Last year, in the midst of the biggest festival of Cluj, Uber thought it would be a good idea to start its services here, too. Naturally, the demand was a lot higher than the local drivers could support, so Uber supplemented its drivers from other cities of Romania. Despite the small scandals that arose between local taxi companies and Uber, the initiative cought on and soon I also decided to try it out.
My first rides were small disasters, but I decided to overlook the fact, that the first few drivers had no idea where I was and went to completely different quarters to pick me up, after all, they were newbie drivers. It is true, that I never had such an issue with a local taxi driver, it did happen though, that Uber had a car to pick me up, while NONE of the local taxi companies could get me a car in a reasonable time. So, related to the ease of finding a ride, the local taxi companies do not have a clear advantage: after the first few hard pickups, the Uber drivers got the hang of it and could eventually pick me up in time regularly 😉 .
So what about price? Well, normally it is a bit more expensive than a taxi. There are, however, many promo codes, which reduced the price quite significantly… There is also, a minimum price you have to pay, no matter what. I’d say depending on where you want to go Uber can become much more expensive than a taxi.
So, why would I pay more for Uber? Well, for starters, I do not pay the driver (i.e. no cash involved), Uber simply charges my registered credit card, depending on the ride, the promo code or sometimes, the weather :). HUGE advantage for Uber, welcome to the 21st century, local taxi companies 😉 . Another reason why I’d pay more for Uber: the ride quality. On average it is miles better than a local taxi. I also found out why: Uber drivers do it for fun, taxi drivers do it cause they have to… imagine the difference in attitude.
Unfortunately, a couple of months ago the local authorities decided to interpret the law in a way which brough Cluj back to the 20th century: Uber is banned in the city. I mean, if there is something old and not working, why would we even try to change it? Really disappointed… this is not the city attitude I got used to in my 13.5 years living here… at least it should have been a wake-up call to taxi companies: it is possible to do MUCH better!
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To move matters into a more objective light, I’d like to write firstly about the food. The food is… well, I would say special. You do not really find anything here, that you eat in other restaurants. There at lots of varieties to choose from, like Italian food, Chinese food, French food and special sea food (I guess that is the reason the place was given the sub-name:”(M)eating point”). From this huge variety it was quite difficult to choose from, but in the end I settled for pork meat with ratatouille and my girlfriend ate chicken with green pea pure. Both were strange, but great combinations and the way that they were presented were also quite stylish. 
Next, I will move the focus to the table. There were no table-cloths at all on the tables, which is something that you would expect from a high-class restaurant. Instead, the actual table-cloth was a piece of stylish A3 paper, containing the menu, which is usually an indication of a low-cost restaurant (although I’d rather have a piece of paper that is constantly being replaced than an old sheet that sometimes gets washed). In this case, however, the stylish menu had a special designation: the great big question mark at the “Desert” section. Well, we could not leave with this big question open, so we decided to also have desert and asked the waitress how we could find out what the desert was. She told us she’d be right back with the menu. Why the menu? – we though – we have already seen that and there was no desert in it… Well, we were in for a big surprise, when instead of a menu, she brought a huge stamper and just stamped the missing piece of the menu there 🙂 .
Having the desert options in front of us, my girlfriend decided to buy a cheesecake, while I went for the Bricks Special, and boy I made the right decision :). It was delicious. It had all sorts of flavours in it, ranging from orange to cinnamon which I think are best tasted than described.