A Nightmare to Remember

Nancy, Mike and John enjoying a drink by the beach
on another occasion

It was supposed to be a celebration of sorts and one John, myself and our friends Nancy and Mike had been looking forward to for some weeks. You see, Nancy and Mike had gone on a temporary diet abstaining from meat and alcohol for one  month. Last night marked the end of their self-inflicted "torture" and we planned to meet at a pre-determined restaurant called The Flamin' Grills promising sumptuous beef steaks. We had all been trading jokes beforehand about cow and how much we were looking forward to "bovine indulgence".

About 7 p.m. we met at the restaurant to begin our feast. It's a small place that held only three tables in the main dining area (all occupied including one by our party) but had an upstairs with an unseen number of patrons though it couldn't have been many.  We had each brought our own wine along for the meal and the waiters uncorked and transferred the contents to a carafe for us. We toasted our gathering and the anticipation of our "cow".

Nancy and Mike each ordered Foie Gras as an appetizer to be followed by salad and a US Angus Prime Steak. John and I ordered a Foie Gras to share followed by salad and Australian Beef Tenderloins. Then on a last minute impulse to add insult to injury in terms of this calorie-laden meal we asked for two orders of steak fries to go with our steaks. Oh yeah, I  mean look at this menu! We were gonna waddle away full and happy!

While we waited one bottle of wine went down and the wait-staff duly provided fresh glasses and a new carafe for the next bottle. So far so good though little did we realize that would be the only proper service of the evening!

A few minutes later, surprisingly, a waiter brought Nancy, Mike and myself our salads (which in their case consisted of two meager leaves of Romaine drizzled with Caesar-dressing and mine a tasteless sliced beefsteak tomato with a drizzle of olive oil and a few worthless crumbles of bleu cheese on top. The Foie Gras was nowhere to be seen but we thought never mind it will come next. Meanwhile, John sat with an empty placemat before him. Finally we flagged someone to ask about his salad. They clearly had forgotten his but set off to the kitchen to rectify the oversight.

While waiting for John's salad, the Foie Gras did arrive but only two of them - one each for Mike and Nancy. The order to be shared by John and myself again a complete oversight. Again the waiter went back to the kitchen but explained it might be ten minutes before it would be prepared and in the meantime would we like our steak fries. No, we wanted John's salad and then the fries to be served with our steaks.

Finally John's salad did arrive by which time the rest of us had finished our salads plus Mike and Nancy had consumed their Foie Gras. Finally our Foie Gras arrived as well. Oh my! This was like a Three Stooges movie now and I kept wondering what Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen fame would have to say about all this!

Nancy anticipating her steak!

My tenderloin, the only
properly cooked steak at our table

At last the steak fries emerged just in time to be served with our steaks but they proved to be sadly soggy. Needless to say, Mike and Nancy's steaks were quite disappointing both in quality and manner of doneness (mainly overdone). Both of our tenderloin's were quite adequate but only mine was cooked to perfection, John's also being a bit overdone.

The final bad comedy of the evening though was yet to come! When the bill was presented both Mike and John placed their credit cards down and asked for the waiter to split the bill. You would think they had asked him to perform a highly complicated magic trick! After much hemming and hawing he finally agreed to figure out exactly what each of us had ordered and split the bill that way. We all sat jaws-dropping at why this task was becoming so monumentally difficult but agreed if that was the only way for him to get it done, to please do so. Even so, it took him twenty minutes to sort it out and we're still not sure if it was correct but were so anxious to leave it didn't matter by then.

Ah well, our next adventure is to occupy an entire afternoon at the Ritz next Sunday enjoying an endless champagne brunch! Surely the Ritz can get it right!?