Chilli Rellenos

Out for lunch with the husband today. He is back from Amsterdam and I feel well enough to eat, so it's a win-win situation. We got a great parking space in a parking lot that said it was full, then got an "almost beautiful person" table at Isabellas, beaten for the prime window table by a group of ladies celebrating a 70th birthday! I guess the jetlag and 24 hour vomiting bug had taken it's toll on us. All downhill from here. I asked for sparkling water, no ice, and got half a glass of ice diluted with "club soda" from the fountain that tasted of city water, aka chlorine. We also got a wobbly table. Oh how I hate those. They were obviously pushing the lunch special cheapotapas menu as we got two of those and only one regular menu. As we don't like the cheapo specials menu it was a pain having to share. Skip forward, this is a blip of the chillies rellenos, except it was one supersized morbidly obese chilli, stuffed with a weeks worth of saturated fat and one sliver of crabmeat, and then fried in tempura batter. Half the cheese was warm. Half wasn't. Thumbs down so far. They did redeem themselves by producing 4 further tapas, shrimp masquerading as langoustines, mussels, clams and meatballs which were delicious. We decided to pass on dessert and ordered a couple of lattes. They claimed their espresso machine was broken. Yeah right. I would have given them the benefit of the doubt if 90% of the restaurants in Frederick didn't claim their espresso machine was broken. That excuse is becoming lame and over-used. Yes it was a nice lunch and reasonably priced, but I think this restaurant is on the wane.