Did you ever see The Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld? On the show, Jerry and the gang frequent a soup kitchen that serves delicious soup run by an extremely controlling chef who has very specific rules about how the soup must be ordered. He’s basically a real prick and if he gets mad at a customer or just doesn’t like someone for any reason, he’ll refuse to serve them and shout out the now famous catchphrase, “No soup for you!”. This guy is known as The Soup Nazi.
Well, I recently had an experience that was so ridiculous that it reminded me of this Soup Nazi incident. Usually I avoid writing bad reviews because for the most part it’s a lot more fun writing about things I actually enjoyed, and I also would rather offer you, my dear readers, good recommendations rather than focus on where you shouldn’t go. This however… this was unlike anything I’ve had happen to me before and if I don’t share it with you, I will explode.
I’d been hearing wonderful things about The Hummus Bar & Grill in Tarzana from many sources. Most all of the reviews on Yelp and Chowhound are ravingly positive and hardly anyone’s got anything negative to say about the place… well, allow me to be the first. Hummus Bar & Grill is an Israeli restaurant known for their excellent hummus as well their skewered meats and many varieties of Israeli salads. Not being an eater of meat on sticks, I was drawn to this place after learning that they have a special where you can order a sampler of all their tasty salads (10 to 12 different varieties) for the all-you-can-eat price of $10. Being both an Israeli and a lover of salads, this seemed like something that would be right up my alley. I convinced my mother that it had been long enough since she’d treated me to lunch, and off we went.
As soon as we sat down, the Hebrew speaking Israeli waitress immediately brought us some small plates of pickles, tahini with chickpeas and skhug (a spicy salsa-like Yemenite dip) along with an enormous round of laffa bread, which is similar to a cross between naan and pita bread. So far so good, everything was delicious.
It comes time to order. My mom wants the chicken skewers, I want what I went there for- the salad sampler which is listed on the menu for $10. I ask the waitress if all of the salads are vegan but she has no idea what the word means and just stares at me with a blank look on her face. Now, I fully understand and accept that not everyone knows what vegan means, but the empty, slackjawed look she gave me was so blank that I was beginning to worry that she’d soon start drooling onto my arm. So then I tell her in Hebrew that I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t eat animals or anything made with eggs or dairy products… are the salads suitable for me to eat? Oh yes, she tells me, and I assume that at this point she understood what I was asking her considering the large amount of Israelis who are kosher and share similar concerns about dairy in their food, so I say ok, that’s what I’ll have. This is the part where it starts to get really entertaining.
The waitress then proceeds to tell me in Hebrew that if I want to order the salad sampler it will have to be an order for two since there are two of us dining together. Mind you, my mother has already placed her own order for chicken, she’s not here for salad. I tell her this and she says, yes, but since there’s two of you, you have to order the salads for two people regardless of what the other person has ordered. I’m feeling really confused at this point so to make sure I understand, I ask her (in Hebrew, because this was clearly the language she spoke and understood better) if she’s telling me that even though I am the only one who wants salad, that we both have to order it, at double the price of what one person would normally have to pay? She replies simply, yes. At this point I’m starting to get upset and my mom picks up on this and attempts to step in and talk to the waitress, knowing what my temper is like once I get going. She basically repeats my questions back to the waitress, who in turn repeats back exactly what she just told me… that since there’s two of us, we both have to get the salads. I am dumbfounded.
Then I ask: so if I came in by myself and ordered the salad sampler, you would give it to me for $10, but because there’s two of us here, even though only one of us wants salad, the other has to order it as well, for $20? Yes, she tells me, then silence and that same “I don’t give a shit” stare. I tell her that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and that I want to speak to the manager. She tells me there’s no manager on hand but that this is always the policy. I tell her that the policy makes no sense and I cannot understand where she gets off telling me that we have to order double of something because only one person wants to eat it. At this point she switches over to English and says to me, and I quote: “Well you know, it’s because of the Israeli mentality. Even if just you order the salad, she’s going to eat it from it too, so we do it this way because we know you’re going to share anyway”. Then she gives a little chuckle, like it’s all just really funny and no big deal.
Wait a minute… did she really just say what I think she said? Oh yes, she really did. Allow me to translate this for you: what she just told me was that because of our “Israeli mentality” they already know that we’ll cheat and steal, so we cannot be trusted with only one salad order. In other words, even though my mother and I are both telling her that only one of us wants the fucking salad to begin with, they’re on to us (because we’re Israeli, see?) and there’s no way they’ll trust us with only one all-you-can-eat salad at a table with two people. The best part is that she said all this with a smile, like from one friend to another, after all, it’s just one Israeli putting down another, no harm done, right?
Now, I’m not some politcally correct type who gets offended at every little thing, but this was really beyond belief. Who the hell says something like that? She’s not my friend who is entitled to joke around with me on potentially touchy subjects, she’s a waitress whose job it is to take my order and serve me what I want to eat, not lecture me on the deceitful and guileless ways of the Israelites. In case you’re still not comprehending why I was so offended, imagine if you will for second that we had all been black and instead of this comment being about Israelis being thieving food stealers, the same comment was made about blacks, or Mexicans, or anyone. It was so beyond inappropriate and so rude that at that point all I could do was sit there somewhat in shock, speechless. And I wanted to leave.
Unfortunately we’d already eaten most of the bread and pickles, as well as had been sipping on our drinks, so either way we’d have to finish up and pay. My mom being the sweetheart that she is tried to calm things down and said that we should just go ahead and get the two salads, she could always take the leftovers home for my dad. I did not want to agree to this on principle, but at the same time I could feel all eyes in the place on us because I’d started to raise my voice (I couldn’t help it) and I really didn’t want to embarrass my poor mom any further despite how absolutely pissed off I was. It gets even better though because then the waitress tells us that because it’s an all-you-can-eat type deal there’s no taking leftovers home. All I could do was laugh at this point… the whole thing was beyond absurd. Ok, so despite all of that we agree to order two salad samplers for $20 even though only one of us will be eating them and even though the price on the menu clearly states that it’s only $10. We totally just got played for suckers.
Realizing who I’m dealing with though, I figure I better ask more questions before agreeing to this highway robbery. I ask the waitress what salads they are going to serve… mind you that just a few minutes ago we had the whole vegetarian/vegan/non-dairy conversation. So Miss Smartypants starts to list them for me: egg salad, chopped liver salad, eggplant salad with mayonnaise… ok, it’s all starting to make sense to me now… she’s clearly retarded. I stop her and tell her that liver is not vegetarian and that eggs and mayonnaise are not vegan, and so therefore I cannot eat any of them, even though just moments ago she told me the salads wouldn’t contain any of these things. Again, all I get is a blank stare. I swear that I could actually hear the wind blowing between her ears.
I’d previously studied the menu so in an attempt to calm myself down instead of getting even more upset and causing a bigger scene, I tell her to forget the damn salads and that I’ll have the grilled portabella mushrooms instead. All this after nearly 15 minutes of back & forth over the rip-off salads, most of which it turns out I can’t even eat.
Finally, after more than half an hour of this circus, our food was served. What I hate most is that given all of this, I’d love to tell you that the food was awful, but I cannot tell a lie. My mother loved her grody chicken and in the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that the mushrooms were delicious.
The mushrooms were marinated in herbs & garlic and then grilled, served with a tasty green salad. Hey look, a salad… better watch out or my mom might try to steal some off my plate when the watchful staff isn’t looking! In all seriousness though, the mushrooms were very tasty, although also way too oily. I had to first soak up some of the oil with my napkin before I could eat them, but they were honestly very good. That said, the price for my plate of two tiny mushrooms (more like baby bellas than actual full sized portabella mushrooms) was $11.99. Due to the angle at which I took the photo above, these actually look much bigger than they really were. As good as I thought they tasted, I felt that for what they served the price was way too high, this was at best an $8 plate of food.
And that’s basically the jist of it. The waitress was unapologetic and I’m quite sure that she was totally clueless about just how totally offensive her comments were and had no idea why I got so mad. Despite the fact that at one point I was practically seething in my seat and about to go all green Hulk on her, she was oblivious to how upset I was and to just how rude it was to say something like that about anyones nationality, regardless of whether she’s from the same country or not. You just don’t do that, not in a restaurant where people are coming to give you their money in order to be fed, not insulted.
We really should have left before ordering the food but in retrospect the whole situation was just so preposterous that we were caught off guard… and hungry. The full absurdity of what happened didn’t sink in for me until much later. What I can promise you though is that they will never again have to worry about me or any other of my tribe of cheating, food thieving Heeb relatives absconding with any unpaid for food at their restaurant ever again (I’ve strictly forbidden my mother from ever returning). I’m perfectly happy taking my sneaky Israeli mentality elsewhere and supporting businesses that don’t treat their customers like they are worthless and then try to get away with doubling the price. There certainly is no shortage of delicious Israeli restaurants in Los Angeles.
This is normally the part where I’d link to the restaurants website, but they don’t have a website, and even if they did I wouldn’t link to them because they do not deserve the free publicity that a link from my site would bring them. If you’re that curious, Google ‘em. The place is very popular and supposedly quite the hangout for the young & hip Valley Israelis (who obviously forgot to send me the memo), and to hear all the meat lovers go on and on about this place, you’d think their food rained down straight from heaven. True, the food was good… but nothing extraordinary judging by what they allowed me to eat (I never actually got to taste the hummus), and certainly not worth the rudeness and frustration of dealing with an utterly clueless waitress who insists on charging you double. Who knows, maybe if you’re an American they’ll treat you differently and actually let you order what you want, because… you know, the American mentality and all. It makes me wonder if I had I told her that I’m actually only half-Israeli, if she would have let me have half-off on the 2nd unwanted salad order that she was attempting to ream me with.
Thank you for listening, rant over.
P.S. – A disclaimer before anyone starts giving me grief over the Soup Nazi thing:
I am not calling the waitress a Nazi, I am not calling the restaurant or it’s owners Nazis, I am not calling Israelis or Jews Nazis. I used the term Hummus Nazi solely in reference to the very funny Seinfeld episode involving a crazy and controlling restaurant chef who treated his customers with the same amount of disdain that this waitress treated me. The Soup Nazi wouldn’t let them have soup, she wouldn’t let me have hummus or salad… get it? It’s funny, ha ha! You either get the association and laugh at the irony of it all, or you’ve never seen Seinfeld and therefore have no idea what I’m talking about. Either way, please don’t fill up my comments with outrage over my using the words Nazi and Israeli on the same page (they will be deleted), it’s a joke and nothing more… and yes I already know that the Holocaust is nothing to laugh at. This has nothing to do with any of that and it’s not in the least bit offensive if you get the reference. If you don’t, I highly recommend renting that episode of Seinfeld (#116) because it’s one of the funniest things to have ever been aired on television.
