Those Who Live In Glass Houses.....

We all know how that saying goes but I would like to add my own ending...Those who live in glass houses shouldn't cook....
That about sums up my recent and long awaited trip trip to The Glass House in Middleton. With Julie as my dining companion, who I might add was a good sport and wasn't at all put out when I told her NO to Dairy Queen, I eagerly drove to the newly opened restaurant and gift shop/art gallery. With tummies grumbling, it was just after 1pm when we got there, we seated ourselves in the quarter full space and had our first look around. The decor was very stark white, with odd black iron tables and chairs but set nicely with real silver and cloth napkins. As my eyes toured the room I took in the vaulted octagonal ceiling and walls, the amount of natural light pouring in and the tiled floor. My first impression was that is was cold feeling but the air inside wasn't the least bit chilly. Discussing with Julie the lack of color we surmised that since the walls are low before the stretch into the ceiling perhaps color would make the space feel dark but a wash of pastel would brighten it up and make for warm fuzzy feelings. The gallery which is seperated from the dining room by two IKEA-ish cube shelving units held a variety of arty pieces for sale. They included swimming pool pots???? don't ask me.....vases thwt are likely to be broken in my home but pretty, pots that looked like bedpans, more pottery things, glass plates and serving dishes???? read large pieces of glass that seem fairly unfunctional to me....they all kinda looked like those pieces of glass fruit that Dollarama was selling a few years back. Now before you think me not an art critic, I did say to Julie that I was sure there was a tremendous amount of work that went into them and I just couldn't appreciate it, at which she snorted loudly.....did we mention the vaulted ceilings have the effect of making everything you say sound like you were yelling into the Grand Canyon...and said they were in fact just plain ugly. We did however like the silversmith jewellery that was shaped like flower buds but at $640 a necklace we thought we would save our money for lunch. Our water was poured by the time we sat back down and we perused the very limited menu....yes limited for a vegetarian. Our choices were a vegetable soup, french onion soup, egg salad sandwich...the old standby...a cheese plate with 3 english cheeses, pickle, salad, crusty bread and grapes??? I forget. At $16 bucks we weren't impressed. The soup and sandwich combo for $8.50 was more in line with what we wanted and I ordered the onion and Julie the veggie and both had the egg salad. Julie did ask if the stock was veggie to which she replied yes then a LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG pause and she said she would check. After putting in our orders and finally delivering my drink 10 minutes later she assured Julie it was veg friendly. Now here is where I am tempeted to press the enter key for 55 minutes and make you scroll down to read the rest of the review because that is how long I had to wait for an effing soup and sandwich. At no point did the waitress come by and let us know how long it would be nor assure us that the staff hadn't walked out and we weren't getting our lunch. We were distracted for a few minutes by a friend who had just finished eating and stopped to chat. As Julie and I stared into eachothers eyes for the next half hour and came up with threatening ways to get our food we watched the other diners eat and pay and leave and still no lunch. We were mildly amused watching a stauesque blonde try to leave the restaurant only to have the door defeat her as she looked helplessly at us and the waitress. Finally reaching the point of anger and hunger combined I left my seat to find out where our food was. The waitress assured me it was coming right out....10 minutes later. It arrived in two parts, instead of serving the soup and sandwich on one plate....which would have saved even more time...she brought us awkward small plates with our eggsalad and large in the way plates with a small bowl of soup. The bringer of food tells us the chef had to make the french onion from scratch and that's why it was so long. WTF! If you knew a soup was out why wouldn't you just tell me....give me the option to have the veg or ask if I would like to wait or bring us some fricking bread while we starve to death. Sadly for her there will be no tip.
At this point I don't think the taste of the food matters anymore though I know that's what you want to hear...read...you are waiting for me to say that after all that, the bread is probably fresh out the oven, the soup piping hot with a warm biscuit and soft butter the crunchy lettuce and salted tomato on my eggsalad and just a touch of dijon mustard like a bite of heaven.
NO. Food is bland and everything requires salt. My freshly made french onion soup tastes like bath water and has so very little cheese, the only good thing is the bread from my sandwich and I would love the recipe for that....it is almost like if puff pastry and homemade white bread got married and had a baby and you could eat their baby....yes....that good. Julie was able to sniff out very finely minced onion in the eggsalad with her anti-onion superpower but she ate it anyway...she was going to eat at DQ..... Her veggie soup tasted like farty cabbage with carrot. We both crushed our brandnameless saltines into our respective soups for flavour and bulk.
As she who must serve our food came over to check on us...our plates are clean....she so kindly offered dessert and Julie had to restrain me from choking her....
We had been at the restaurant for almost two hours, I just didn't think I could invest anymore time into this place. True to my word I left no tip and as Julie was paying her bill the kitchen door swings open and out comes the chef in a wheelchair. I took this opportunity to steal Julie's complimentary chocolate and left, trying not to break anything on the way out.





NO.