Took Jami to T-Rex

[mapsedge]

So, yesterday we decided to splurge and took Jami to T-Rex Cafe. Katie was with her grandmother seeing a movie and can't go to restaurants like that anyway. The website is shit - gives you no flavor of the place at all - but I don't want to waste the time describing it. Think Rainforest Cafe with dinosaurs, and you've got the idea.

Never again. Even Jami, the target audience for the place, hated the experience. The tragedy is that we knew going into it that the food would be overpriced and probably not the best quality, but you don't go to themed restaurants for the food, right? Unfortunately, the experience wasn't worth it either: the place was cramped, too dark, too loud - rather than being immersive with a surprise behind every corner, the "theme" was totally muddied - ocean here, volcano there, ice age up there, blah blah blah. The dinosaurs - life size, for the most part - were animated in only the most rudimentary fashion, little better than large rubber sculptures.

We couldn't get in to sit at the table without moving it away from the wall. We couldn't see to read the menus - even Kent, whose eyesight is pretty good, struggled. The music from the bar competed with the sound effects and made it impossible to have a conversation without nearly shouting. The "meteor shower" that happens on the half-hours was - at least from where we were sitting - nothing more than two minutes of a few flashing lights and sound effects like camping at the end of an airport runway. Jami covered his ears, and I considered it.

The food - the place has the word "cafe" in the name, but for no reason I could discover - wasn't just overpriced: it was overpriced and awful. The appetizer plate - at about twice the cost of what it was worth - arrived cold and mostly bland. My food was under-seasoned. I can't speak to Michelle's or Kent's, though both had some left over and neither took any home.

It was a relief when it was over and we left.

Comments

[bleuberi21.livejournal.com]

This isn't the first review of that restaurant I've heard that wasn't very good. All the more reason to not take Gavin.

[renniemom.livejournal.com]

Had I known you were thinking of going I would've advised you to not. We went once and found it to be a total waste of time and money.

Sorry you had to experience that.

[pastmagic.livejournal.com]

We went there once, a few months after it opened. I agree wholeheartedly with the overpriced/under-served rating. The one positive to our whole experience was that we got to sit right next to one of the big fish-tanks (the one with the small shark in it I think, hell it may have died by now). It's hard to remember the food after so long, but I too remember being completely unimpressed with the place.

[renniemom.livejournal.com]

you've forgotten the 5 dino nuggets for $8? (That's actually all I remember. I don't remember what I had, at all.)

[mljm.livejournal.com]

I'm glad we went *once* just to get the "maybe" out of our system. But Good God, $65 for 3 people! And one of those under 5.

*sigh* I'm having a total guilt complex over the spent money today.

[hdsqrl.livejournal.com]

Chris and I went once alone and then took the kids once, just to say we did it. On our first trip, we sat at a little 2-seater table, just under a dino that would lean down and roar at us. Only...when it roared, it sounded like it was puking, and hence, puking down on top of us.

All we could do was laugh at the absurdity of it all. I'd much rather unnecessarily drop loads of cash at Rainforest anyday.