Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Review: Shecky's Girls Night Out / Pops Restaurant

Tonight Alicia and I hit the South End for a girl's night out.

We started with an early dinner at Pops Restaurant. Pops had terrific truffle fries and perfectly done brussels sprouts with garlic, so it pains me to say I just can't get behind this restaurant. The service was weird -- from the cold bread they delivered to us by bringing out a special towel covered basket and taking one piece out for each of our plates before returning the whole basket to the kitchen (why was it cold? why bring a whole basket full of bread and just give us one slice each? why serve the butter in that weird little candle snuffer?), to the lack of salt and pepper on the table, to the odd man at the front who asked me "and how was everything?" when I left the bathroom. Then the food. While my sides were delicious, my burger was disgustingly undercooked. I asked for medium and what I got was a cold, wet mess. Wet chunks of raw meat fell out of it when I cut it in half to better manage (one thing they've got going is big portions). but overall, yech. I'm happy with a burger anywhere from medium-rare to well done, but this was rare rare. Except on the outside. Well done on the outside, raw on the inside. That is nobody's ideal burger. The menu also had some very odd choices -- Kobe meatloaf? and what is french feta? Sorry, but for the south end in a lousy economy, this place is not cutting it.

After dinner we headed to "Shecky's Girls Night Out". I'm going to give this a thumbs up. The vendors were mostly jewelry or unusual Renaissance Fair princess clothing, but my ticket came with a free bag of goodies, and 5 free drinks tickets. Not bad for a Tuesday night in the cold black heart of winter.

First, the drinks: At the front there was a miller light or coors light booth (whichever has a new line of fruit flavored beers). I've tried these citrus beers before and they're not my thing so I skipped it. Next up was Bacardi with their silver soda pop tasting drinks. Alicia had, I think Raspberry, and I had a pomegranate one. It was good, pretty much like those alcoholic frescas always taste. Next up was mixed drinks -- I started with the grossest drink I've ever had (besides the fruity miller light), a midori margarita. midori, sour mix, lime and tequila. yech. I told Alicia it tasted like a margarita served in a dirty glass. And finally, after the three bears I found my goldilocks -- a pink grapefruit flavored drink. It was refreshing and light and delicious, so I had two. booyah.

Now, the goody bags. According to the website, the good bags were supposedly worth $100. If that's true I'd say it's probably $25 retail value + $75 surprise factor because there's no telling how they came up with this random assortment of stuff. In total I had:
  • 1 box splenda mocha flavored coffee sweeteners
  • 1 huge full size hair spray
  • 1 nail polish remover pen
  • 1 entire tube of toothpaste
  • 4 goody ponytail holders
  • 1 full size Nexxus anti-frizz hair spray
  • 1 sample size dial body wash
  • 1 sample size black shoe polish
  • 1 coupon for bogo entree at Blu restaurant
  • 2 OB tampon packs
  • 1 smudgees eye makeup remover
  • and my favorite -- 1 full size bottle of Carrot body spray
  • also 1 embarrassing bag with MIDORI in huge print on the front
Strange, but all in all a good use of a midweek midwinter eve.

2 comments:

Me said...

Oh! I am so sorry you guys had a bad experience at Pops! I went there a few Saturdays ago with The Husband and had a good experience. They usually do really good pasta.

Kayleigh said...

It's good to hear it's usually better. Must've been an off night.

Besides my un-evenly cooked burger, the food was pretty good and if it were in a different neighborhood I might even try again, but there are so many great restaurants in the South End I rarely go to the same place twice unless it's truly outstanding.