Week of Bon Day 2:How You Know a Restaurant Sucks

There are sorts of deals you can get at restaurants in Vegas these days. I get coupons left and right and a bunch or restaurants have specials. C.J's my favorite barbecue joint is trying to stave off bankruptcy by painting their windows car dealership style with the words "Free Beer". It got me to swing in. You have to spend $35 to get 2 free beers. I bought a couple extra pounds of brisket and brought it home for Carty to get me to $35 bucks. He thought I was just being thoughtful. He's still very naive. But since these deals are you there I've been eating out quite a bit lately. The downside of the deal is that you figure out why some restaurants have to resort to coupons and giveaways. It can be frustrating. Especially for a cat like me that loves food TV. I love Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsey. If you don't know who they are you probably like eating at Taco Bell, Sizzler or God forbid TGI Friday's. If you are one of those people this blog isn't for you. I've watched all their shows and read their books. They make it seem very simple but more often than not restaurants screw it up. That's why most of them go out of business. There are few simple things to look out for. 1st is the menu size. If the menu has a 5 pages. A la the a fore mentioned TGI Friday's, the restaurant sucks. How can they be good at that many things? They make a great shrimp creole AND a great Thai chicken salad. Bullshit, they both suck. If you want a Thai chicken salad go to a Thai restaurant! If you want indigestion go to TGI Friday's. On a related note, if you eat at a place that specializes in something, never order against the grain. For instance Tony Roma's which calls it self "A place for Ribs" offers a couple fish selections on it's menu. Never, ever, ever order the fish in this type of situation. Once you put your order in the dishwasher has to run the swordfish fillet that has been in the freezer since the mid-90's through the rinse cycle just to get it defrosted. Generally you want to stay away from deep fried foods also. Oil is hard to get rid off. So restaurants don't do it as often as they should. Order something fried. Good chance it's been cooked in oil that has been around for a while. Next, I go into the bathroom at every place I eat. If it's filthy I get the hell out of there. If the bathroom is dirty what the hell do you think the kitchen looks like? I also avoid places that serve steamed vegetables. Sure it's quick, hard to screw up, great way to cover up that it was frozen 5 minuets ago. Mostly it's a sign of laziness. It's something just thrown on a plate just to say they gave you vegetables. If they treat the veggies that way. It's a good bet they treated the rest of you meal that way. Another sign of laziness. Individually wrapped pads of butter. Can you remember the last good restaurant you ate at with individually wrapped butter? It's a pain in the ass. You're starving, you want to eat your baked potato or panckes, but noooo. You have to unwrap your butter. And it's never the right temperature to have the right texture. If it's to warm, most of it sticks the wrapper and is a chore just to get on to your knife. Or it's frozen solid and you can't spread it properly on your pancakes or toast. Then you never have good place to put the wrapper. Why is this acceptable? When ever I order a baked potato and the server brings out wrapped butter, I'm like do I have to go back and chop my own chives too? Make my own bacon bits? Churn my own sour cream? Can you make eating a little more inconvenient for me? Sorry I'm ranting again but I just have utter contempt for wrapped butter. Now the little cups of whipped butter. That's the ticket. I would bathe in whipped butter if were socially acceptable. One final complaint. Any condiment with in reason should be at the table before the meal or brought to the table with it. Just last week I went to the Mexican joint in the Red Rock Casino. I ordered Tacos. They brought me the tacos but no salsa!!!! Who the hell eats tacos with no salsa? Salsa is implicit with the ordering tacos. Why do I have to ask? When I go to "Tacos De Mexico" they give me two kinds of salsa without me asking. They wait staff doesn't know a word of English and I get salsa. Ordering tacos and not getting salso is like ordering pizza and having it brought to you with no cheese. I tracked down the waiter and asked for salsa. Then he forgot! For the record I think people that eat ketchup with everything are pussies and should be kicked in the gut at every opportunity. But I know there are a bunch of you out there and you'll be able to empathise with me on this. Is there anything more annoying than staring at your food waiting for a brain dead waiter to bring you whatever condiment you can't possibly eat your food without? Personally I think individually wrapped butter pads are more annoying but it's pretty close. That's it for the Week of Bon Day 2. I don't have a freaking clue what I'm going to blog about tommorrow.