Eating Out, Part 2

When our kids were young we often ate at the Midway Lunch. We liked to order a group meal, enough for all of us. It came with salad, pork and seeds, fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and chow mein. And, honestly, I don't remember ever having to send something back. I do remember that a couple of our children would order hamburgers and fries, not yet having developed a taste for Chinese food. As I recall, that was Richard and occasionally his brother Wayne. Am I right?

But that is the place where we learned at least two things. 1)"You likey fly lice?" and that was one of the very few things we did understand when the nice Chinese lady spoke to us. And 2) To love pork and seeds with hot mustard.

On that other part of eating out, I was not with Wayne when I found two small rocks in my refried beans about the size of half a bean each at Cancún, a Boise Mexican restaurant, not to be confused with the resort city in actual Mexico. I didn't see the rocks, but I found them. That's right. With my teeth. Kind of spoiled the meal for me because who knew what I might find in my enchilada? So I didn't eat, just sat politely and watched my friend finish her meal. No rocks in her beans. As I recall, she ate a lot.

I was with Wayne when he had bits of glass--you think I'm lying but I'm not--in his Mexican food at a restaurant that has since changed its name from Melissa's to La Tapatía, and I think I know why, but they're not fooling me. We wondered how much of the glass he had eaten before the nasty crunch made him stop eating. The nasty crunch also made him take a close and serious look at his plate of food, and, yes, he could see small pieces of glass. You know, that kind of thing makes a person a bit suspicious about what's really going on in Melissa's kitchen.

Melissa's was close to our home--how nice--and had been highly recommended by Joyce Doughty. That's Chef Joyce Doughty. Hmph! I told her about the glass. Okay, so it wasn't her fault, but I felt like it was.

We left Melissa's. Didn't go back. Even after the name change. We were smart about that one.