I went to a new restaurant downtown called Crescent Heights last night for a friend's dinner birthday party (www.crescentheightssd.com). The night started out right - the place has a good vibe: laid back yet a bit upscale. There is a collection of "fancy pants" drinks including a selection of many fruit mixtures, which I'm not a big fan of but it was cool to see some different options. I stuck to the orange vodka and soda but kicked it up a notch with the Hangar One vodka, which is probably the best mandarin/orange vodka I've had (topping even the mighty Grey Goose).
Trying to have a dinner party with more than six or eight people is always like herding cats. However, there was a massive mix up at the other end of the table with the bill somehow coming out to be something ridiculous like $700 for five people. This whole situation led to shouting and some guy threatening to leave without paying while leaving his card in case the restaurant wanted to sue him. I'm not sure exactly how it turned out; our half of the table settled up and my friend and I ran out of there before things got ugly.
However, the whole situation reminded me that dinner parties with large groups are generally never pleasant when the bill comes. Splitting it up is such a hassle for that number of people and splitting it evenly isn't a good choice because light eaters and drinkers end up subsidizing the guy sucking down five Crown and cokes and ordering the 44 year old aged steak. With all the stress and waiting involved, I'm definitely sticking to dinners with four or fewer parties. Yikes.
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