Adventure Dining!

All I want is a quiet meal.

I am just trying to satiate my desire for food, not entertainment.

Why do restaurants end up being so unintentionally fascinating? Is it

the lack of live music that convinces the waitstaffs and cooks that they need

to be unique, wrong and/or just plain weird? Is it the lack of a

living wage or the lack of a downtown stage that makes dining out such

an adventure?

Certainly the number of stars allotted has little to do with it. I

have had odd meals that cost $400+ for the table and ones that set me

back $4.00 with free drink refill.

I order a Diet Coke at a Chinese place downtown and on my tray

appears a Snapple Pink Lemonade. I am thinking of dining in at a

sandwich shop but instead I am wordlessly handed a to-go bag. 5

different times. At the Wonder Bread/Hostess Outlet in Watsonville I once

counted off five minutes on my watch where I was the only person in

the place. I had to go around to the loading dock to scare someone up

so I could pay for my twinkie.

I witnessed an epic family argument all around me once at a

restaurant in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Despite a well prepared

Buffalo burger and chips (potato, that is), the main attraction was

the histrionics of an entire 3 generation family having a rousing row

while continuing their duties. And all in Italian to boot.

Now I have nothing against good service, mind you. I am one of those

sinister left-handed people, and every so often I encounter a server

who catches this and turns my plate around so the entree is on the

proper side. My tip becomes astronomical at such times. Once I even

got deftly placed at the corner of the table so my errant elbow

wouldn't collide with the righties chowing down. I would've given

that guy my wallet, my shoes, and my firstborn.

But more often than should be I am left with a dining companion

staring at some strange assemblage of food before them asking: "I

don't think I ordered this. Did you order.....whatever this is?"

Examples abound, and so perhaps one incident shall speak for the

rest: Friday night dinner with a friend at the Poopoocaca restaurant

in downtown Santa Cruz (names changed to protect the guilty). I chose

the machaca, which is scrambled eggs with rice and beans and toast.

No problem, right? My companion ordered the beef fajita salad, with

mixed vegetables and a jalapeno-lime dressing. Again, not a

Herleculean task of culinary cunning. I got my machaca, but it was

completely covered in perhaps two cups of sliced jalepenos - a

riveting addition that probably should have made it into the menu.

And no toast currently visible.

My bemusement was completely swallowed up however by the

Frankensteinian platter placed before my friend. Beef fajita salad

with mixed vegetables and jalapeno-lime dressing, right? Not even

close. Not even if you put it across the room and squinted real hard.

She got three Sizzlean-reject strips of beef, worthy only of becoming

a future Slim-Jim 3-Pak, or the sole of a Birkenstock. Beneath that

was a thin veneer of iceberg lettuce supported by no less than three

hearts of lettuce, each one harder and more discolored than the last.

Finally the whole thing was awash in about two cups of soy sauce.

Our eyes rose and met. We blinked at each other. Shoe leather,

lettuce hearts and straight Kikkoman soy sauce? Huh? Slowly we looked

around the Poopoocaca. It was Friday night, dinner hour downtown and

we were one of only three booths occupied. Our hostess was still

talking on her cell phone. (When we entered she had waved vaguely in

the direction of the diningroom behind her and didn't miss a beat.)

The manager was one table away, on her knees, assembling the

Christmas lights. Our waitress had apparently caught the Greyhound

bus down the street and was currently headed out of state.

We waited for the spin cut to Rod Serling. No such luck. So I walked

over to the hostess station and lifted a menu, startling the hostess

into almost pausing in her conversation. We consulted this ultimate,

impartial authority. Yep: Beef fajita salad with mixed vegetables and

a jalapeno-lime dressing: Plain as day. Sounded good too. We surveyed

the translation of this: dark ocean of soy sauce, island of pale

green lettuce, dark brown roman numeral III of meat tanning on the

shores of iceberg isle. Couldn't be the same item.

We waited for our waitress, but she was apparently passing through

Reno on the bus by then. The manager was still fiddling with the

Christmas lights. We flagged a busboy and explained how lost we were

in our meal. We were hampered by the fact that we did not have a

language in common. He too consulted the menu, glancing back and

forth, scowling as he attempted to force the round plate of evidence

into the square description in print. He finally disappeared into the

back and after some minutes returned with dry toast for me, and a

hopeful smile for both of us. We were grateful but still stubbornly

unsatisfied. We explained our predicament again, using as evidence

the water glass of soy sauce that my companion had drained from her

platter. He listened, nodded, and vanished into the back again. We

waited, trying to find any part of my machaca that had not been

rendered radioactive from the handfuls of jalepenos. Calendar pages

flew off the wall, seasons turned, Italian goverenments rose and

fell, and then, surprise-surprise! Who appears but our waitress! Back

from Yellowstone and holding aloft a cup of the legendary

jalapeno-lime dressing! Huzzah!

I broke into the general reverie to inquire as to butter for the

toast and also the whereabouts of our promised beverages. Our

waitress disappeared into the back, never to be seen again. Our smiles of amusement faded

into grimaces of incomprehension though as we looked into this newest

item. Jalapeno-lime dressing? Noper! Staring resolutely back at us

was a cup of sour cream with a few olives tossed on top. We poked at

it. We tasted it. We ran phonics drills on each other to see if we

were speaking a coherent language. We were left with no footholds

from which to gain some perspective on the understanding of this meal.

Our dinner had left the Twilight Zone and was now passing Through the

Looking Glass. We fled, glancing at the hostess on our left - now

buffing her nails but still yakking away, and the manager on our

right - still cowering amidst the christmas lights. We left a note on top

of Iceberg Isle that simply said: "This is inedible."

And, not surprisingly, the Poopoocaca itself folded not long after,

proving that Darwin's theories are applicable in a wide variety of

situations.

I do wish that dining out was less of an adventure sometimes. But I will

admit to enjoying the sandwich place that won't ask me "for here or

to go" no matter how many times I remind them. It's like a ritual, or

a Japanese tea ceremony where we all have our roles to play, and our

lines to say.

Predictably bad service along with good food is an allright

combination with me, because the latter trumps the former. Good

service and bad food is out, unless you like to dine at Hooters. And

good service and good food is fine, but it usually involves paying

for it. For us wage slaves though, excitement, intrigue and suspense

come with every menu. Yeeee-ha!!

10/09/01