"Le Central" by Carla Vital

I usually get nervous when I’m driving to a place I am not familiar with and even more at night. My family and I were heading to a French Restaurant called Le Central; it was our first time going there. A friend of my mom worked there and so he invited us to go but he had to cancel at the last minute. My family and I decided to go anyway, just to experience something new. We were really excited about going to this restaurant. My mom told me it was in downtown so that made me even more excited because I thought all the restaurants in downtown must be fancy and serve gourmet food. When we got there, I realized it was very different from what I imagined. It was this little place; it sort of looked like a house. It looked nice not really fancy more like a very traditional little French restaurant. In my opinion, it was a very nice place to have a Friday night out with your family but it didn’t meet my expectations. I am sure it is not going to be my favorite place to go from now on because of certain reasons.

The restaurant is located in 112 E 8th Ave. It wasn’t hard finding the place, the hard part was being able to park. One of the things I did not like about the restaurant is that they have a very reduce parking lot. When we entered the parking lot, after going around the block two times because it was a one-way street, it was difficult to go in because there was a dumpster on the side, which was blocking our view to see if any cars were going out. It also made it difficult because it was taking too much space of the already small parking lot. On top of that, it said you couldn’t park there before a certain time. The good thing was that we got there thirty minutes past that hour. I understand it is a small place but at least they should move the dumpster to another place or figure out a way to make the parking lot bigger.

Another thing that I did not like was the service. Even though our waiter was really nice and even made a suggestion of a dish for my brother because he doesn’t eat vegetables, it seemed he was a little bit off. After he took our orders, when he came back with the dishes, he gave us the wrong plate. It was our first time there so we did not know what our plate looked like. After a second, he figured it out. Also, when my brother finished his soda and asked for a refill, the waiter seemed to have forgotten or was busy because he came back after a long time. We were only three people on our table and the place it is not really big. I know sometimes there are days when you are not feeling good or you have a problem. Maybe that is what happened to him, but when you are trying to give a good first impression you should be careful about those little details.

The last thing I did not like about the restaurant is the food. One of the most important things about a restaurant is the food. If the food isn’t good the restaurant won’t succeed based only on appearance. I took French in high school so I could identify some words on the menu. I ordered the Escargots Bourguignons, which is a dish of six escargots baked on a slice of brioche with garlic butter flavored with pernod. I ordered that because there were many seafood dishes and I hate seafood and also I didn’t have many other choices, so that sounded pretty delicious. Of course, I didn’t know what an escargot was so I was not completely sure. When I first took a bite out of it, I recognized the bittersweet taste, which I’m not a fan of. Also the smell was too strong and I didn’t like it. I was eating the little bun with vegetables on it but I was scared of touching the little dark balls. My mom ate one of them and told me “Don’t even think about taking a bite out of those, I know you are not gonna like them”. I trust my mom so I decided not to eat them when I was through with everything except the little dark balls I was excited about dessert. I ordered the Crème Brulee. The only thing I liked about the food was the dessert, which wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t bad. On top of all, it was a really expensive dinner, which gave it a nice little touch for a great night.
In conclusion, Le central French restaurant was in my opinion not my favorite restaurant so I wouldn’t recommend people to go because of a few reasons. The parking lot was small, the service wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either and finally and most importantly, I didn’t like the food. Of course, it had good things like decoration, dessert, vibe etc, but in general it didn’t leave me with a good first impression. People may experience something different from me maybe if they go on another day or if they order something different. Maybe next time I go I will have a better experience or maybe I’m just a person without a refined palette for gourmet food. If I had to rate it, I would give it a two out of five stars.