Things That Make Me Laugh

The Worst Dinner Ever on the Best Valentine's Day

Sometimes, we get too caught up in the hype of Valentine's Day.  Luckily for me, I have a Valentine every day in my funny and loving husband (who will furthermore be nicknamed in this blog as "Hubby"), so I treat him like the love of my life that he is, every day.  But ... on Valentine's Day, it usually means a chance to go to a nice dinner (re: spring for seafood) and maybe a movie, now that I have a teenage daughter who loves to babysit her siblings for cash.

This year, we decided to head back to the restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary last year.  On that night, we had the best restaurant meal in our lives and a wonderful experience with their waitstaff.  Funny how it's the ones that please you most that make you look like you have egg on your face after you've told everyone how great they are.

Keep reading ... you're going to love this.

Hubby did his diligent duty by making reservations.  He tried emailing first through the restaurant's website and then calling to confirm.  In hindsight, we should have suspected a problem when he received a response back from the pastry chef, of all people, that our reservation was confirmed, and then later received a phone call from a different employee who confirmed the reservation again.  Dinner plans were set, the kids were jumping around (just how I like to leave the house) and my teenager was wondering what she agreed to.   Hubby told me we'd be done in time to catch a movie later.  Perfect!

Everything was now going to plan.  (I really should have known better.)  The day was beautiful and the sun was still out when we headed to the restaurant.  As we were parking, we saw another couple walking into the restaurant.  Already a good start!  We walked in to see a few couples already seated, and we were relieved our names were found in the reservation book. We made it in while they were still in their slow period.  Yes!

Now, we were seated in a different room than our last visit.  For our anniversary, we were in the very back room in a more intimate location of the building.  For Valentine's Day, we were seated in their larger banquet area, and I figured it would be nice to see other couples celebrating a lovely evening.  Funny how no one was smiling... or talking, for that matter.  (Bad sign #3)  Then we got to our table.  It wasn't until I sat down that I realized the hostess had handed us special Valentine's Day menus.  Okay, this wasn't something we were completely unfamiliar with.  We had gone out for special-occasion dinners before, but in the past we were told ahead of time that a limited menu was in place.  I threw a quick glance over at my husband, but he didn't seem to notice the switch.  Maybe he knew and forgot to tell me?  Then, my jaw dropped.  $70 for an entree.  For ONE person.  And that was for CHICKEN. 

I didn't know what to say.  I was looking around, expecting to get punk'd.  Not only was it $70 for chicken, but it was $70 for just about anything else, like a 2 lb. lobster or fish or steak.  I'm not sure on what planet steak, lobster, fish and chicken would be priced the same, but the saving grace (if it even applies here) was if you wanted both steak and lobster, that would be $90.  Depending on where you live, this might not be a surprise, but where we reside, you just don't SEE these kinds of prices.  I thought there had to be a way to salvage this, but I was still waiting for my husband to react.  He was still smiling.  I think he was taking in the ambiance.  Then, he looked at the menu.

I couldn't be sure, but he had this look on his face that seemed to be a mix of constipation and the expression of someone who was getting ready to rumble.  Oh no.  I didn't want a scene.  After all, the room was quiet (maybe too quiet), some people were eating (I think), and we had already gone through all the trouble of planning this date.  After softly talking with Hubby, I gathered the following info:  1) he was never told about the special menu by email, 2) he was never told about the special menu by phone, and 3) who the #*$! would pay that much for chicken?

Decision time.  I think we were both ready to leave, but my mind was reeling.  We didn't have a Plan B for this.  It was too late to get a reservation anywhere else, and all the chain restaurants were sure to be crowded, right?  I figured staying wouldn't be the worst thing, considering the five-star meal we had just a few months back.  It's not like we go out to fine restaurants every month, so why couldn't we just try to stick this out?  After all, the menu said we would each get a "complimentary glass of champagne"!

It'd been a while since I'd seen my husband angry.  Like two years a while since.  If getting up to leave quietly was still an option, I was ready, but it didn't seem like he wanted to go quietly; he wanted to talk to someone.  Someone in charge...with that strange, aforementioned look on his face.  Uh-oh.  Didn't think that would end well.  So, I tried to calm him down and sort of reason with him.  After all, the menu said that we could split an entree for an upcharge of $15.  We could split the lobster and steak entree and still come away with a great meal, right?  So we discussed that possibility as the waitress came by to take our drink order.

After serving us our iced teas, our waitress returned to take our order.  Calm Hubby had returned and he was smiling again.  He mentioned to her that we wanted to split an entree, and after some questions asked between us and her and her and the manager, she reported back to us that we could split our entree but if we wanted two appetizers, two soups, two salads, etc. (items that would have come to us as part of each single, paid entree), we would be upcharged $10, FOR EACH ONE.  Long, audible sigh coming from his direction.  Uh-oh. Mr. Constipated-Going-To-Bash-Some-Skulls (aka "Angry Hubby") was coming back to the table again.  (Think fast, girl, think fast.)  I was about to suggest to the waitress that she start running when suddenly, Hubby's expression changed.  He made the executive decision that he was just going to make things easy for everyone and order two entrees instead of the split.  Whew!  A peace accord had been reached.  Back to just a lobster for me and instead of steak, the fish for him.

Apparently, in my husband's haste to please me, he forgot to review the menu carefully, so he really didn't know every little thing we were getting with our meal.  The first thing to arrive was our appetizer, which was some sort of chocolate rice pudding.  Okay, I didn't really review the menu carefully either, but I remembered some key words.  Like chocolate and rice.

Well, what came out --- and I really kicked myself later for not taking a picture of this --- was a chocolate-and-rice ball .... on a tablespoon.  To top it off, literally, was a couple of teeny, tiny leaves on top.  Can you envision this?  Because I had to stop typing for a minute while I laughed my butt off at the memory.  To me, it looked like a turd ball.  Yes, you read me right:  a little, round turd... that had rolled in the grass.

Well, I don't think my husband ate his.  Or maybe he did ... but only after asking me what it was and after seeing me eat mine.  I'm pretty sure by then I had received my complimentary glass of champagne and started drinking it.  So by this point, anything on a spoon was going to put something in my stomach and that was important, even if it resembled a waste product.

It kind of tasted like rice pudding my grandma made for me when I was a kid and only added chocolate to as an afterthought when she realized I wasn't going to eat it otherwise.  Not very sweet and kind of sticky/mushy.  It was also kind of cold and I sat there wondering if I was supposed to eat the leaves too, but I decided to draw the line at turd foliage and set the leaves back on my spoon.

Oh, it got better...especially after a few more swigs of champagne.  Yes, I am a cheap date...well, except for this Valentine's and...well, you know what I mean.  After removing our tablespoon serving dishes, our waitress delivered the soup.  It was red and --- wait, I have a picture!

Some kind of red soup.  The key word I remembered from the menu was habanero.  Some kind of habanero soup.  I remembered this scene from Bridget Jones' Diary where Bridget is trying to make some sort of soup and ties up this vegetable with blue string.  By the time the soup was done, the liquid was all blue because of the string.  I started calling this thing "Red String Soup."  Hubby started to laugh.

Oh, and before you start to think I must have really loved this soup because you can see the bottom, let me tell you that I had two half-spoonfuls...total.  This is pretty much how it arrived at the table:  about a 1/4 full... if that.  As if to say that they either knew how bad the soup was and that no one would eat it, so why waste it by filling up the bowl or else they were starting the hot, new restaurant trend of "rationing."

Either way, I don't think Hubby had a whole spoonful's worth.  As I already mentioned, I gave it a polite two-spoon try.  Hubby thought I was being kind.  It was lukewarm and  kind of spicy.  After I took this picture, I noticed that the waitress had already removed my husband's bowl from the table, uneaten.  I snuck my bowl over to his side of the table when he was looking away, and after a while he looked back down and became startled, thinking HIS bowl had come back to him somehow.  Oh, yeah, this dinner was getting better and better.  (Just needed more champagne.)

I don't know why, but it took me too long to realize that it wasn't silence permeating the room but shock.  Sure, there was music playing from a nearby stereo, and after we were there for a little while, a harpist even set up her instrument and started playing, so it wasn't truly quiet in the room.  It was just that sometime after the soup and before the salad, I started to realize there was an odd, non-verbal group dynamic going on in the restaurant.

We started seeing people leave and not leave happily.  I didn't know if they had actually eaten but it seemed that at least a few of them had left right after arriving.  A nice couple at the table next to us finally leaned over and started making jokes about the dinner.  Whew!  It wasn't just us!  We found out they had split their meal and they were subtly warning us about our dinner to come.

We got some kind of herb salad.  It had strawberries on it.  Pretty.  I tasted some kind of sesame oil in the dressing.  Nice touch.  Unfortunately, it was a little salad.  I guess I should have mentioned that I had barely eaten all day just waiting for this lovely dinner.  Salad wasn't going to cut it.

SPOILER ALERT:  This was the best part of the meal.

Hubby started to notice some grumblings among the restaurant clientele.  By the time our entree was next to arrive, the restaurant was getting full.  More people seeing the menu and leaving.  We decided to start a betting pool on whether a newly arrived couple would stay or leave and how many minutes it would take them to decide.  One couple asked to be moved further away from the harpist and were declined.  Another couple appeared to be complaining about their service as they were waiting to talk to the manager on their way out.   Too bad they didn't have our waitress; she seemed to be very cool and very empathetic to our situation that night.  I started to think that we didn't have to worry about causing a scene because we would get to see a few tonight.  There still seemed to be a lot of shock and awe passing around the room, in waves like at a really good football game.

I can't remember a time where I was ever in a crowded restaurant and really felt like we were all united.  We were all embarrassed for one reason or another, and it felt like we were in tune with it.  I'm sure there was more than one guy who brought his date in there and didn't want to get up and leave for fear of looking cheap.  I'm equally sure there was more than one guy who pretended to know the menu was going to be like this.  It wasn't long before I felt like we were paying not for the dinner, but for a show.

At one point, the harpist started playing "Stairway To Heaven."  I almost had champagne fly up through my nose.  I swallowed fast and started laughing, but at a still-polite volume.  I'm sure there were several people asking God to deliver them from this fiasco.

At last, our entrees arrived.  Surely, this had to be good.  I love lobster.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE lobster.

Okay.  Hmm.  Poor guy lost his hands.  I started thinking of that episode of SpongeBob where Mr. Crabs loses his shell just before his reunion with his military buddies.  I had never received my lobster declawed like that before.  It would have been fine, I think, had it not been cold and slightly fishy tasting.  Not sure how that happened, but at least the asparagus was yummy (the four stalks that were there, anyway).

My poor husband got the fish.  I think I got the better end of the deal with lobster that tasted like fish.  Strangely enough, even the lobster tail meat was flaky like fish.  Hubby got this:

The key word I remember from the menu was pompano.  I thought pompano was a beach in Florida, but it's apparently a fish too.  Supposed to be in some kind of broth but the liquid looked sort of pink.  Hubby found a raw-ish spot on the side.  I tasted it and pushed it away.  Somewhere, Ariel the mermaid was mourning her lost friends.

By the time I finished my lobster (which took all of about 5 minutes, based on the limited amount of meat present), I was ready for dessert.  I had to start drinking Hubby's champagne to get the taste of fish out of my mouth.  I was feeling good.  Chatted again with the neighboring table and felt a camaraderie there.  They were so nice and didn't deserve what happened to them.  Like us, they were fans of the food from earlier visits.  I think a lot of the customers this night were newcomers and wouldn't be coming back.  If those folks had come on a regular night last year, they might have been forgiving.

Our table neighbors talked about being on the mailing list and receiving a coupon for 20% off their Valentine's meal.  Only after splitting their entree and waiting for the bill were they told that the coupon wouldn't be honored because of their split entree.  There wasn't a mention of this restriction anywhere on the coupon.  Yeah.  Don't think they'll be coming back again.  Like us, though, they seemed to find the humor in this entire charade and since Hubby and I had ordered two meals, they graciously gave us their coupon.  I'm telling you, it's amazing what happens when you make friends during a train wreck.

But I digress!  Dessert!  I remembered seeing words on the menu mentioning strawberry and chocolate.  I love chocolate!  Hmm...spoke too soon again.

Yeah.  This was exactly how dessert arrived.  I should have put something near it in the picture to compare size, but basically each of these things would have fit on a tablespoon, like the turd ball --- I mean rice pudding --- from earlier.  On the right is something I can only describe as a toasted donut tart with strawberry ice cream.  On the left, what appeared to be chocolate mousse.  I ate the little strawberry thing daintily.  The ice cream was lovely enough, but the tart was way too small to be memorable.  I saved the chocolate for last because I LOVE CHOCOLATE!

The heck is that glace doing there?  I thought it would be something sweet but it was drizzled all over my mousse and it made it taste funky.  How, you say?  Imagine taking chocolate mousse and sprinkling some black pepper and some sage on top and maybe some crushed bay leaf.  That's what I call funky.  How can someone mess up chocolate mousse?  By putting funky glace on top, that's how.

But wait, I thought to myself.  I remembered seeing "chocolate covered-strawberries" at the bottom of the menu.  Yes!  A plate of chocolate-covered strawberries to finish my husband's champagne off with would be....divine.

We got two.  One for each of us.  I really should read menus carefully before I get overly excited.  I had one bland strawberry covered in something that resembled magic shell.  Like the magic shell that I used to drizzle on ice cream when I was a kid.  I could've had a V-8 and at least got a full serving of fruit.  Hubby snuck the check on the plate when I took my picture, to remind us that we paid $150 for this evening's entertainment.  I'm not sure why he'd want to remember, but okay, I went with it.  In any case, I was tipsy anyway and having a really good time.

Is it possible to get drunk on two glasses of champagne?  Possibly, but not without help....in the form of jello shots. Because what restaurant worth their coin would charge $150 for two people and not serve you jello shots?  I didn't mention this earlier because 1) I saw a mention of jello on the menu and it didn't register, 2) I still can't believe we were given jello shots, and 3) Hubby says that you really need a good ending for a story and this was the piece de resistance.

This was Hubby's Jello Shot Buffet.  Yes, in little plastic solo cups on our fine, white tablecloth with lovely place settings.  You don't see mine because, frankly, they didn't last long in my possession.  I don't remember what the first one was...might have been pomegranate.  It should have been in the soup.  Would've made it taste better, that's for sure.  The second one looked and tasted like strawberry preserves.  Yummy.  The third one was like chocolate pudding made out of lots of cocoa powder.  (Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.)  The last one was lovely and tasted just like lemon Italian ice.  Okay, I was wrong about the salad.  This was the best part of the meal.  And because we were in a fine restaurant and because the shots were just so hard and tough, we ate them with forks (that and they didn't give us spoons).  That's how we roll.

They doled these out one at a time during our meal.  It was like medicine, making the pain of the bill hurt a little less.  Or so I tried to explain to my husband.  I don't think he got the analogy.

I know what I said and maybe you're laughing right now or you think I'm out of my mind.  This truly was the worst meal I ever had, but it'd been months since I laughed so hard and had such a good time with my husband.  Sometimes, you can literally just get so upset and when you finally let it go, between the Red String Soup and the Stairway To Heaven on the harp, you have to just laugh and laugh and laugh.  Hubby says at least we have a hilarious story after all this.  Maybe this will be the peak of my humor in storytelling, I don't know.  I sure hope we have many more funny memories like this.  After all, this date inspired me to start this blog in the first place.

After we left the restaurant, I was so buzzed, I knew I couldn't handle seeing a movie.  I would have subjected some poor couple in a theater to the side effects of a bad dinner, and that would have been unfair.  So when Hubby suggested we just watch something on TV at home, I was all for it.  Before we got there though, he made a quick decision to head to the mall for ice cream.  Must have been the rush of power from making that earlier "executive decision" at the restaurant.  It was still early and I still wanted some good chocolate, and I got some.  We walked around a little bit eating our cones and still laughing about our dinner. After perusing a book store, I had to make him stop at the nearest bench so I could sit down.

Hubby was really worried I would get sick in the middle of the mall with the nearest bathroom at least 50 yards away.  Truth be told, I was pretty sure it would happen.  I just needed to sit and let my body catch up to the movement of the earth.  At least I think that's what I slurred out.  Can't really be sure at this point.  I settled into the crook of his arm and watched people walk by, satisfied in knowing that they couldn't possibly have had as crazy a night as we had.  It only took a few minutes for my tummy to settle and I was able to walk hand-in-hand with Hubby to the car.  At 7:30 pm, it was already a long night, but it was a very good night to be with my Valentine.

And no, I'm not going to mention the name of the restaurant.  I think all parties involved suffered enough and there were enough bad reviews of this place online after February 14 that I'm satisfied the management got thoroughly chewed out.  Hubby thinks it's the beginning of the end over there.  Until that happens, at least I know where to go the next time I'm in the mood for fancy jello.