Pride Of The Mediterranean

[Dylank0010]

So I went to San Francisco for a couple days with some friends and they know I’m big into hookah so we made a point to stop at a hookah bar at some point during our little vacation. This review may be slightly biased because I sort of went in looking to pick a fight with someone. Not literally, but a knowledge fight to see if the place was legit and if I knew as much or more then the guy working there. The GPS settled on Pride of the Mediterranean. We bumbled around the city for awhile which was no big deal and finally we found it. It’s in a nice area by SF standards. Not a single bum in sight. We even helped a guy out who was locked in his garage with his brand new 3 series still running on the outside/streetside of the garage gate, by shutting his car off for him. Anyway, we walked into PotM and the initial vibe wasn’t bad. The layout was a little cramped but comfortable looking. Not a terrible color scheme but the lighting was pretty harsh. I didn’t like the cheap computer looking speakers that were sort of just nailed to the wall with the wires all exposed, but it didn’t matter as they stopped playing music about 10 minutes after we arrived. We sat down and took a look at the menu. A bowl for two was $13, for three was $19, and for four was $25. I was pissed already. I had my Mya Vortex in the trunk of the car with a box of coals and about 2 keys of shisha, but the rest of the group insisted that we at least give it a try. I looked at the bottom of the menu and saw all the fine print. To smoke hookah, you had to order at least a drink. So we ordered three bottles of water and one girl that I was with ordered a Turkish coffee. They turned out to be $3 a pop for a bottle of Nestle water… There was also a 18% service charge for parties larger than four, but one of our group wasn’t smoking. We still got charged at the end of the session… You have to ask for a separate menu of all the flavors, which, when they bring it out, it looks legit until you open it up and see that it is hand written on a piece of wide-ruled notebook paper. At this point, I found it relevant to ask our server about his flavors. I asked if they were homemade judging by his oh-so-crafty homemade menu. “No.” Okay, okay damn. Don’t talk my ear off. I proceeded to ask what brand they were and got a very very VERY blank stare. I waited a moment and said, “starbuzz, tangiers, al fakher…” hoping that he wasn’t as clueless as I took him for. “We get them from all over.” That really pissed me off. First thing that came to mind was, “no shit. So do I, but they still have a brand.” But I let it go. My buddy Zach asked about something on the menu called “King’s Mix” which the guy said was a mix of some berry flavors and something else. It was quite obvious that he, again, had no clue. We ordered the Kings Mix and enjoyed our gourmet $3 bottles of water while he got our setup ready. He eventually emerged with a knock-off Mya with some straight caveman ghetto coals posted up on top. They looked like something that he might’ve mined from a meteor. No symmetry of any recognition. They actually didn’t taste bad at all though. We put a tip on the single hose and started puffing away. It hit like shit for about 5 minutes so we asked for another hookah. He blamed it on the release valve and brought us another Mya knock-off. This one at least hit decently. I actually really enjoyed the flavor but it was definitely not berry with something else. It tasted like a lemon/lime/mint mix. It was good either way. We didn’t even smoke the whole bowl before even Zach, who was enjoying this more than anyone should've, was annoyed enough to ask for the check. We got the check and started dividing up the bill. The coffee, which is listed on the menu for $3 (she ordered it specifically because it was the same price as our water) was actually $4 on the bill. The way it figured, we had to split 2 $20s for everything to work out. I went up to the cash register and asked to split the bills. Our server said he was fresh out of change but if I ran across the street and told the store owner that he had sent me, I could get change. My first instinct was to punch this guy square in the beak and walk out, but I just walked out instead. I went across the street and talked to this guy that he was supposedly tight with. For 2 $20s, I got back a 20, a 10 and 2 $5s… I crossed the street back to PotM and we managed to get the bill split up correctly. In the process, we noticed that he had overcharged us $7 (the total bill was $47 according to his math) so we subtracted his error, left an $0.85 tip and walked out. Honestly, anyone who smoked at this place for their first time probably thinks smoking hookah is gayer then a bag of dicks and anyone who has smoked previous to this place (this is just how I felt after leaving) will just want to go home and light up their own setup for lack of being in the company of someone who knows anything about anything. Overall, I give Pride of the Mediterranean a 0.00547 out of 10. It only got that much because I liked the neighborhood and lack of a bum militia when we walked up and the shisha flavor wasn’t bad. Save yourself the trouble and avoid this place at all costs!!!

[SuburbanSmoker]

They also have a hookah bar in danville/blackhawk CA called pride of the mediterranean. Very small, cramped, and it looks cheap. its a resturant/bar inside, and has a few tables set outside where you have to smoke if you do. Ive been there once with my smoking group, and refuse to go back. You have to buy a drink to smoke hookah, they supposedly make their own shisha, however when i looked at the mix/cut it honestly looks like they took alwaha and mixed it with something. It was 14$ for two person hookah and 10$ a bowl after that, which is reasonable, however the added price of the drinks makes it a little more pricey. They only used chinese knockoffs /sigh. OVERALL this place blowed. The guys who work there act like they know what they are talking about when they surely do not. i would not reccomend anyone to go to this place.