seriously underwhelmed.

Yesterday I devoted my break to a nice lunch with Mum. Or that was the plan, anyway. At first we couldn't decide where to go, and then Mum remembered she'd read a review of some vegetable-heavy place on Hindley St. So we went looking for that, but never actually found it. By this point I was ready to start chewing off my own fingers, so we made a snap decision and ended up at Burp Burritos. It was ok. The service was good and fast, and both Mum and I had the vegetarian (not vegan) burrito - it had one of those stupid names that you don't want to actually have to order out loud, but I don't remember what that was. The fillings seemed fresh and it was quite tasty, and on the whole I thought it wasn't bad. My main complaint was that apart from the beans, which were lukewarm, everything was cold. And not just cold, but refrigerator cold. Mum said she thought there was too much cheese and wouldn't hurry back. I wouldn't hurry back either I suppose, but I thought it was a reasonable feed for under $6.00.

As Mum was ordering the food, I went two doors down to get us some smoothies from the Organic Barn, Burp having nothing but carbonated drinks, which I wasn't in the mood for. I ordered a small watermelon smoothie for myself, and some kind of tropical concoction for Mum. I ordered smalls, which were $5, because usually smoothie serves are huge, and here there was only a choice between small and large. The girl who served me seemed seriously bored, and it took her literally over ten minutes to make me two smoothies. There were two other girls working and I was the only customer in the shop. I'm not sure how she possibly took that long to make two smoothies. It didn't appear that she ran to the shops to buy the ingredients. Or even went out the back to get something she'd run out of. Or even that she had to chop anything up. Although perhaps the fact that she washed out the blenders after she'd made my smoothies but before she served them to me had something to do with it. Or at least gives you an idea of how inefficient she was being. While I was waiting (and waiting and waiting) I had a look at their food menu. It was short and boring, consisting mainly of different sandwiches. The seriously underwhelming part is here though: the smoothies when they came were the smallest I have ever seen. The cups were less than 10cm high and I doubt they contained more than about 300ml of liquid. For $5 each. And it's not as if I ordered a straight mango juice. My watermelon smoothie had watermelon, apple, milk and frozen yoghurt in there. For $5 I could've bought a watermelon, an apple and some milk, and in the time it took her to make my smoothie I probably could've made frozen yoghurt myself out of the milk. Did I mention also that she made at least three times the amount that fit in my teeny tiny cup and (as I watched) poured the remainder down the drain? At least now I know where my $5 went. And it probably won't surprise you that on my way back to work from Burp I saw the same girl sitting outside her shop smoking. Not a great advertisement for a place that (presumably) trades on a wholesome healthy image. Anyway, this is once place to which I definitely won't be going back.

And with that I am off to Melbourne for a weekend of FUN. Hurrah!