Texas Road House, a.k.a. The Dinner I Wish I Could Un-Live

 First things first:  Richelle Mead has posted an excerpt here from the first book in her new series, Storm Born.  It's super great and you should go read it right now.  I'm serious.  Before you even read the rest of my ranting.  I'll wait.


Now, then.

 

There are a few things you need to know about me in order to fully appreciate my hellish dinner experience this evening:
~~ I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian.  (Nothing with a face and no seafood but eggs and dairy are okay.)
~~ I **despise** country music.
~~ I **despise** the song 'Cotton Eye Joe'.  Even when it's played at a hockey game (which I love).
~~ I don't like line dancing.  Unless it's the Electric Slide and even then I only like it because it's the only stupid one I could ever do.  (Yeah, I'm not terribly coordinated.)

I'm on a business trip right now with a coworker in lovely Chantilly, VA.  He loooooves Texas Road House, a steak restaurant, so I agreed to eat there for dinner tonight.  I checked out their menu -- there were a bunch of side dishes I could slap together to make a meal out of and I wasn't all that hungry anyway.  No sweat.

We walk in and I'm greeted by a giant butcher case full of slabs of cow flesh.  Awesome.  Our server wants to know if I'd like to pick my own steak!  (She said it just like that, like it was the most exciting activity I would possibly accomplish during this trip.)  I politely tell her no thanks and my coworker, Dave, and I chuckle to each other.   Ha ha ha, she doesn't know I'm a vegetarian, ha ha ha.   Mmmyeah.

Next, we attempt to order beers.  I order a Guinness (can, because they don't have it on tap) and Dave orders a something-or-other on tap.  The overly-perky waittress comes back a few minutes later and explains that they'd run out of whatever he'd ordered on tap.  In fact, *all* their draft beers were out.

What?

Has anyone--ever, ever in your lifetimes--been to a restaurant where they'd "run out" of ALL SIX OF THEIR DRAFT BEERS?  *sigh*  Moving on.

We order an appetizer but explain that we'd like to wait a few minutes before we order our meals.  Our reasoning is that this way the meals won't come out right on top of the apps and we'll have a lovely, well-paced dining experience.  Mmmyeah.

Like, forty minutes later the freaking waittress still hasn't taken our meal orders.  Oh, she's popped by to "check" on us, which has involved lightining fast streaks by the table with completely one-sided conversations (hers) about how we're doing.  No chance whatsoever to communicate that we'd actually like to order dinner.

Finally I snag a nearby server and get her ass sent back to the table.  Dave orders steak.  I order the 'country veg plate', which is basically a side item sampler.  Here are my choices, exactly as they were listed in the menu:
~Baked potato
~Fresh vegetables
~Green beans
~Applesauce

Sounds healthy, right?  Sounds vegetarian, right?  Mmmmmyeah.

Here comes the food! 

Baked potato?  Check.
Fresh vegetables?  Er...not so fresh looking and drowned in a suspicious looking butter-like sauce but okay. Check.
Green beans?  Laden with crumbled bacon and onions.  Yep. Bacon.
Applesauce?  Check.

Now, the whole food debacle isn't enough to scar me.  Truly.  As a vegetarian who eats out frequently, I've come to expect such incidents from time to time.  And to be honest, I'm a vegetarian eating in a STEAK HOUSE.  I'm hardly in a position to bitch about it.   But it does add to the total horror of the evening.

During the entire experience,  country music is playing from the restaurants speakers.  Loudly.  Not country-crossover, which I occasionally find tolerable, but true country music.  Sweet.  Twice during our time there, the music got cranked up so loud that conversation was completely impossible and half the waitstaff got together in one of the main aisles and line danced.  Oh, yes!  Waitstaff line dancing at Texas Road House!  Come on down!  

Bet you can't guess what song they danced to the second time!  Ha! Cotton Eye Joe!

All in all, it was an anti-Renee experience.  To top the evening off, we got caught in a crazy downpour on the way out to the car and again from the car to the hotel.  

Dave swears they don't play country music or do line dancing at the TRHs in CT but I'm planning to exact my revenge in selecting our dinner location tomorrow evening nonetheless.

Good times, good times.

Thank you, dear peeps, for allowing me to purge the experience here on my blog.
Nighty-night.