No Paradise Here

I found myself in Placer County last night. And while most know my distaste of all things Roseville, when I go to visit friends and family in the 'burbs, Roseville is usually the only place to go for food. I've had some good experiences (Blue Nami) and some really bad ones. Unfortunately, last night was a really bad one.

I've heard of Paradise Grill before, but never been. I like Paradise, I like grills, and we were looking for something fairly inexpensive. Should have been perfect. Paradise, even. No such luck.

We sat in the bar and waited for well over 15 minutes before anyone talked to us. But there were lots of servers around, but the two female bartenders (one in training) were too busy flirting with the table full of men behind us. When we were actually helped, it was strange service. Sort of on the uncomfortable side--I'm all for friendly service, but please don't call me "babe" or wink at me. That's just strange. (Although explains why the table of men were so happy.) It then took ten more minutes for us to get our drinks. My glass of wine was fine, but Mandy's pina colada was way more pina than colada. Whatever, we weren't expecting island perfection, it's Roseville after all. I did order a glass of water which took an additional ten minutes. Great.

Ten more minutes and they took our order. I ordered the tuna salad... Ok, I should have asked questions about it, but I really didn't want to engage in conversation with my winking bartender and her sidekick. I was expecting something really good when the bartender says, "Oh that's my FAVORITE salad! It's really good!" When it came out it was literally tuna salad, like the kind you make at home with mayo and all that, and I was expecting sliced tuna steak like the tuna in their appetizers. I actually make better salads at home. This was the lettuce mix from the bag (you know what I mean, the American variety), sliced black olives, peppercinis, shredded cheddar cheese, and half of an avocado. The tuna salad was in a mound in the middle (looked like from an ice-cream scoop) and when I took a scoop found half a tomato underneath it. Ok, whatever. I was more excited about the avocado than anything else, but when I turned it over so the inside was up, it was totally brown. Gross. I still ate it (I was starving) but couldn't believe they were charging nearly ten dollars for it. Mandy had the hibachi chicken sandwich with fries. The fries were nearly cold (though they tasted ok) and the sandwich was so big she could barely fit it in her mouth. But it was all fried onions, not the chicken or bacon.

It took another ten minutes after we were clearly done eating for them to clear our plates and get us our bill. The only time the service was quick was when they ran my credit card--probably in an attempt to get us out of there because we were clearly not pleased. Mandy commented that the bathroom was the best part--but when the bathroom is the highlight of the evening, you know it's bad.

I'll never go back again. The food was mediocre, but the service was slow, and weird. I also have never seen so many men in baseball hats in one restaurant at a time. I was so happy to get back to midtown!!