Beware the chocolate croissant

My boyfriend has a Yelp addiction. In many cases, it has found us yummy Indian/Thai/insert delicious ethnic food here. In others, it has left us stranded and hungry and confused (Note to Yelp contributors: please make sure you use the correct address). The latter cases are nearly enough to put a girl off Yelp entirely...

In this case, though, it served to keep him busy during a bout of insomnia and give me something to repost in my blog. Since I'm running low on creative genius of my own, I want to say thank you, Yelp. I guess you're alright, after all. Oh, and Nathan, you're pretty neat too.

I hate writing one-star reviews. I know that there are decent, hard-working people on the receiving end of them -- people who are just trying to get by, and are no doubt doing the best they can do. I should have empathy for them, not ire.

No, scratch that -- I love writing one-star reviews; I love wreaking my petty, seething, vengeance upon the universe, in a more or less harmless fashion. I get some much-needed catharsis, and nobody gets hurt. So with that in mind, let us not be shy: I want this ASDA to be expunged from the face of the earth.

Not because it resides in the middle of a blighted, industrial wasteland whose only conceivable raison d'etre is the eventual arrival of some post-apocalyptic zombie horde. Not because it is surrounded by so much asphalt and automobiles that it resembles one of the less attractive suburbs of Detroit. Not because it represents the pinnacle of the soul-less big-box retail monstrosities that are killing off the sweet and funky high street shops around the world.

No, this particular ASDA needs to be expunged from the face of the earth because of a pastry. A chocolate croissant, to be exact, served from the institutional processing facility which they had labeled "CAFE". Why was I so foolish as to attempt to partake of an ASDA café, you ask? Because I was trekking across this desolate wasteland in search of a real-estate viewing, and because I was tired and needed a nibble and had been walking for miles and it was freezing outside. Now at least I know: next time, perish in the cold. Really. It's better that way.

So anyhow, yes, the chocolate croissant deeply offended me. As did the truly bad coffee that came with it. And the thick mass of assuredly non-recyclable hydrocarbons that it was served upon, although I probably could have recycled that as a frisbee, on second thought. But anyhow, the croissant was the main thing...

How bad was it? Put it this way: growing up as a street urchin in the redneck wilds of America (semi-true story!), I often scrounged 2-day-old pastries out of the bins behind supermarkets, and I never once found a croissant as bad as this. On the outside, it was as oily as a fresh-squeezed Minke whale; on the inside, it was as dry and crunchy as the Atacama desert. The "chocolate" was probably biological in origin, but if the dry, crusty, foul residue had actually originated from a cacao plantation, it only arrived at ASDA via the digestive tracts of the plantation's ailing and disgruntled slaves. The next time I encounter a croissant as tough as this, I'll use it to bowl a game of cricket or assault an Italian prime minister. I'll certainly never attempt to *eat* it. Lesson learned!

Oh, and the flat I was viewing? Gorgeous place. Absolutely perfect everything, at a very reasonable price. And just across the street from the ASDA - O joy! Within 3 minutes I'd made one of the easiest decisions of my life: to never set foot in this neighborhood again, if I could at all help it.

There. I've said my peace. I've warned the world; there's nothing more I can do. Maybe now I can sleep in peace... maybe now the nightmares will stop...