la.foodblogging

I am a coupon cutter. I look for deals in newspaper ads. I also see if there are any daily specials - with lunch menus, happy hours, and two-for-ones. But it goes beyond finding deals on food. I also love to hunt for bargains at my local thrift store, craigslist, and the random yard sale.

I am that kind of person.

So when the LA Area Entertainment guides were being sold, I bought one for myself. And so far, it’s been fairly good to me. The $5 off coupons for Ralphs and Bristol Farms make it well worth the investment.

I’ve even found a couple of restaurant keepers from the book. Granted, you have to sift through the McDonald’s and Pizza Hut coupons to find the gems in there… and even then, you sometimes don’t really know what you’ll get - as MS and I found out the hard way.

I had my coupon for one complimentary dinner entree when another dinner entree was purchased, up to $12 at Shalimar Cuisine of India in Culver City. Sound like too good of a deal to you? It was.

I ordered the Chicken Tikka Masala that came on a large plate separated from the daily vegetable and dal with the basmati rice - horrible presentation, and I upgraded the naan to garlic naan for a little extra $. MS ordered the Chicken Chef’s dinner with vegetables - again with the same haphazardly plated dish. Both dinners were $12.95. The ala carte options were slightly less expensive.

We gladly offered our coupon upon ordering. And well, since we were saving $12 with our meal (or so I thought), I also ordered a glass of their Mango Lassi - super saccharine, thick, and unimpressive.

So you can imagine my sticker shock when we got our dinner bill for almost $30. All I could think, say, feel was: WTF?!

We asked our server about the bill, who then brought over someone who may have been a manager of sorts to our table to explain our bill.

Apparently, the deal was for an A LA CARTE dish and not the dinner special - which was no special at all. I could have done without the extra vegetable dishes. I left them on my plate because they were both pretty unappetizing. So in reality, I would have PREFERRED the a la carte dishes.

MS and I were livid that they couldn’t have the decency to tell us the coupon caveat at the beginning of our meal. And I was more upset over the fact that the woman helping us was no help at all. She merely mentioned that they were nice enough to honor our second dinner special at 50% off.

Ridiculous.

And as for the food, it was nothing special or great.

I’d much rather pay the extra dollars for better food and much better service, than to drive here to what was more of a Sham than anything else. The food was uneventful, unimpressive, and the service ruined the entire experience.

A definite NO in my books.

I told MS at the end of the meal that they messed with the wrong food blogger!
(This post has been added here, in addition to my BoLA and Yelp sites!)

Shalimar Cuisine of India
street: 10708 Jefferson Blvd | Culver City, CA 90230
tel: 1-310-839-2841

By Kristy (see more of her posts). A native of the city, kristy loves to discover new sites, new eateries, new things to do in her online journal of finding the best of la.