The Dresden Bombs
Published May 14th, 2007Once upon a time, I saw a movie. And it was good. No, it was great. Swingers is one of my all-time favorites. It’s hard to believe it’s over a decade old now, and its frightening (to me) to realize that I am currently older than Vince Vaughn was when he did the movie. Actually that’s downright terrifying. Anyway, it has always been a goal of mine to visit the important places in the film. Just for the hell of it. Prior to this weekend, I had knocked off the list: Vegas.
OK so maybe it hasn’t been a high priority goal. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a goal at all! This past friday night I had the perfect opportunity to go to another sacred Swingers site, The Dresden. I also drove right past Mikey’s apartment on the way, but I couldn’t spot it exactly. So how was The Dresden? Were Marty and Elayne all they appear to be?
Well, I was quite disappointed. The Dresden had the right feel, the old-time bar. Reviews I’ve read have said that Marty and Elayne weren’t as bad as they were portrayed in the movie - well that’s untrue - they’re pretty bad. They’re clearly doing it on purpose, and it’s fun - but it gets a little old as the night goes on. But as for the rest of the experience….ugh. While some appetizers were OK (ones I didn’t try), their “seasoned” fries were a farce. Steak fries, a little cold (maybe because it took the waitress 30 minutes to get them to us?) and the seasoning pretty much appeared to be a clump of powdered parmesan cheese. There were about 10 of us there, we got there early to get a table, and had been ordering drinks and appetizers for a while when 9pm rolled around and Marty and Elayne showed up. It was getting crowded, so the waitress brought out the 2-drink minimum signs for tables. And proceeded to harrass us - after we’d already been drinking and eating all evening. We had even saved this waitress some money by pointing out she had left off items from a couple people’s earlier tabs. Yet she was rather rude the whole night and generally a pretty bad waitress. She acted like we were a burden upon her. Now I realize the Dresden had an influx of trendy looky-loos after Swingers, so I can understand why at that time they might have wanted to keep the local bar feel - but that was a decade ago. There was no reason for this. So, very disappointed in The Dresden Experience.
So it goes. Oh well. I suppose the next couple things I need to do are visit the Brown Derby and play a round at the Los Feliz Golf Course. Given my current pace, I should accomplish those things by 2015.
i will try my best not to take this as a personal offense since i was the one who ordered the “seasoned” fries. they were pretty bad i do admit!
In no way was it your fault - I had a good time, but it was in spite of The Dresden’s food and service, not because of!