Smashing Pumpkin Martini - The Grant Grill, San Diego, CA
It
bears repeating once again - if you are a restaurant, and you have an
item featured on a NATIONAL TELEVISION PROGRAM, even if it is only known
at the time as a seasonal offering, please, for everything that is good
and scrumptious, add it to your menu full-time!
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| Take a Cue from These Bar Snacks and Be Featured ALL YEAR LONG |
Hence
is the quandary that faces Vodka and her friend Vesper upon entering The Grant Grill in San Diego, CA. Well, quandary number one is we can't
figure out how to break into the joint, as all of the hotel's doors
appear to be locked, and there are no doormen around to open them (in
fact, upon waiting for our Uber to leave, we let in no less than three (alleged) new guests arriving at the hotel, who would have no way of
making it to the front desk without our assistance? The whole policy
seems illogical at best).
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| The Grant Hotel Was Clearly the Inspiration for the Hotel California |
Back to the situation
at hand, The Grant Grill was featured by Troy Johnson on the THAT I'M THANKFUL FOR episode
of Best Thing I Ever Ate for its smashing pumpkin martini. Being that
it's August, and not Thanksgiving, the drink is not currently being
offered. However, being that Vodka and Vesper never met a martini bar
they didn't want to saddle up to, we plow ahead with drinking here
anyway.
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| Also We Needed a Place with Air Conditioning Because of San Diego's Unrelenting SUN |
In place of the pumpkin martini, Vesper
opts for the Old Fashioned, and Vodka for the Manhattan, because these
are the two cocktails currently being advertised in the Grant Grill menu
as the seasonal house specialties (something about brewing their own
bourbon or Manhattan mix or something - Vodka was too annoyed by the
lack of pumpkin to focus on details).
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| Here, Read It For Yourself |
Now on
the one hand, the ambiance of the Grant Grill can't be beat (that is,
once you can figure out how to break into the joint). It's quiet and
serene and beautiful in its decor - even when sullied by the image of a
PDA-heavy couple distorting the vibe by continuously mauling each other
smackdab in the middle of the bar.
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| Odd Photo Angle Due to the Love Birds Taking Up Most of the Bar's Real Estate |
The
cocktails, however, which are what the bar is known for, are not
nearly as pleasing.
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| Contrary to What Your Eyes Are Telling You, This Is Not Iced Apple Juice |
While Vesper sucks down her Old Fashioned without a
problem, Vodka is less taken by her Manhattan, which is not one of the
best she's tasted, and may be closer to one of the worst (it just...
doesn't seem to have much flavor - or liquor-based potency - at all?).
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| Even the Color Is... Odd? |
Our
waitress eventually talks us into ordering a side of warm,
fresh-out-of-the-oven (how they were marketed) chocolate chip cookies,
which unfortunately come with an accompanying smattering of berries.
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| Vodka Saved This One from the Fruit for Photo Shoot Purposes |
Unfortunately because, while we taste one of the cookies on site (it's
fine), we haul the to-go container back to our room, not to be broken
into again until we are on a plane back to NYC, only to find that the
entire enterprise now TASTES LIKE FRUIT.
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| Which Is At Least More Flavor Than Vodka's Manhattan Had |
Does Grant Grill
deserve another chance in the future when they deign to add the smashing
pumpkin martini back to the menu? Yes. But in the meantime, survey says
there's only one place where Manhattans are universally "seasonal," and
that is in Manhattan alone.
The Grant Grill's Smashing Pumpkin Martini: 3 stars
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