Monday, February 17, 2014

Completely Fooled...



Ralic's on South
119 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

Unfortunately, a while back I fell victim to something that I know happens to people all over all of the time. I ignored my better judgement, and I visited a restaurant with my girlfriend based solely on the good things that I had read about it on Yelp. Now usually and even more so after this experience, I use Yelp as a tip guide to find good dishes that people like before I go, rather than use their whole reviews as a reference. While it can be helpful, there are certain aspects of a meal that can skew a whole person's review, but at least from my experience, even people that have bad reviews tend to mention great dishes that they had. It was a Friday during Lent, and I was excited about the prospect of finding a great seafood place so near to my girlfriend's apartment. We walked down to Ralic's on South that evening in hopes of finding a gem. 



From the moment we walked in, I knew we might be in trouble. There was maybe six other people eating in the restaurant, not always a tell tale sign, but it can be. We were seated and the waiter took our order for drinks, a margarita for me, yes I know, mistake number one, and strawberry margarita for her. When he brought out the drinks, he took our food order: lobster bread pudding, sesame seared tuna, and cod with green beans and roasted potatoes. After the waiter left, we cheersed with our drinks, took a sip, and both looked at each other with faces of disgust. The drinks were awful and when I say awful, I mean AWFUL. Watered down, not enough booze and no flavor, these drinks were not a good way to start off our meal.



We rarely saw our waiter all night. I don’t really know what he was doing, because there was no one else for him to be attending to, we were the only table he had. He showed up again when he brought the lobster bread pudding out. It had taken a good 25 minutes for him to bring that out, which I thought was just crazy. It wasn’t the prettiest plate, but we dug in nonetheless. It was almost as bad as our drinks. It was a big pile of mush, with no flavor, no seasoning, and completely lacked texture. There was only one piece of lobster in the whole dish, and a few kernels of corn dispersed throughout. I was ready to get up and leave at this point, but we stayed and waited to see if the entrees redeemed them at all.



The dish I picked had been raved about on Yelp, so I thought maybe it would be their saving grace. After an additional 30 minutes to get our entrees, which were a seared rare tuna steak and a piece of cod, our entrees arrived. Again, visually unappealing, and they did a really crappy job of slicing it. The tuna was torn on some pieces  and the pieces were all different sizes. I tasted it and really couldn’t believe how bad it was. First off, it didn’t even taste like tuna. Second, it was ice cold in the middle, as if it had been defrosted and then slapped in a pan to cook it. It wasn’t even hot on the outside. It was chewy as well, a complete and utter failure. The celeriac root puree was gummy and had no seasoning what so ever. The green beans were just like any other green beans out there, nothing special about them, but probably the best part of the dish. My girlfriend's cod was just as bad if not worse. It was undercooked, with juices running out of it, again as if it had been cooked without being fully thawed. There was no sear to the fish, and the texture was really gross. I think she had three bites or so before she said enough. We eventually got to see our waiter and asked for the check immediately, because it had been an awful night from start to finish.




No pints for Ralic's on South. The food was horrendous, the service was abominable and the attempts at making margaritas were laughable at best. I don’t even what to know what dessert would have held for us. I learned my lesson, and I will do my research better from here on out. I am usually so thorough, but this one got me, and I apologized to my girlfriend about it. She isn’t used to me picking bad places, but this one took the cake. Avoid it all costs! I should mention that Ralic's on South has since been rebranded into a restaurant called the Headhouse Crab and Oyster Company, and there is a new chef with tons of experience at the helm. The new reviews and reports seem to be much improved, so I look forward to trying the new concept sometime soon! Cheers!

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I am a food lover living in Philadelphia.

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