Acapulco

originally posted on SurfJedi's Musings

Acapulco Mexican Restaurant
725 S Victoria Ave, Ventura
(805) 644-3952
Cuisine: Mexican

I took my wife and son to Acapulco tonight. As a kid, Acapulco was a family treat, so I have a lot of good memories at various Acapulco restaurants. The last time I went was when my wife and I were first married, and we had a bad experience. I have been trying to convince her to go back ever since. The guacamole there is addictive.

We were seated pretty soon, which is always good when you have a two year old in tow. The waiter asked us what we wanted to drink, and another waiter brought us our chips and salsa, but we didn't get any water. I thought this was a little strange. My son got a little too eager with the salsa and we had to wait for his drink to come in order to sooth his tongue.

The waiter was otherwise friendly, and came back shortly with our order of guacamole. I am telling you, this stuff is so worth the trip to this place. He made the salsa and I asked for the jalapeños on the side, since my son isn't quite as tough as he would have us think. ;)

My wife ordered a Carne Asada salad, my son got a bowl of fried chicken strips and fries, and I got the chicken fajitas. I find that good fajitas, as well as good Chile Rellenos can tell you a lot about a restaurant. I usually get the Chimichanga or the four item mega platter, so I thought I would change it up a bit.

The Carne Asada was really good. I had a few bites of my wife's salad. Her pregnancy-skewed taste buds didn't appreciate it as much as I did, but that is becoming more and more common these days. My Fajitas were really good, though a little heavy on the bell peppers. My son's chicken was pretty good too.

Though I did like the food tonight, I have had better dinners at Acapulco, so I will go with a 3.5 out of 5 for the food. The service was a little off. My wife had to ask for a refill. I asked for a refill just before we left, and it was not the drink I had ordered. The first glass of Pepsi had hit the spot. I think he put Diet Pepsi in the refill. He took a long time to give us the bill, and a longer time to process it. The service was much better than my last Acapulco visit (in Moreno Valley), but I have had better. I think tonight's service ranked a 2.5 out of 5.

These are pretty low marks for one of my favorite restaurants. I will be going back because of my past experiences. Tonight was pretty expensive for the quality we received. I still recommend this restaurant, and you MUST try the guacamole!

RATING:

Juno - Finally A Movie Worth Watching

Originally posted on SurfJedi's Musings.

My wife and I have been consistently disappointed with the quality of the movies that Hollywood keeps hyping as "Must See" and "The Best Film of the Year". The Academy Awards were full of movies that we couldn't believe made it. The 2 year old pretty much guarantees we don't see many movies in theaters, so we have to rent them usually. This is fortunate due to the high price of movies these days. We suffered through "No Country for Old Men" and "Michael Clayton" among other lame movies.

"Juno" is the latest movie Netflix has delivered. The acting is pretty good. I didn't hear too much hype about it, which probably helped. There are some pretty funny parts, and I was not bored watching it. It has a lot of folk music that really fits the movie.

There are a lot of themes that would probably require further discussion, but that is for another blog.

I think Juno turned out far better than most of the garbage that made its way across the stage on Oscar night. At least it won for writing. Good music, good writing, and good acting. I would recommend this movie.

RATING:

Time Warner Cable

I switched to Time Warner Cable when I left Dish Network. Part of the reason I left Dish Network involved my DVR breaking, and therefore an inability to record shows, pause, rewind, fast-forward and such. This is a feature that one has to pay for, and I expect it to work. Dish Network didn't seem to agree, and I was to find out only too soon, neither does Time Warner.

At the time I signed up, I was in the process of leaving Verizon's DSL and Phone services. I was looking for the fastest internet connection I could get, which at the time was Verizon. I knew Time Warner had an Internet Service Provider (ISP) called Roadrunner, which in past experience was a nightmare. The salesman signed me up for the three pack bundle, which included 10mbps internet, cable TV, and a voice-over-IP phone service. He told me that I was in a fiber optic area, and that I would really be getting 15mbps, which I was pretty stoked about. He was wrong.

Considering the 10/15mbps rates were identical, I didn't complain when I found that I was in reality getting the 10mbps speed. What I did complain about was the fact that my upstairs DVR stopped recording. I was annoyed at the fact that I had to rent two DVRs for Time Warner, when Dish Network only took one. I was far more than annoyed when the thing broke in the first three days.

Eventually the DVR fixed itself, about a week later. We thought that we were out of the woods. We weren't. The downstairs DVR decided to fail. At this point we were also wondering what happened to our phone service, as our install date had passed. I called to figure out what was going on.

As for the phone, apparently the salesman screwed up and the phone order was dropped without notification. The DVR support person made me jump through some hoops, and nothing happened. It eventually fixed itself, as the upstairs one had done before. A couple of weeks later guess what happened. Yup, the upstairs DVR broke again.

In the mean time Dish Network had offered me a sweet deal to come back, so I decided to take them up on it. I got a salesgirl who didn't want my business, so I was forced to crawl back to Time Warner. I called and asked for a technician to come in, and asked for all charges to be reduced/dropped. They complied to their credit, and sent a tech out.

The tech was pretty good, and found that our signal was weak, and did his best to fix it. He boosted the signal by 4 times the original strength. The DVR was still out, so he replaced it. He offered to come by without a work order if anything wasn't working, which we are about to take him up on. Want to know what happened as soon as he left? The downstairs DVR broke again! Now I am furious with Time Warner. This stuff is way too expensive to put up with this kind of garbage.

I went back to Dish Network, hoping to get a more cooperative salesman. I managed to find one, and began the sign-up process when I hit another roadblock. This time it was not the salesman, but Dish Network itself that didn't want my business. I explain this in my Dish Network review, so I will move on.

I am now at a crossroads. I can't get Dish Network, and don't want Time Warner. One of my friends has gone the Netflix only route, which I am tempted to try. I can get DVDs of my favorite shows for less than half the price of cable. What is a disgruntled consumer to do?

Time Warner cable has a few redeeming qualities which I will cover to make this a fair review. Every time I have called I got a very friendly customer service rep. They aren't all knowledgeable, but at least they are friendly. The last guy I talked to was VERY good. He listened to my technical opinions and agreed that I was on the right track with my assessment. He sent out a tech and credited my account with no hassle.

The tech was another asset to Time Warner. He went above and beyond when he made the house call. My wife was very impressed with his service and he was on time. This is something that can be rare in the cable business.

The two positives mentioned above being considered, I still cannot recommend Time Warner cable. I plan to remain on the RoadRunner ISP, which the tech was able to fix, but I cannot justify wasting any more money on Time Warner's cable service. I give Time Warner a .5 out of 5 for value, but an 3 out of 5 for the customer service personnel I have encountered. Overall, 1 out of 5.

RATING:

Dish Network

I was a Dish Network customer in Cherry Valley, CA for 2 years when I moved to Oxnard. During that whole time I had a great experience. Everything worked as it was supposed to, and the one time it broke they fixed it quickly. Keep in mind that Cherry Valley is in the middle of nowhere.

I moved to Oxnard and intended to cancel my service, as I had been told I would have to pay for the move since I refused to pay an extra $6 per month for insurance. When I called to cancel they convinced me to sign another two year contract without paying to move my service. I should have followed my gut on this one.

The Dish Network tech came to my house and installed the service. Within a day we lost the ability to watch TV upstairs. I looked the connections over, and then called customer service. They walked me through some stuff, but were unable to resolve the issue. They were going to send a tech out, so we ended the call amiably. I took another look at the cabling, and decided the tech didn't know what he was doing. I had uninstalled the unit from my old house, and knew how it was supposed to look. In moments I fixed the TV. I rerouted the cabling to the appropriate places and changed the signal from air to cable, as it was plugged in by a coax cable. This fixed the problem so we called off the house call.

Well, a few days later it broke again. My wife called and they attempted to force us to pay for the house call. She explained that one was already going to be sent, that we fixed the first problem ourselves, and had only had our service for three days. This fell on deaf ears. Finally she asked to talk to the manager, at which point the girl immediately approved the house call at no charge.

Well, it turned out that the tech had put a staple through the coax cable when he tried to hide it under the carpet near my fireplace. He replaced the cable and things started working...until the DVR broke.

I ordered a new DVR and waited for it. What happened next wasn't Dish Network's fault, but the way they handled it made them complicit. The forecast that week was the biggest storm California had seen in years. All the news stations were preparing us for some massive rain storms to come through southern California, dropping as much as 14 inches of rain in the first day. What did UPS do about this? They left my new DVR in a puddle at my front door, in open sky getting rained on. I put the box on some towels and promptly called Dish Network to arrange for another DVR, explaining what had happened.

I was told that I had to turn in the wet DVR before I could get another one, so I got the instructions for returning it. I told them I wasn't going to pay for service since I wasn't receiving service, and he told me that he credited my account. Apparently he didn't pass the word on to his company, as they cut off the service for nonpayment. This was after I had confirmed with 3 separate people on 3 separate days that I owed nothing.

I was not happy, to put it as kindly as possible. I spent the next week on the phone with customer service, trying to get the mess sorted out. I logged 12 hours in three days during that week, and was so fed up with Dish Network that I decided to move on.

While I had great service in Cherry Valley, my horrible experience in Oxnard forces me to give Dish Network a rating of 1 out of 10 for both value and customer service.

********Update**********

After switching to Time Warner Cable I received a call from Dish Network's retention department. They offered me a pretty sweet deal, but I told her I would be in a better position to decide in a couple of days and she should call me back. The deal was 3 months free (1st, 10th, and 20th months), $14 off the first 6 months, and no contract.

I called back a couple of weeks later and was told that the girl had no business offering me that deal, and that she couldn't honor it. I was dismayed, but accepted my fate. Things kept getting worse with Time Warner, so I tried again. Apparently I was two weeks too late this time. I was signing up for the exact deal I mention above, when my credit card raised a flag on their system. He asked me if it was a real credit card or a debit card. I told him it was a debit card with a Visa logo on it, therefore making it qualify as a Visa.

He explained to me that two weeks ago Dish Network implemented a rule that only credit card holders could become new customers. The DVR costs $600, it was explained to me, and Dish Network wanted to protect themselves from loss. Having already turned in my broken DVR and following their instructions to the letter, I found this rather insulting. I do not have a credit card, as I prefer to pay for any luxuries in cash, thus better managing my money. The fact that I don't have a credit card should not be the reason I don't qualify for a service I had for two years. I never missed a payment, and they got their equipment back. They even managed to purge me from the system, so even if I was delinquent, which I wasn't they had no way of proving it. I was denied solely because I am being responsible with my money. Bad form Dish Network, bad form.

RATING:

Casa de Soria

Casa De Soria
1961 E Thompson Blvd, Ventura
Phone: 805-648-2083
Cuisine: Mexican

Tonight I took my wife and son to Casa de Soria in Ventura. This was our second visit. The first was on a Friday night and the place was so packed, we waited thirty plus minutes to be seated. The experience from that point on was identical to tonight, so I will talk mainly about tonight.

It was much less crowded tonight, so we were seated immediately. We like to sit at booths since my son rebels against high chairs and booster seats and we can contain him in a booth. The booths here are a little narrow, and sitting across from a pregnant woman and having the table touching both of our stomachs gets a little uncomfortable. This is the only downside to the restaurant.

The service is amazing. Before we had settled in a waiter brought us chips and salsa and asked for our drink order. He was very courteous and promptly brought our drinks back. He came back just as we were ready to order. As we waited for our food the chips began to run low, and a waiter promptly gave us a new bowl of chips. We asked the waiter for some spicier salsa, which he also promptly brought us. More on the salsa to come. A moment later our food arrived. We had waited less than 5 minutes from the time we ordered. This was the same speedy service we received on the previous visit, even with the huge crowd. Our waiter came back and refilled our drinks as we needed them. As we were eating, he noticed that our bowl of chips had a lot of broken pieces. He told us it was no good and brought us a fresh bowl with larger, unbroken chips. Once we were done, he quickly brought us our check. We were in and out in less than thirty minutes.

The food here is among the best I have had in California, and definitely in Ventura County. This counts all food, and not just Mexican food. There are two things I order when I want to get a feel for a new Mexican restaurant: shredded beef and a Chile Relleno. From those two items I can tell if I am going to like a place or not. Technically the salsa is a third indicator, but it is not something I have to order so I won't count it for the moment. The first visit I ordered a mini burrito with shredded beef and a Chile Relleno combo plate. For a mini burrito, it was pretty substantial. Between the two items and the chips and salsa, I had a very satisfying and filling meal.

Tonight I ordered the Carne Ranchero, which is basically Carne Asada with a side of guacamole and Pico de Gallo. The meat was incredibly tender, and there was plenty of it. They served it with a choice of flour or corn tortillas. I favor flour tortillas typically, so I ordered the flour. They served two large, apparently home-made flour tortillas piping hot with my meal. I could have used a third one, but I am trying to cut back a little on carbs at the moment, so I didn't mind only having two. This was the best Carne Asada I have had in a restaurant. My wife was pretty impressed too when she tasted it. She has only ordered the Chile Verde so far, which she loves.

The salsa is pretty mild, and my two year old son has no problem eating it. I asked for a spicier salsa and it was really good. It tasted a little like a Chile Relleno, so I am guessing it had more than one kind of pepper in it. It had a nice aftertaste, and that is when you feel the heat. I have had far spicier salsas, but this one was both spicy and great-tasting. In my opinion it doesn't matter how hot it is if it tastes bad. I would definitely recommend the spicy salsa.

On a side note, my wife has banned myself and my mom from judging heat for anything she eats. Things I thing are ridiculously mild have burned her mouth more than a couple of times. I had her taste the mild salsa tonight so I could be sure I gave a fair review of the heat. Again, my two year old could eat it without drinking any water, so it is a pretty safe bet when I call it mild.

The service and food here are really good. I give a 4.5 out of 5 for service, and a 4.5 for the food. My wife and I intend to become regular customers here.

RATING: