Occasional Jots and Tittles

We haven’t eaten out in a long while, for a number of reasons – chief among them that Jonathan has mostly wanted to hibernate at home lately. But he felt more outgoing this evening so we went out to eat. Since I’ve eaten out on my own a bit lately or with friends, I let him pick, so we ended up at Macaroni Grill – which, by all rights, shouldn’t be a bad compromise between my preference for local eateries with distinctive cuisine and his hankering for predictability.

But this is Macaroni Grill we’re talking about, and it’s often a comedy of errors to eat there. Tonight was no exception. We’re seated, our waiter writes his name upside down on the paper on the table, and takes our drink orders. He returns with the drinks and takes the meal orders – we each get a “Trio”, which includes a salad, a slightly smaller portion of one of several entrees, and a dessert.

We then watch as others are seated and their waiters (including, sometimes, ours) bring them the standard bread and olive oil. When our waiter returned to refill my drink, I asked about the bread. He surveyed the table and for a moment gave us that “OK, did you eat the plates as well as the bread?” look before realizing I meant we hadn’t gotten any yet. He apologized, took my glass, and said he’d be right back with it.

30 seconds later, he’s back with the bread, but no drink. Next pass by the table, Jonathan asked him about my drink. He looked at me, snapped his fingers, and went back to get it.

About five minutes later, he comes out with two steaming hot plates of food. What he put in front of me was clearly meant for Jonathan, so he swapped the plates, and left. After about three bites, Jonathan commented, “You know, this is the strangest tasting salad…” Yep, he’d forgotten the salads. And the plates looked suspiciously large. And mine, while tasty, was awfully spicy for the fettucine alfredo I’d ordered — and I’d never known that recipe to use sun-dried tomatoes. Not to mention that mine had big penne pasta in it instead of flat noodles.

We stopped the waiter again, and asked if there was an issue with the salads. He gets that familiar “oh shit” look on his face we’ve come to recognize, and we pointed out that we think our plates are probably the full entree size, not the “Trio” reduced size. He agreed. Then as I was pointing down at my plate, he said “And I think you have the wrong dish, that’s Penne Rusticana and not Fettucini Alfredo.”

By this point, we were almost laughing at him, because he was clearly flustered (he later mentioned he’d been working since early that morning and he was a little spacey). But the bigger dishes of food, as far as we were concerned, outweighed the lack of salads, and I was just as happy with what I got as what I’d ordered. So we told him to just leave it all, and we would be happy with it.

A few moments later, we overheard a waiter at another table nearby, who’d brought out four of five entrees for that group, tell the fifth person “Your Penne Rusticana should be out in just a moment. It takes a little longer to fix than the other dishes.” Nice cover, but bullshit, I’m sure that I got her dish when our waiter grabbed the wrong one.

Still, we got our desserts, and considering the entrees we did get should have cost more than the Trios we ordered, we came out considerably ahead. But as I tell people, you never know what your’e going to get when you order there.

Once, a group of eight of us went there for my birthday. The waiter brought out the food – seven entrees. He served them around, disappeared for about five minutes, and then came back to see “if we needed anything else.” I raised my hand, pointed at the empty table in front of me, and said “Yes, food.” That dreaded “oh shit” look came over him, he scurried to the computer, and realized he hadn’t put my order in. They hurriedly worked up mine, which was marginal being rushed, and then had the gall to charge full price for it.

This time, at least, our waiter was apologetic at every step, and I know what it’s like to work when you’re exhausted. And as I said, we came out ahead, with more food and less salad, plus (essentially) free desserts, so we gave him my usual full tip.

The birthday’s over (43, in case anyone’s wondering) and it was nice, mostly quiet. As usual, there was a considerable clusterfuck about birthday meal(s)–it wouldn’t be my birthday without one. In this case, I was supposed to have a seafood lunch with my parents on Monday when I got in at the airport, but they had to skedaddle back home for a funeral, so that was postponed. Jonathan was going to take me to dinner on my actual birthday (Wednesday), but he had to swap his Wednesday off for Thursday.

So… the parents decided to take me out on Wednesday night instead, and Jonathan was going to take me to lunch today. Then his work called right at noon, and insisted he come in to drop something off right then–which took up basically the entire lunch period at all the places we’d talked about going. So post-birthday lunch today was Subway. Meatball Mariana. Yay.

Last night’s dinner, however, was at Fleming’s, a prissy steakhouse chain. I will say right off the top, the food was excellent, and the service was generally very good. A few things I’d have pointed out to the waitress about reaching across people’s dinner plates to reach the inside glasses, but still nothing to really complain about.

But still. $185 for three people? with no wine or liquor bill? in Baton Rouge? I’m aghast. It’s true, we ate well, the food was good, I even had enough left over to bring home for a quick lunch later, but… I’ve eaten food almost as good, and pretty much as well served, for more like $25 a head. That final 5% of food quality improvement shouldn’t have more than doubled the cost. And for $185, again, the waitress’s sleeve shouldn’t be dragging across a plate to reach another person’s glass.
Of course, I suppose we were paying for the prissy atmosphere. I keep using that word, because I can’t think of a better one. Fleming’s obviously aims to be a cut (okay, two cuts) above the noisy, active, “bar-centric” sort of Outback/Lone Star/Longhorn steak house. No peanut shells on the floor, for one thing. Tablecloths. You know the drill. But there are so many hard surfaces (dark wood walls, hard floors in some spots), and with the kitchen not completely and thoroughly closed away, there’s still a very perceptible level of background noise. If I’m paying $60 a plate for dinner, I expect enough quiet that I can hear a harpist playing across the room (which, of course, there wasn’t).

I’m going to start back the Top 10 list with a list of Top 10 restaurants I like, here in Baton Rouge or in New Orleans. I’ll probably follow it up with a Top 10 list of places to avoid (with reasons, in case they’re things you don’t mind).