pinot Noir that hadn't arrived. They couldn't find the bottle so the waitress offered her a big apology and a Pinot Grigio instead. Nancy said she'd wait and see if they found the bottle.

Finally we have our wines and are deep in chit chat. They bring over a basket lightly toasted white bread -- French perhaps -- and some dipping sauce. We'd each had a slice when the busser asked if he could take it out of our way. Since there were four slices left we said we were still working on it.

We talked for a while and decided to order. I tried to ignore the misspellings on the menu. There are a couple of appetizers, a couple of salads, a few entrees and two desserts. None of the items had descriptions, just names, so we asked the waitress what was on the Chopped Salad. She had to go check with the kitchen. Nancy liked the sound of it and ordered it with grilled chicken. I opted for the seared ahi brushetta with humus (sic). Our order took a really long time. I don't know how long because Nancy is a great conversationalist -- but mine was virtually raw and she had salad -- so the holdup didn't make sense. When it did come out, I am shocked at the size of Nancy's salad. I know I'm not at Buca de Beppo and I know we Americans' portions are too big but if there was a cup of salad in the enormous bowl I would be surprised. Plus, her $2 chicken add-on was three slices off a grilled chicken breast. The salad was more than $12 so I expected more. Oh... and it was the wrong salad. After all that, they brought her the California Salad (roughly three slices of avocado and three slices of tomato). The waitress came back with more genuine apologies and fixed the order. It was another 10 minutes or more till the right salad came back. It didn't get any bigger though.

My ahi was OK -- not great. It was that same white bread from the basket with hummus and a fairly generous portion of tuna. It just didn't have much flavor.

Midway through our meal -- we both have food on our plates -- the busser came back and asked if he could clear them. When we said that we were still eating, he asked if he could take the wine glasses. Both had several sips left in them. I wonder if all their plates and glassware wasn't making it's debut till the grand opening.

At this point the place, which was almost empty when we arrived at 8:30, was packed and loud in the bar area. the restaurant side still seemed sparsely populated. A annoying addition to the crowd was a trio of Don Julio tequila girls trying to tempt us with shots. We passed.

After what seemed like forever, the waitress brought our check. She was thoughtful enough to comp the salad, but still charged us for the chicken. We were also charged the wrong prices for our wines. It had taken so long to get the check and frankly we just wanted to leave so I didn't haggle and decided to eat the few dollars. We each gave a credit card and asked her to split the $50 check down the middle. Many minutes later she comes back with our cards -- both charged with $44.07. Now I'm no math whiz but $44.07 times 2 does not equal $50. It took another lifetime to get that corrected. The manager came over with more apologies and our revised credit card slips. She asked if everything else was OK during the meal and we gave an unenthusiastic "sort of" as a reply. She bounded off with a "that's great! we'll see you soon!"

No, she won't. I would say don't go at all unless you like a lot of apologies with your lettuce.