The Cosmopolitan Bar and Grill moved from its location in Ximending to Changchun Road, just east of Jianguo, where Amaroni’s used to be. My gf and I thought we’d give it a whirl, so we went there for dinner last night.
It was fairly empty, but then again we went at 9:00. We ordered the combo platter as an appetizer, with wings, celery sticks, nachos, onion rings, and potato skins. The baked potato skins consisted of a third of a potato cut into six parts, covered in cheese, and with a dollop of sour cream on top. The portion was so small it was absurd. The nachos were greasy - really greasy, but the hot spinach and avocado dip was good. The onion rings, all five of them, were terrible - dry, and no flavor at all. The celery stick was served without dip - I don’t think the warm avocado dip was meant for the celery. The wings were good. Nice sauce, and adequately spicy.
For the main course, I had linguine with beef and a tomato sauce. It was not very Italian, not very flavorful, and not very good. I took two or three bites and stopped.
The gf had linguine with white wine sauce and clams. It was terrible. The sauce tasted like soap, mijiu and more soap. She had three mouthfuls, realized the experience wasn’t going to get any better, and put her fork down.
When we asked for the bill, the waitress, to her credit, noticed our barely-touched meals and asked if anything was wrong. We told her that the food wasn’t to our liking - what’s the point in telling her how bad it actually tasted? The manager then came over and asked if there was anything else we’d like to order, but we said no. She said that the pasta dishes were cooked to Taiwanese tastes, which is probably why we didn’t like them. My gf is Taiwanese also, but there didn’t seem to be any point in dragging out the unhappy experience any longer than necessary, so we nodded politely and left. I have to say, the concern of the waitress and the manager almost made up for the fact that the meal sucked. Almost. I don’t think we’ll go back.