golden harvest

i just moved to lansing, and here i am about to write my very first food blog post in lansing, and i am also about to make myself the most hated person in lansing.  golden harvest is where everyone tells you to eat in lansing if you ask (and even if you don't).  it has 4.5 stars on yelp.  and it is horrible in every way possible.

actually, that's not really fair.  the food is decent, if you are ok with a healthy amount of oil and grease on your plate.  but the flavor is there.

however, the food is the only think that even comes close to being acceptable about this place.  let me count the horrors...

1. the staff.  not nice, ranging on a spectrum from "apathetic" to "mean."  which is strange, because there are signs everywhere saying "be nice or leave."  but the staff doesn't have to be nice apparently?
2. the ambience.  first of all it is loud as fuck.  yes i know i am a grandma but seriously, i don't think even the youngest eaters are that happy about having some ska/punk noise (honestly it was so loud i couldn't even tell what it was even on top of my embarrassing lack of pop culture knowledge) breaking their eardrums before they have even had their coffee.  there were all kinds of "kitschy" (i guess) toys and crap everywhere collecting dust, just like rotted out copies of old ren and stimpy comic books and board games that had been sitting in the sun since 1982 and non-functioning magic 8 balls and shit.  i guess that is to keep you busy for the hours you spend waiting to eat.
3. the hours you have to spend waiting to eat.
4. the obvious health code violations everywhere.  worst was watching a waitress carry toast with her bare hands from the front counter, through the restaurant, into the kitchen.  but less bad than that were many other things including the long hair within inches of food without hair nets, the layers of congealed blackness on the floors behind the counter, and the overall dinginess of the entire restaurant... the whole place looks like it needs a long bath in a vat of oxy-clean.
5. the coffee.  weak.
6. the service.  this is different from the not-nice staff.  first of all we waited AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES from the TIME WE ORDERED before we got our food.  this was AFTER waiting FORTY MINUTES outside in the freezing cold to even sit down.  ok, you have no space inside to wait, i have to wait outside, i get it.  but to have to wait TWO HOURS AND TWENTY FIVE MINUTES from the time of arrival to get food, with most of that time spent AFTER you sat down?  give me a fucking break.  but that is not all that is wrong with the service.  not by a long shot.  examples:
• the waiter asking if we wanted more coffee, and when we said no, he took our coffee mugs away (BEFORE WE EVEN GOT OUR FOOD).  what the fuck?
• ordering an "appetizer" which came with all of the rest of the food... an hour and forty five minutes after we sat down*
• getting chased out of the restaurant after we did not tip (sorry, you forfeited your tip at an hour and a half of waiting for food) and being yelled at in the parking lot by a waitress for not tipping*

i get it.  lansing is not some big booming metropolis like cincinnati (ha), you have to take what you can get in terms of good food.  but i could get this food in my own kitchen without the attitude, the wait, and the likelihood of salmonella.  it is above average for diner food, but if you are someone who knows how to throw in some artichokes and red peppers into your omelet or some mascarpone into your french toast, you too can work this level of kitchen magic.

i look forward to my future meals at other lansing dining establishments and i am sure that whatever is missing in menu creativity will be more than made up for in oh say GETTING MY FOOD IN LESS THAN AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES AFTER SITTING DOWN AT A TABLE.

so hi lansing, i'm liz.  nice to meet you... those of you who will still speak to me after this post anyway.

*these events were recounted to me by my friends as i was actually not present due to the fact that i had to leave at 2:00 p.m., before the food even came, because when i went to breakfast at 12:30 p.m. at a diner in a cold, underpopulated, mid-sized midwestern city i thought that would give me enough time to actually eat.  silly me!