Dinner Tonight

Tonight hubby-Eric and I went out. There's a new restaurant in the neighborhood, and even though it's part of a chain, we were very curious to see what the food was like. Today was the first day the restaurant was open. As far as I know, neither of us had ever eaten at Applebee's before, so we went down and tried it out. The wait was long, as everyone in Bothell seemed to be there to try it out.

Despite the wait, everyone was quite cheerful. Waiters came by and fed the waiting people with cheese stick samplers. The crew of the restaurant was still working on their skills, so they were constantly checking and re-checking the lists. One little girl waiting with us got... impatient. They got her a balloon, then a cup of water. And we learned that one of the employees was actively afraid of balloons, which isn't really that odd when you consider how many people claim to be afraid of clowns.

The restaurant was decorated with lots of pictures, everything from sailboats in the foyer to collages celebrating local high schools to movie posters. We spent a bit of time examining the pictures and the menu, and waited.

We were eventually seated, and I thought it might be a bit of fate that we were put right next to the Wizard of Oz movie poster and memorabilia. I was also right under a picture of the classic Christopher Reeves Superman. Let's just call it a good sign to start the evening's meal.

I ordered up some kiwi lemonade, which is now my favorite flavor of lemonade. Eric got regular lemonade. They also talked us into appetizers, and so we got quesadillas. They were wonderful. And enough. I wasn't particularly hungry when dinner finally arrived. I got salmon and "riblets", while hubby got some steak and shrimp. They made a few flubs, which didn't bother me. They forgot to bring me mashed potatoes, and when the manager brought them over, she told us that we should have seen the restaurant during the "dry run" yesterday. "Of course, the customers weren't paying last night," she said.

There wasn't enough room left in either of us for dessert, but the dulce de leche cheesecake cried out to be eaten. So we ordered it to go. And still haven't eaten it yet. In fact, half my dinner is sitting in the fridge because I couldn't eat it. What I did eat was extremely good, but there was WAY too much of it.

I guess that's a good thing. Two years ago I would've cleaned my plate no matter how stuffed I was.