Who: Angela Bunt & Colin Drucker
What: Village Lobster and Crabhouse
Where: 225 Varick St., Manhattan, N.Y.

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ANGELA: “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” Or, if you’re Colin and me, of all the delicious restaurants in all of New York City, we walked into the Village Crabhouse.

COLIN: I just want to say, there are so many restaurants in New York—good restaurants! It’s almost sick. So I feel like, if you’re gonna join the masses in the restaurant world and hope to not close in two months, you need to step it the fuck up. I’m just saying.

ANGELA: And speaking of good restaurants, we meant to go to Do Hwa (otherwise known

as the most delicious Korean joint in all of Manhattan- colin: And those sake breezes, ooh girl!) which was a mere block away from where we ended up:

COLIN: The Village Lobster & Crabhouse. *vomit shivers*

ANGELA: It lured us in with its tall windows, vacation-like feel, and promise of a pre-meal breadbasket. We were really hungry.

COLIN: It really did feel like we were on vacation, or possibly in the suburbs. Buoys and netting on the walls, some plastic sea creatures scattered around, signs that said “High Tide” or “Beach Path.” I might be making some of that up, but you get the idea. I was excited about the bread, though.

ANGELA: Well, the bread was stale and took forever to get to our table. It left our mouths oh-so-dry, but unfortunately nobody had even brought us water!

COLIN: Or more bread.

ANGELA: For the next 20 minutes it took for our waitress to come over and take our

food order, we debated leaving:

Angela: Let’s just get the fuck out of here. I got my bread I’m happy. Notice they only gave us two rolls… gotta’ cut back on expenses somehow!
Colin: We can’t leave. We can’t. It’s mean.
Angela: My glass is dirty and I want some more water.
Colin: Don’t say anything!
Angela: I’m not going to! What do you think I’m some kind of bia–

ANGELA: We were interrupted by the waitress. Shit! Do or die time. I reluctantly ordered a hamburger and fries. Being that we were at a seafood restaurant you’d think I would’ve been a little more adventurous with my selection, but everything on the menu was screaming, “food poisoning.”

COLIN: I got the lobster roll, because I had come this far, y’know? Plus, if I got food poisoning, that’s easily a five pound weight loss, which I wouldn’t kick out of bed. And we got calamari as an appetizer.

ANGELA: The waitress still hadn’t taken our drink orders or refilled the water. And I drink a lot of water when I go out to eat. Like, a lot. It wasn’t even like they were that busy. There were three other tables there, two of which were people who worked there. I think they get paid overtime for that- like the models that stand outside of Hollister winking at chubby girls in an effort to lure them into the store.

Colin: She didn’t take my drink order. I want a Diet Coke.
Angela: This is absurd. Why did we come here!?!
Colin: I can SEE Do Hwa from here!
Angela: Let’s just leave now. Let’s just go.
Colin: We can’t. She already put the order in.
Angela: No she didn’t! Let’s go! Let’s just leave and never look back!
Colin: It’s too late… it’s too late.

COLIN: Thank god, our waitress came by with the calamari. Thank god because (a) that meant I didn’t have to face the shame of standing up for myself in the wake of terrible service, and (b) I was just so goddamn hungry,

ANGELA: Except it wasn’t calamari.

COLIN: It was clam chowder!

ANGELA: Easily confused…

COLIN: It felt like a practical joke. I just blinked at her and said, “I ordered the calamari. Oh, and a Diet Coke.” I was hoping for a little remorse, but instead I got the start of a sigh and she left with the soup.

ANGELA: To make an excruciatingly long story even longer, the rubbery calamari eventually made its way into our mouths. It was meh. Really can’t go wrong with something fried.

COLIN: I’m gonna be honest, it wasn’t gourmet, but I expected worse. That being said, this may have been the exact same thoughts the stranded plane crash survivors had in Alive. The manager swung by and asked us, “Are you missing anything?” and we looked around helplessly at the table. Was this a quiz? He did refill our glasses, but when spilling ice cubes on the table, simply said, “Whoops. Well, now you have some ice.” And left.

ANGELA: Then about 20 years later they brought out our food. Of course during that time we had more debates about whether to leave, and Colin read me scathing Yelp reviews. And I drank some more water.

COLIN: I actually found some positive reviews as well, but stuck to the one that described this place as “incompetent.”

ANGELA: Our food came out and it was like a Fourth of July BBQ gone wrong. Both the burger and the whatever-weird-thing-Colin-got were  on cheap-ass hamburger and hotdog buns! I ate my fries and STFU.

COLIN: Lobster roll. Again, I expected worse. And technically, lobster rolls are supposed to come on these cheap-ass buns. But for 20 bucks? Give a girl some lovin’! The fries weren’t bad, though. They had sea salt! (How appropriate, seafood restaurant!)

ANGELA: I ended up eating about 1/4th of my burger and 5/4ths of the fries on the table. You do the math. It wasn’t that the food was so awful- I mean, a burger is a burger- it was that I wanted to save room for Do Hwa, which is where we went as soon as we got the check.

COLIN: At this point, I finally grew a pair (well, passive aggressively) and insisted we don’t leave a tip. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that, but today was the day!

ANGELA: I left a dollar.

COLIN: We grabbed our coats and stumbled out of there without so much as a goodbye. All that remained was the ice still melting on the table. We hurried down the block as quickly as we could. There were sake breezes to drink.