Dinner Report: Chili's on Valentine's Day...

Yesterday - Valentine's Day, I got off work and got home as quickly as possible so I could pick up my wife and zip out to someplace to eat. By 5PM, we were in the truck heading out of the neighborhood and I was on the phone to Texas Roadhouse to do the ol' call ahead deal. It isn't reservations, but they do put your name on the waiting list at the time you call, so for a long wait, you at least have a head start.

Apparently, everyone of you had the same idea! I call and the girl takes my name and then for the first time, reads me some long disclaimer about the circumstances of my call. She tells me that she is putting me on the waiting list, that it isn't a reservation, based on my expected arrival time I was only getting a ten minute head start in waiting and such. I mean, it sounded as though she was trying to talk me out of the whole thing. Finally, I interrupted her and asked, "Well just how long is the wait?"

"Oh" she says as if it was no big deal, "with your ten minutes off, about 80 minutes." Did I mention we call Chili's the ol' standby?

So we walked into Chili's, were seated immediately and I decided that I was going to have something different. I always get the chili and salad, everytime I go. But I figured, tonight, I was going for something different. For the first time ever, I ordered a steak from Chili's. But first, my wife ordered some kind of new version of onions. This isn't the onion blossom, and it isn't onion rings like you'd think of onion rings, these are sort of fried, then sauteed onions, almost like what you would put on a burger.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that we ate the whole order, because these things have extreme gas written all over them. Thankfully, the mashed potatoes we had with dinner seemed to counter any disturbing affects. Or effects, I never can remember.So my wife gets her little steak - it is some sort of Honey Barbecued kind of deal. She likes her steak cooked medium well and is happy if it is closer to well than medium.I got the steak (ordered medium, but got still kicking) and baby back ribs. Now before you get all grossed out at the picture, I didn't take a photo of half eaten food - but the waitress wanted me to cut into everything to be sure it was done enough before she would leave. Of course, my steak is still raw, but there is no way in hell I would send something back to the kitchen. That's just asking for a sweaty guy to do an around the world on my steak, and I'm not interested in what he's servin'!

Needless to say, for lunch today at work, I had a steak cooked in the microwave so as to get it to at least a medium, and it was mighty fine. My ribs were awesome! I swear I inhaled them, sucking the meat off the bones then wildly licking at my mustache and beard in some circular motion with my tongue to get the rib sauce off. I guess it was a scene; some creepy old guy walking by the table winked at me and gave me a thumbs up!

Anyway, that was dinner at Chili's. By the time we got up to leave, the crowd, most likely tired of waiting at Texas Roadhouse had made their collective way to Chili's because the line to get in was backing up outside. Ha!