Seek Nuance

I’m peeved.

I like eating at Hilltop Ale House. It’s in a great location, has a fun atmosphere, and provides very good -to- excellent food for the money. Their soups can be to die for. It’s a good meeting place for start-ups, and they don’t hassle you if you linger a bit. Last but not least, I like Tim and Beau, bartenders/waiters extraordinaire.

Hilltop recently made two changes to their menu. Both of these changes suck.

Suckage #1

They silently reduced the size of their Goat Cheese Salad, I guess as a cost-saving measure. It used to be a kickin’ salad, but now it’s just OK.

Suckage #2, the Greater Offense

They committed a far larger offense in another dish. They removed the tabouleh from their Artichoke Hummus Pita Plate.

The tabouleh was integral to the AHPP. Like the Mona Lisa, everything was just right — the tastes, nutrition, and textures nicely contrasted with each other.

What would the Mona Lisa look like if you removed the blue-tinted paint? It would look like shit, that’s what. Ditto for the now reduced, truncated, scaled-down Artichoke Hummus Pita Plate Without Any Goddamned Tabouleh.

They reduced the dish’s price because they took away one of nature’s great side dishes the tabouleh. Gee, thanks: The Mona Lisa without any blue paint would cost less, too. And they reduced the physical plate size, since there’s less food on the plate. Bah. Now you don’t even feel like you’re eating a meal!

This is now an Epic Fail dish. That’s what they should call it on the menu: Our Stupid Epic Fail Dish that will Leave you Unsatisfied. Pita, hummus, red peppers, olives, and two peperoncinis. WTF? I don’t eat the peperoncinis. They’re stupid and pointless. But back to my point: You get all that without any tabouleh to round it off. It’s a Mona Lisa without one of the pigments, or a Jethro Tull without Ian Anderson. FSM, if you want to remove anything, remove the idiotic peperoncinis, not the tabouleh.

I’m thinking of starting a protest movement to Bring Tabouleh Back to Hilltop Ale House.