6 Things to Never Ever Ever Ever Do at Kelp

That night my pets and I walked down to the new establishment (my Lupe needed to walk of some of those chia treats), in the hopes of earning ourselves a fine dining experience. Armed with a bag of neopoints, I approached the fancy and grumpy-looking Maraquan Scorchio that stood in front of the doors, who looked at us as if we were annoying little angelpi that kept trying to bite his tail.

“Do you have a reservation?” the Scorchio asked us. “What name will it be under?”

I gave him my name and he flipped through a notebook, looking for it. He let us in with a look on his face that read, “You got lucky this time.”

6. This brings me to the first thing that you should never ever ever ever do at Kelp, which is not making a reservation. Always call ahead of time! The pets behind us were not as lucky, however. As soon as I entered the restaurant, I could hear the Scorchio, which we had narrowly escaped, yelling at them because they had not made a reservation and how they were wasting his time. Just when I thought it was all over, he launched into a twenty-minute lecture about why Kelp was popular and they should have called in advance. I felt sorry for them and wished Kelp would hire another pet for the job. Maybe the service here wasn’t as good as I had heard.

Turning away from the big scene outside the restaurant, I took a good look at its inside. The waiters were all wearing uniforms and the food looked very nice (but it sure didn’t look like the tastiest food I had ever seen). The inside was also decorated with little bushels of seaweed and coral. Everyone in the restaurant looked very rich and fancy. I felt a little odd, just wearing jeans but I guess having four painted pets didn’t make me look too much like I didn’t belong here.

A Maraquan Uni that looked highly sophisticated led us to a table. We sat down in coral seats (which aren’t very comfortable, by the way). The Uni laid five menus on the table and left us to read them. I opened up mine. The lists of foods were extremely long but at last I came across the Maraquan Gumbo. I had always been a big fan of gumbo so I decided that’s what I had better order.

A little while later, our food arrived. It all looked very nice, with little decorations on the sides of the food. My gumbo was put down on the table in front of me and I thought my lunch was about to come back up. Huge purple tentacles were hanging out of my bowl. It looked like either someone had chopped the legs off of a Maraquan Gelert, or put a whole octorna in my bowl. The olives didn’t look so bad so I popped one into my mouth. Again, my stomach began to churn. What ever was leaking out of the tentacles was all over the olives. In the end, I dumped the whole thing on my Poogle’s plate. He would eat anything that was set in front of him. Being a grape, my Chia just nibbled on the little scraps we left behind.

5. The moral? Always know what your food is and what it looks like before you order it. I wasn’t about to eat what looked like boiled octorna. Speaking of boiling octorna…

4. Eating pets and/or petpets is cannibalism. You don’t see pets and petpets eating humans (with the exception of meepits. I don’t trust those things…).

Finally the waitress came back and cleared the table. We were asked if we wanted dessert (which was a pretty odd question if you ask me) and I ordered something that had a promising name: Crème de-la Crème. This was actually quite tasty. It was a pie with sweet, heavy, cream inside. I shared some with my grape Chia who liked it, accept for the fact that he fell through the crust, into the cream and I nearly ate him. And now here’s number three.

3. Don’t order food that’s too big for your pets. They will either eat it all and nearly explode, eat it all and nearly bring it all back up, or fall into it and almost be eaten. My baby Scorchio ate all of his chocolate cream shell a little too fast and almost did the second thing I mentioned above.

They also play a bit of music while you eat and how this music sounded is the real reason my Scorchio nearly threw up. The Neopian Philharmonic made this place so fancy that it was sickening.

With no entertainment but some really boring music, I was about ready to go home when some insane pair of pets got out of their seats and started dancing. They either had a little too much grog or were trying to break the boring mood. Meanhile, two baby gelerts were throwing some odd green muck at each other. None of the employees did anything to stop the madness, which proves that the waiters don’t really care about its customers and that concludes that the service isn’t very great. It was even worse, though, for the people that were sitting at the same tables as these crazy pets. And now I have come to the second thing that you should never ever ever ever do at Kelp.

2. One of the worst things you can ever do at a fancy restaurant like this is do something stupid and embarrassing. In this case, dancing in the middle of a gourmet restaurant and throwing green gunk across the room. Feel free to embarrass yourself, but please spare your family. They’ve never done anything to you.

By now I was fed up. I asked the waitress to bring me the bill so I could leave. A few minutes later she came back. By then the two gelerts were out of green muck. When I saw the bill I actually did throw my food back up.

1. NEVER, under any circumstances, forget to check the price of each food. And always bring enough neopoints. I was pretty much broke after this unpleasant evening.

With an empty pocket (and a now empty stomach) my pets and I left Kelp. As we walked by the Maraquan Scorchio he said, “Didn’t check the prices, eh?” If my pets hadn’t restrained me, I would have chucked a piece of coral at him.