Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts

ok, I wrote a while back that there was an ongoing 2 for 1 deal here on weekdays for feb. For a 3 course meal, it is 24 at lunch and 36 (?) for dinner...for two people :D The only downside here is that the chefs are students who are learning.. but I don't really think that is a downside.. as long as the food is tasty and good right?

We were a tad late and sat at a table in the middle. It's not super spacious but I liked that there were windows at the kitchen, so I could see them making the chocolate cake =).. I ordered the scallops/mahimahi/dessert of the day and friend ordered soup/cornishhen/chocolatecake and then we were served the bread.. which were literally piping hot.. with steam coming up! They were really good with soft butter. mm..... but then we waited half an hour for our appetizers. . . . . .

The appies were good. My scallops wasn't too bad.. very nice. Then we waited for what seemed like another half hour for our main.. oi!! When we initially got there, we had 1 hour 2 min (I thought it was 102 min oops) in the meter. . before we even got to the main, we had to go refil it! UGH! I was getting impatient because I had to go to stupid meetings, and at the rate that my food was served, I was going to be late. What irked me more was when other people sat down, and they were served the appy 15 min (yes, I timed because they ordered when we went to refill the meter). wtfrick

So we had to wait for the mains for quite some time.. almost as if they were catching my mahi mahi in the ocean as we waited (jk... ). it's ok, we had quite stimulating conversations.. about the price of my shirt..and huppies.. lol.. when it came, my mahimahi was extremely bland. not just okay bland- but extremely bland. like no taste bland. so I tried to slather the mahi mahi in the sauce, but the sauce had no taste. wat's going on... I usually like food without s/p so that I can actually taste the natural flavors- but there were absolutley NO flavors. like.. it tasted like paper?? the cous cous was the best part of this dish. The hen was apparently dry.

We finally spoke up about being in a hurry (well, in the beginning I wasn't) and our dessert came in record speed. (thank you). This was the best part of my meal (aside from the bread). I ordered this risotto chocolate wrapped in wonton wrappers and deep fried (I think). mm It was good :) a little hard to eat (Think I needed a knife). Apparently the chocolate cake was extremely rich.

Another thing is that the tip is added (15 percent) which is fine.. but it actually came to 30% because it was 15% of two prix fixe meals, not just 1 (the price that I paid for). ehh.. this is just an fyi.

There's also a pastry shop outside selling extremely cheap pastries for 3.00 . good deal.