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A friend and I had a late evening dinner here on
1/21/04 - neither of us had been to the restaurant
in some time, and we were both wondering how it
was doing. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed to see
the establishment not faring too well.
The charming interior decoration of the restaurant
is the same as it has always been, adorned with
the horns of cattle and other western
paraphenalia. The noise level seemed a bit high,
even though the dining area was barely half full
(never a good sign, I was worried when we easily
found a parking space). It may have been that
patrons were trying hard to be heard over the loud
music being played in the bar area... which also
happened to be disharmonious with whatever
different music/noise was coming out of the
speakers in the dining area! Not a very good
atmosphere at all.
Dinner was a combination meal of a 6oz BBQ chicken
breast and 4 stuffed shrimp. The miniscule
portions that were brought out to me practically
astonished me - $18.95 for cocktail sized shrimp,
steak fries, and a chicken breast barely large
enough for a sandwich??
The corn fritter appetizer was the highlight of
the meal, though they quickly went from piping hot
and crisp to cool and spongy. And it was a good
thing we ordered them, because the microscopic
portions were barely enough to satisfy, with no
leftovers to speak of. The taste of dinner
overall was also not very distinctive or
particularly pleasing - somewhat dry chicken and a
BBQ sauce that could have come right out of a
bottle didn't help the tiny shrimp at all.
With such a discouragingly sad meal recieved, I
didn't dare to think of ordering a dessert for
fear of additional disappointment.
In closing, Cactus Pete's now holds the dubious
honor of being the first non-chain "Unacceptable"
restaurant I have reviewed. It is highly
disappointing to see what was once such a fabulous
eatery go straight downhill.
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