A v.
Yelp
This is my Yelp review of that shitty restaurant I went to by Lake Hopatcong on NYE:
I wouldn't feed this restaurant's food to my goat because I like my goat, and I wouldn't want it to die from food poisoning.
Seriously, though, the rating is actually zero stars, but, YELP, very generously in this case, makes you give at least one star.
Ok then, I guess, in their defense, they deserve at least the one star for the view. So, if you are, in fact, looking to pay exorbitant prices to have a meal that is potentially life-threatening, by all means, come to this shitehole, so maybe you'll be comforted by the beautiful view as you pass into the next world.
Let me begin by saying I'm a professional chef myself. Also, let me add that I no longer review restaurants online anymore, unless the place is either particularly noteworthy or else so egregiously bad I feel the need to warn potential customers before they take their life in their hands. Anything in between, I just walk away and keep it to myself.
Alright then, so clearly the Stone-bullshit-corporatized-Water, or whatever the hell it's called, fits into the latter category of serving food that is potentially life-threatening, or at the very least, will make you sick for the next couple of days.
I made the mistake of coming here on New Year's Eve, to watch the sunset and 'treat' myself. They were serving their "Special New Year's Eve Menu." It was a cold night, especially by beautiful Lake Hopatcong, so I was hoping to warm up by starting with a steaming hot crock of French onion soup from their "special" menu.
So, it comes out, and it's not, in fact, the piping hot crock of soup you can get at every diner in America for $6.99. It's some bullshit, stylized, chichi version for $15.99 - not even half the portion of the diner version and, get this, it comes out not even barely tepid.
So, I do, what I have honestly never done before in my life, and send it back to be warmed up.
Let me say also as an aside, I have the constitution of a billy goat. I can enjoy even the most mediocre of food without complaint. This is the first dish I have EVER complained about or sent back in my ENTIRE life. If a restaurant is bad, I usually just go away and never come back.
Not in this case. I'm writing this review because, not only did it come out barely warm, after they nuked it and re-served it to me, to my chagrin, not only was the soup cold, not only was it bad-tasting, not only was it overpriced, not only was it an affront to the food service industry in every regard, it also, and this is absolutely true, made me physically sick for the next full day - fucking ruining, not only my New Year's Eve, but also New Year's Day.
Thanks, assholes.
I'm not quite sure how you fuck up french onion soup to the degree that it injures people, but this place managed to pull it off. I suspect it has something to do with the utter lack of care or thought at each and every juncture from its conception to its delivery. This was clearly made by people under duress, or possibly some kind of human-trafficking/hostage situation. Who knows? What I do know, is that whoever prepared it, did so without any concern whatsoever about the living being that might consume it. You hear about people preparing food with love. This was the opposite of that.
So, this place also serves all kinds of meat and seafood. My concern is if you can injure someone with something as simple and harmless as onion soup, ...WTF, DUDE?!?!?!?
My advice to the person who's responsible for running this kitchen (I'd use term cook or chef, but those terms don't apply here. Menace-to-society is more like it.) is to immediately walk out of the restaurant, throw your knives in the lake, and never, EVER return to a restaurant in a professional capacity as long as you breathe the free air of earth.
Instead, atone for what you've done by doing something useful with the rest of your life: work with blind children, drive a school bus, ...do NOT feed the poor for fuck's sake.
Ugh! I paid my check after that, left, burped and almost vomited for the next 24+ hours.