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Rongbranch Restaurant
This used to be my "go-to" restaurant on my semi-annual trips to wander around Julian. The surroundings were charming and the food filling and tasty. My last visit in the spring was a disappointment, but rather than learn my lesson, today I brought my boyfriend to Rongbranch to give it another chance. Big mistake! I was willing to overlook the server taking our order as if she were a pod-person extra from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I waited good-naturedly for what seemed an unusually long time for our order of 2 burgers with fries. But when the food finally arrived--well, bear in mind that I have rarely met a burger or a fry that I didn't like. But in this case the burger was dry and flavorless--the best flavor came from the red onions that I added just to get a taste of anything. The lettuce leaf that came on the plate along with a tomato slice was sad and droopy--not even worthy of serving as decorative garnish, much less food. But the fries were the worst! They were cold, dark rather than golden brown, and wrinkled--as if the bag of frozen potatoes had languished in the freezer for so long that the cold had sucked all the moisture from them. You know they were bad when the busload of senior citizens who were also customers in the restaurant were calling out to each other that "the fries are lousy!" I was prepared to voice my concerns to the hostess (also the owner?) when she asked the "how was your meal?" question as we paid our $27 tab, but she never asked--and I guess for good reason. Someone call Gordon Ramsey!— October 30, 2008 5:44 p.m.