The Blair Witch Dining Experience

Last night my hot-food aficianado friends and I went to one of our favorite restaurants that had reopened. Unfortunately, it had reopened under a new name and new incarnation.

The former "Asia Moon" on Winchester Blvd. in San Jose is now "Fuel - Simply Vietnamese." We figured it was just a remodel and name change. Then we went inside.

Actually, our first clue that things were different was that the restaurant seemed awfully dark for a place that's supposed to be open. As soon as we opened the door, two things hit us:

1. It's awfully dark in here.
2. They're playing really loud wumpa-wumpa music (the kind of trance/rave music you'd listen to at a rave, but there was no dance floor).

The new menus had fewer choices, and it appeared they had doubled the prices to pay for the remodel and the wumpa-wumpa music. We were in the back of the restaurant, yet the wumpa-wumpa music was still so loud we could hardly hear each other over it. Even our waiter couldn't hear part of our order!

As if the music wasn't enough torture, every once in a while the lights over our table would get really bright, then start strobing along with the bass notes coming out of the speaker. It was obvious the electrical system in the restaurant wasn't designed to handle huge speakers. Instead of putting the lights at a comfortable level (so we wouldn't have to use flashlights), they'd excessively dim them. A few minutes later the strobing would continue. When we tried to complain about the strobing, one of the staff members replied, "It's enhancing the music!" The strobing was soooo bad one of the people at the table was asking if anyone had ever had a grand mal seizure.

The food, a fusion of Vietnamese, Thai, and Japanese, was excellent, but again, it cost around twice as much as it should have. The wumpa-wumpa music and strobe lights made sure we won't be back anytime soon.