Given the task definition and input, reply with output. You are given a review about a place. You need to provide a rating from "1 star" to "5 stars" for this place.

I went into BLD with my friend, who is also a chef, yesterday. We both ordered off the happy hour menu - he had the Chirizo Nachos and I had the Pork Queso.

Now, my friend is a tough food critic. In all honesty he is way more picky than me - after all I grew up with siblings who would lick or spit on your food to try to claim it and you would either have to tough it out and eat it or starve. In short, my palette is much less sensitive than his and his cooking experience has him even higher standard than myself.

With that said, even upon my first bite I noticed that my chips were stale (or under-cooked or overcooked, not sure if there is a taste difference). Being the lenient one, I charged through the pile of chips for the Queso. Some of the chips were not bad. Aside from that, I thought the Pork Queso dip was pretty tasty. I am normally not one to enjoy tomatoes but I really enjoyed them in this dip. I really wish the "simple" part of my meal - the chips - would have been better. I think for the price I would have been better off driving downtown and checking out NachoBot, which is a bare-bone nacho shop... but hardcore delicious and I'm stuffed.

My friend had the Chorizo Nachos and really had to bear down to eat them. Not that he was gagging on it, but he wasn't super thrilled by it either. He didn't address it there (see comment below about asking for food) but did address them later in an email. On one hand, I wish my friend addressed it there so that I could have reviewed their response. On the other hand, sometimes it is better to not file a complaint in person - I hate having the management come over and give you free stuff - and maybe my friend didn't want free stuff either. I cannot comment directly for him - all I can say is that he has told the restaurant before of issues with his food (again, see comment below about the server asking about food).

Our service was OK but my friend was really bothered by the employees during their idle time. I had my back to the employees but he said that they were all sitting/standing by the kitchen and essentially messing around. Now, I'm not one to be all hardcore about what people do at work when they have idle time, but they could at least do it out of sight of customers. My friend said that they kept looking over and laughing in our direction - coincidence or were they laughing at us, I cannot comment. All I can comment on is that it could have been more professional.

The restaurant itself was pretty cool looking - almost a little too upscale for Chandler, LOL.

With all of this said, this is the general basis for my review. My friend wrote an email to BLD to tell them that he did not enjoy his meal. BLD responded, in a way, unprofessionally. They seemed kind of personally offended. With that said, I do agree with them in part that the issue should have been addressed there instead of post in an email. However, call me shy or maybe just preoccupied but I don't ever remember the server asking "how is your food?" either. While this is nit-picky, most restaurants today ask this which I believe prompts you to comment directly on the food instead of just the service (i.e. "how are you doing."). I think if they had asked that then my friend, who was much more dissatisfied with his meal, then he would have addressed this there in-restaurant. Who knows, and maybe this is splitting hairs here. The personal service was pretty decent aside from this even though the "idle-service" being kind of weird with the employees sitting around texting and possibly laughing at you. Decor was awesome. Food was half-good (my pork dip, not the chips), but the prices outside of happy-hour seemed a little high to me. Last but not least while my friends email could have been addressed differently by him (in person, not email) they could have seemed a little less personally offended.

Bottom line is this - I doubt that I will visit again and it is not necessarily a place I'd recommend to others. The main reason that I would not suggest BLD is mainly due to the price - my food wasn't too bad aside from half the chips tasting stale. I can get far more food at other places for less money and I don't have to buy on the HH menu to keep costs down. Looking at other reviews on here it seems that other reviewers also felt the prices were high as well.
2 stars