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