One of the most highly anticipated parts of any day-trip for me is the food.
Normally my $20 overall budget would limit me to fast food options, but my FOMO coerced me into upping my budget to a sit-down restaurant instead. Still nothing fancy, just a casual-dining spot where I could be served and have a cocktail or something.
I usually like to research when it comes to food, but this time I didn’t have to do too much.
Carlsbad has been on my radar of places to visit for a minute now, so I already had a few restaurants saved on Instagram for whenever I decided to go.
And the winner was…drumroll please…no? okay—Clara’s in Carlsbad Village.
I picked Clara’s because it seemed like it had a nice vibe: I liked their signature cocktail selection and their lunch menu had a few items I wanted to try. Plus, the pictures of their food looked good on Instagram and Yelp.
As I looked at their menu the night before, I was planning on spending quite a bit of money there…well, quite a bit in comparison to the around $10 my food usually costs on these trips. I wanted their cauliflower tacos, their truffle fries, a flatbread pizza and a cocktail.
But by the time I left the Flower Fields, not only was I not that hungry, but I also wasn’t in the mood to go to a tourist trap and dine alone. I even contemplated driving back home once I got in my car. Then I thought, “I didn’t drive all this way in traffic just to take pictures of sparse flowers and pick blueberries. I want a dining experience.” And so I went.
There were quite a few people out when I arrived. I had to circle the entire parking lot once before I found a spot. When I walked in the door, a black guy who worked there was talking to someone behind him as he approached the empty host stand. He greeted me and I asked for a table for one. He replied by saying I could find any open table I wanted and sit there. Not quite the experience I was expecting, but hey, whatever.
Before I escorted myself to a table, I asked him about a menu and he said the tables have QR codes on them. Perhaps he noticed my, I’m-out-of-touch-and-don’t-do-that-type-of-thing look on my face, because after a beat he said, “or I could get you one.” I declined however, and opted to use the QR code, because I want to get with the times.
I headed back outside and walked through the outdoor seating area to choose a table. There were several tables occupied, however most were empty. I finally settled at a table in the sun. I like to get some sun since I’m normally in the house, hence this Getting Out the House post. That’s when I noticed there was no QR code on my table. I looked around and there were several tables without a QR Code. I had to get up and go to another empty table to get the QR code, and then come back to my table.
Like, if you know that all the tables don’t have QR codes, why not just offer a menu? I’d already viewed the menu online the night before, but I just wanted to see it anyway, in case the online version was outdated. That happened to me before. I chose a restaurant strictly based on a dessert I saw on an online menu, only to get there and discover it was discontinued. Ugh, so annoying. The waitress was like, “Oh we don’t have that anymore, it was good, though.”
Insert blank stare.
Anyway, this menu was the exact same as the one online. Since I already knew what I wanted, I was ready to order immediately, however nobody was coming round my table. I sat there for a couple minutes with no attention whatsoever.
Then, out of nowhere, a straw-less glass of water appeared before me. I looked up and saw that it was placed there by a white girl who I would later realize was a server-in-training. She didn’t take my order or anything, she just dropped off the water.
At that point, I checked the time and said to myself if I didn’t get any service within five minutes I was leaving. I realize five minutes is a generous amount of time to wait for initial contact, but my mouth was all ready and set to try a couple of their menu items and I wasn’t in the mood to recalibrate my taste buds for something else. But if my clock struck five minutes, I was out of there.
With a minute to spare, the black guy I initially spoke with and the white girl in-training came to my table to take my order. The black guy did all the talking. He asked me if I was ready to order. “Yes,” I told him. “I’ll have the truffle fries and the pear gorgonzola…” perhaps I paused a bit, because before I could finish my sentence, he finished it for me.
“Flatbread?” he asked.
Um, okay, that was weird, but yeah, that’s what I wanted. I decided to nix the cauliflower tacos because I wasn’t that hungry, and in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking of ways I can save money. I also decided against having a cocktail. I was already a bit sleepy on my drive up, and I just didn’t want to put any amount of alcohol in the mix for my drive back.
Even though one drink has never had any effect on me. Actually, no amount of alcohol has ever had any effect on me because I’ve never drank enough to get drunk or even buzzed, but still, I didn’t want to take any chances…and, more money saved.
When I didn’t see regular drinks on the menu, I asked the black guy if they had lemonade. He said yes. Then I asked if he could make me some cucumber lemonade. I saw a lot of their cocktails had a cucumber element to it, so I thought this would be an easy request, something to which he would reply, “sure” or “not a problem,” but instead he was like, “I can try.”
Um, okay.
As soon as he left with his trainee in tow, I checked my clock (aka phone) again, just in case they decided to take a long time with my food like they did to take my order, I was going to leave. My phone was running low, so instead of scrolling through Instagram or Twitter, I brought a book to read.
Before long, I heard the black guy talking to some other patrons as I read, I didn’t bother looking up because he wasn’t talking to me. The next thing I knew, he quickly squeezed in a “sorry” as he placed my drink (without a garnish) down on my table, then left and kept talking to the other patrons without missing a beat – so rude. Now come to think of it, how close in proximity was my lemonade to those people? Like why are you talking to someone holding someone else’s drink? Ugh.
Plus, didn’t he just tell me he could “try” when I asked about making a cucumber lemonade? So he’s not going to ask me how is it? Announce, “here’s your cucumber lemonade?” Tell me my food will be out in a few? You just gonna place my drink on the table and walk away?
Um, okay.
A couple minutes later, a young white guy came over with my food. I mean, he was nice or whatever – nothing special about his service, but he wasn’t rude. He placed my food on the table and told me to enjoy. I thanked him and he went on his way.
I’m a fry girl – I love me some fries. Even when they’re bad, they’re still kinda good. I’d never had truffle fries before, and I’m not sure these fries could make me feel any different. I saw the oil, but I didn’t taste the truffle distinction. To me, they just tasted like garlic fries. They had the garlic and the herbs cuts up on them. But I couldn’t tell you, based on these fries, exactly what truffle fries are.
The pear gorgonzola flatbread, however, was a treat. That was the thing I was really anxious to taste, and it didn’t disappoint. I just loved the delicate sweetness of the pear combined with the brash bitterness of the gorgonzola, punctuated by the crunchy-candied walnuts (which I thought were too big and should have been chopped finer), all coming together on some sort of mild unpretentious cheese, like a provolone-mozzarella mix or something, and then of course the bread, which was a little tough, but hey, overall I really liked it. There was also some sort of brown drizzle on top that I couldn’t distinguish.
As I was eating a piece of the flatbread, the black guy came by my table to inquire about the meal. I told him I liked it then asked, “What’s that brown stuff on the top?”
“The glaze?” he replied.
Um, okay.
I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but the way he said it, it sounded like he was correcting me for saying, “brown stuff” because what the fuck other brown stuff was there on the pizza besides the glaze? Just like he finished my sentence and said flatbread earlier, I thought he was being condescending. I was dumbfounded, like what the fuck are you doing, black man? But of course I didn’t say that, I just nodded.
“It’s balsamic,” he said.
“Ohhh,” I said. Then he walked away.
I didn’t stay much longer after that. Not because of him, I honestly, wasn’t that hungry. I did eat all my fries there, though. Fries just aren’t the kind of food that you can warm up later and still be good. They’re also not the kind of food I like cold, while pizza, excuse the hell outta me, flatbread, can be reheated.
Shortly after that, a couple came and I can’t say for sure because they were behind me, but it sounded like the black guy seated them. What I do know for sure is that he apologized to them for the wait, and they didn’t wait as long as I did when I first got there and I got no apology.
Now perhaps you think I’m being petty and maybe you’re right, but nobody’s perfect. And sometimes it’s the little things that count. I mean, there I was, the only black woman there, the only black person patronizing the restaurant period, and the only black person, a black man, that I saw working there had a bit of a dismissive and condescending attitude toward me. So yeah, I felt some type of way.
But anyway, after I finished my fries, and my lemonade – which was decent, by the way, nothing outstanding – I was ready for the check. It had been a while before anyone came back by my table after he passive-aggressively corrected my “brown stuff” comment, so when I saw the white guy in the doorway, several yards from me, I called out to him to bring the check and a to-go box.
Yeah, I’m that chick. You know how some black folks be telling you to watch how you act when there’s a bunch of white people around? Yeah, that ain’t me. It wasn’t long before the white guy was back at my table with two box options along with the check.
I took a moment to review the check because people be adding extra stuff on there sometimes, but it was correct. I stuck my card inside the folder, with half of it sticking out of the top and placed it on the edge of the table. Next thing I know, here come the black guy scooping up the check, and being all extra nice about it saying he would be right back.
Um, okay.
I don’t know if he was happy I was leaving, trying to butter me up for a better tip, or showing off for the white couple seated behind me, but there was a noticeable change in him.
Regardless of what he called himself doing at the tail end of my dining experience, one thing I love about subpar service is that it saves me money with the tip.
I don’t like tipping anyway. I think it should be done away with. I’ve worked many jobs in the service industry that didn’t get tips. To me, you don’t get a tip for just doing your job, you get a paycheck from your employer for that. A tip is only for those who go above and beyond. Go above and beyond, and I will give you at least 20 percent. But doing the minimum, you won’t get more than 10 percent, and bad service gets zero.
My meal came out to $28.02, and I mulled over how much, or should I say how little I should give. I like to round it up and was stuck between giving a $0.98 tip or a $1.98 tip. If it was just the black guy serving me, I would have given him no tip, but because the white guy did an okay job, I decided to be generous and give the $1.98.
I realize I did that at the risk of perpetuating the stereotype that black people don’t tip, or don’t tip well, but I don’t care. You want a big tip from me, you betta give me top-notch service. Otherwise, think what you want about my black ass, cause you were going to do so anyway.
As I was leaving I passed the white guy who said a muffled thank you under his mask. I said thank you back. I have a habit of saying thank you when people say thank you to me.
As I walked to my car, it dawned on me that this little day trip costed me $51.34 a whole $23.45 over budget. After Palm Springs I had a surplus of $7.89, which means that I was supposed to spend no more than $27.89.
But I intentionally went into this trip knowing I was going to go over budget all because I felt like I was missing out. I thought that maybe if I had a sit-down dining experience, it would enhance the overall experience of the trip. But even if I would have been more pleased with the service, there was still nothing so special about this experience that made it better than the fast-food experiences I’m used to on a $20 budget.
And it just reminds me of this line in the book “Lipstick Jungle” by Candice Bushnell. Towards the end of the book one of the characters said something like you work so hard to grow your income from $2 million a year to $20 million a year only to do it and realize that you can’t do much more with $20 million than you can with $2 million. Now that’s a huge paraphrase, and obviously I’m not dealing with that kind of coin yet, but I understand the sentiment.
Sometimes you want more, just for the sake of having more. Or because that’s the prevailing thing in society to do. Everybody wants to be rich. Everybody wants to be able to say, “just throw it in the bag,” as if that’s the ultimate goal, when the fact of the matter is, you can do that and still be unfulfilled. You can do that and still be empty.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting expensive things if that’s what you like and you can afford it. And, there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of money. I just think that whether I have a lot of money or a little money, I want to spend it on something that’s going to bring me joy, not on something just to assuage my FOMO… All though sometimes it’s good to take a chance I guess, otherwise you’ll never know.
So I guess the moral of this story is, do what the fuck you want.
Anyway, overall, I regret going to the Flower Fields. I should have just gone to pick the blueberries, and I’ll be back next year to do that. As for Clara’s, you may be surprised by this, but I actually enjoyed my time there…well, enjoy may be too strong of a word. To actually enjoy it, I would have had to had good service, and the service was disappointing. What I can say is that I’m happy I ate there. I’m glad I got to try that pizza, that I sat outside in the sun, eavesdropped on others’ conversations, watched the people eating at another restaurant below (Clara’s is on the 2nd Floor), and waved to the Surfliner as it passed by. Not the best of times, but still good times. So I’m okay with the splurge, not that it was better, it was just different – a welcomed change.
At one point, I was going to make this Carlsbad trip a special trip and not include it in my GOTH budget.
But I like a challenge. So I’m going to stick to the rules of this Getting Out The House adventure and subtract the overage from my next trip.
That means my next trip will have to be absolutely free!
Oh my goodness.
What am I going to do? Can I pull this off? Will I even get a chance to eat? Maybe I’ll crash somebody’s barbecue; I’ve always wanted to do that, but not likely.
Anyway, you’ll just have to check back and find out.
Where will I be off to next?
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