Eat It

Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.

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Emily and I have found our new favorite food place - it's a Mexican-food restaurant chain called Chipotle. They actually have a fairly small menu - just burritos and tacos with salads available - but they do a excellent job providing variety within their menu. You can order your burrito or taco choosing from four different types of meats (or have it vegetarian) and all of their food is made fresh. They get you through the line quickly, or you can order online to have your food ready when you get there. Chipotle advertises that they use ingredients like organic beans and open-range pork and beef, and they offer fresh salsa and the best guacamole I have ever tasted. And even better, their prices are reasonable - Emily and I split a shredded beef burrito and have chips, guacamole and drinks, and can eat for less than $12. Fast food prices and quick service, but their food is of such good quality that I'm hesitant to label Chipotle as "fast food" - it certainly doesn't taste like it. We both work day jobs, so sometimes it's nice to be able to eat out, get great food, and not spend a lot of money. In fact, it feels so nice, and the food is so good, that sometimes we eat at Chipotle more than once a week - yeah, we really like Chipotle.

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And while I'm on the subject of food, I really like a good cup of hot chocolate. I don't drink coffee, so when I want a hot drink, it's hot chocolate for me. But I've found, at least in my town, that most coffee shops don't make good hot chocolate. Starbucks makes terrible hot chocolate, and even the locally-owned coffee shops, while usually doing better than Starbucks, still don't make really good hot chocolate. Most just squirt some Hersey's Chocolate Syrup into some warm milk, but so much of the time they don't use enough syrup, and I usually end up with a warm cup of milk that has a slight chocolate flavor. Until I visited Maui Wowi. A new Maui Wowi shop opened here a few months ago, and I stopped by to check out their hot chocolate. Now I admit that Maui Wowi is just another franchise that is capitalizing on the boutique coffee fad started by Starbucks. Maui Wowi serves Kona Coffee, and according to Emily it is very good coffee. But I discovered that Maui Wowi uses a special hot chocolate mix made by the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. If you know anything about good chocolate, you know that Ghirardelli's is a world-class maker of fine chocolate. And the hot chocolate mix used by Maui Wowi tastes excellent - they easily have the best hot chocolate in town. I've already filled up two punch cards (for two free hot chocolates) and I've almost finished my third card. It's very good and highly recommended if you like good hot chocolate.

Happy Birthday To You

Emily and I were eating out at a restaurant the other night, having a nice dinner and enjoying our time alone. We both work full-time 40-hour a week jobs and it's always nice when we get an evening to ourselves, so we were at our table eating dinner and talking, when suddenly there was a commotion in another area of the restaurant. Several of the restaurant's servers had gathered around a table of diners, and the servers began to sing the "Happy Birthday" song (you know - "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Whomever... yada yada me too"). So the servers start singing, loud and out of tune, and everyone in the restaurant could hear them and turned to watch. To anyone in the States who has ever visited a nice restaurant (and we're not talking Denny's here) in the last 3 decades, this is no surprise. I remember the first time I saw this happen - back in the mid-seventies I was having dinner with some friends, I believe that we were at a Marie Calendars restaurant, and the servers sang "Happy Birthday" to someone at another table. And my friends and I thought this was a great idea, funny and entertaining, not just for the birthday person but for everyone else as well. I don't know where this tradition started, but soon most restaurants were doing this. Many restaurants began to customize the song being sung, like singing "Happy Birthday" to the tune of the theme from The Flintstones, and the different variations have been quite entertaining for many years. But in the last few years I have been feeling that, after 30+ years of hearing "Happy Birthday" sung in restaurants, I don't find it quite so entertaining anymore. In fact, it's getting a bit annoying. Really, think about it... you're sitting in the restaurant with family/friends, talking and enjoying each other's company, and suddenly the waiters and waitresses begin singing loudly at a table near you, interrupting your meal/conversation. You have to stop talking and wait until they finish, especially if they are singing close to your table. And then several minutes later, they might do it again at another table because, lo and behold, there is more than one person at the restaurant celebrating their birthday on the same day. I've been in restaurants where the servers sang the same song to three different tables during the course of my meal, and I'm sure that in busy restaurants it happens more than that.

OK, I know this really isn't all that important in the grand scheme of life, but I like to lighten things up sometimes and not always blog about divorce or the death of a friend. And I'm really not being a crotchety old fart here, I just think that restaurants have been doing this for quite a while now, and it's become predictable and cliché. I think it's time for something new - after all, it's the 21st century... isn't there a better way for restaurants to entertain their guests? And I also think it's time for us to be able to eat our dinners in peace and quiet. Or at least Emily and I would like that.

They say it's your birthday... well it's my birthday too, yeah

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my spouse.