Grow, my minions, GROW!

Well, either I've got a weed coming up, or a tiny Saguaro cactus has sprouted from the seeds I sowed a couple of weeks ago. Soon it will be a towering cactus of doom! Well, not really. I gather it takes about 10 years for them to grow 6 inches tall. Still, that's all the more reason to start now, right?

Me vs. The Dining Experience

I want to say right away that it was nice to see everyone at [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s birthday dinner gathering thing, and in no way am I complaining about the actual outing. However, I did discover something while I was there that I've always suspected, and that is that I am not, in general, a "nice restaurant" kind of person. I'm hoping that the next gathering is just a plain old party at someone's house or something.

[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] offered to buy me dinner, realizing that otherwise I might be disinclined to attend a gathering at which my probable meal would be a $22 steak, and where I would be asked to chip in to pay for other people's alcohol. Indeed, I looked over the menu in the actual restaurant (The 111 Chop House), and could find nothing more appealing within my limited spectrum of liked foods than the 14 oz New York Sirloin.

It took quite some time for this meal to arrive. Now, I understand that such meals come in stages - drink, bread, appetizer, salad, main course, dessert - but you have to understand that each of these stages seemed to take a long time to arrive. Granted, we were a party of 18 people, but that doesn't really excuse how long it took them to ask the person sitting next to me what he wanted to drink. We spent over 3 hours from the time we were seated until the time people finished dessert, and we none of that time was due to any of us dawdling around.

Anyway, I must concede that my steak was perfectly cooked - not even slightly pink, but neither dry nor tough. However, it wasn't actually the best tasting piece of steak I've ever eaten. It was pretty good, but pretty good just doesn't cut it for me when it costs that much. Also, while I don't typically eat the side dishes that come with meals, I still felt vaguely cheated by the fact that there were none. I just got a piece of meat with a pinch of shredded vegetation for presentation. It was when I saw the presentation bits that I realized that we were paying for a Dining Experience. And, as I suspected all along, I don't want to go out for a Dining Experience. I want to go out and get Food, and then Eat the food, and then go somewhere else. I can skip the garnish and ceremony quite happily.

Ah, well. It was a special occasion and everything. But I'm perfectly content with the chicken finger appetizer at Barber's Crossing, and being back on the road in about an hour.