The quest for decent food at a cheap price continues

It is certainly not difficult to find mediocre food in any suburb, or in any city. What is difficult is to find decent food (or perhaps mediocre to some people's standards) at a really fair price. Tonight Tom and I visited our new favorite food mall in Petaluma.  This food mall, which is actually just a strip mall anchored on one end by an Orchard Supply place and on the other by IHOP and Burger King, has, in one long row, 8 businesses.  In order: an Indian restaurant, a Vietnamese restaurant, a smoke shop with quite a selection of pipes, an eyeglass store, a Chinese Donut shop (come on, Chinese donuts, that is so intriguing), an empty storefront, a flower shop ("mixed bouquets for $9.99") and an Italian restaurant. Quite the ethnic variety, especially if that empty place had housed a Mexican restaurant, that would have rounded out the food choices quite nicely.

We ate at the Indian place three weeks ago and it was quite fine and the tab was about $25 for each of us, including tax and tip.  We were sort of aiming for the Vietnamese place this time but their entire front window was covered with those plastic laminated photos of the food and even the photos looked sad and anemic.  We passed on that.  The Chinese donut place was closed, unfortunately.  They only do Chinese donuts at breakfast and Chinese other treats at lunch and nothing for dinner.  By default, we chose the Italian place.

It should have been called EyeTalyan.  It was that sort of American-Italian blend that tastes fine at Original Joe's or Joe's of Westlake or San Rafael Joe's.  In a concrete strip mall in Petaluma, not so good.  (But my glass of Sangiovese wine was, I must say, a very healthy pour and quite delicious.)  Salad:  boring.  Bread:  boring.  Tom's Lasagna of the Day:  boring.  My linguine with clams:  boring.  

(Sad.  Honestly, my Italian mother-in-law taught me how to make good linguine and clams using canned clams, but you need garlic and lots of parsley and pepper.  Salt is nice too.  This had lots of clams but no flavor.)

And this meal cost us each $35, including tax and tip! That's $10 more than our allotted limit!  And it wasn't worth it! We have eaten cheaper at Dempsey's and it was better and it wasn't in a strip mall. (That is not to disparage Dempsey's.  I love Dempsey's but the reason I mention it is because it's a couple of steps above these strip mall places and yet you can get a really good meal for under $12.00 if you know what to order.)

So, our search continues.  We are on a quest to find good, solid, decent food in the north bay for $25 all inclusive. We are sure there are food options awaiting us and we will find them. Onward.