Restaurant Review

Meg at the M-M-M-My Pomona blog (hey, did they lose an "M"?) has a good review of the new Casablanca restaurant in the Claremont Village Expansion (née Village West).

One of Meg's complaints was the service, which we've noticed in Claremont is almost uniformly bad. One of our theories is that the large student population leads to a transient wait staff population. Very few develop any sense of professionalism.

Whatever the reason, we've noticed in several downtown Claremont restaurants - the wait staff busy chatting with each other about last night's whatever while customers sit stewing.

We had this experience a few months ago one Saturday night at Kinya, the Japanese restaurant at the corner of Indian Hill and Bonita. The restaurant was not very crowded, and there were two waitresses with not a lot to do.

WAIT was the operative word. Waiting for our orders to be taken, waiting for our drinks, waiting for our food, waiting to order additional items, waiting for the bill, which never came (we had to get up and disturb the two waitresses who were behind the register talking). All in all, it was a terrible dining experience. The food itself was decent enough, but the service was inexcusable.

Then we found this review of Kinya on Yahoo!:

OK: To be honest my first experience was bad. I had hair in my salad and received no response. Not even an apology. I gave them a second chance and it's been ok. Not great, just ok. I've definitely had better.

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Meg also has some opinions about the Village Expansion ("it's still a mall"), which strike us a mostly true. The Claremont Museum in the Packing House is fine enough, but as the expansion shapes up, you do worry about the chain stores detracting from the Old Village's uniqueness.

There's also the comments we've heard from several longtime residents who are reminded of the Old Schoolhouse's last renovation and long decline. Something about the shops going into the Packing House don't really strike us as the sorts of things that will have legs.