The Man Cave: Adventures in Fine Dining

It was a dark and stormy night....a Saturday night in January, to be exact. We were invited at the last minute - a fancy restaurant and maybe some dancing. We were told it would be expensive, but we decide to go anyway. We both had our reservations, but in the end we decided to be a little impulsive and extravagant.

But "impulsive and extravagant" isn't always the romantic combination it's supposed to be.

Reading the menu was like riding the Matterhorn. We did our best to pretend it was fun, but in the end it was just a jolting and unpleasant ride that made us slightly nauseous. We read it forwards. We read it backwards. We fanned the pages furiously enough to generate a small breeze, searching for anything that seemed remotely reasonable. I quickly learned that any restaurant which lists its menu prices in whole dollars is out of my league. "Chicken - $37" makes me uneasy. But "Chicken - $9.95"....that I can do.

At last we found the only thing in the menu we could justify spending the money on: "Baked Potato - $28". Fine. This is supposed to be a pretty swank place. For "$28" I'm sure this baked potato is going to be awesome; piled high with ham, broccoli, onions, sour cream - the works.

The arrival of our dinner was heart-breaking. You see that picture at the top of the page? That's exactly what it looked like. To be fair, there was also a pat of butter, a teaspoonful of sour cream, and four asparagus spears lined up apologetically off to the side. Kathy and I exchanged a wild-eyed look of shock and disappointment, muffled and condensed into a silent scream. We had just been bilked.

My mind raced for an explanation. What could make this pathetic horse-nugget worth "$28"? Perhaps it was grown and nurtured in Ireland by leprechauns? Perhaps the dirt it grew in was fertilized with the poop of some exotic animal; a bald eagle, or maybe a yak. There had to be an explanation.

And there was.

Our waiter, dressed in a jacket that seemed borrowed from the Salvation Army Band wardrobe closet, then announced with much fanfare and ado that he would be happy to "fluff my potato". I agreed. With a fork in each hand he proceeded to transform it from baked to mashed. I supposed this gesture was designed to make me feel "waited upon" and important, but instead I felt stupid and ridiculous. The kind of stupid and ridiculous you feel when you know you have just been parted from your money. There was nothing remotely manly about it. When he stood back, clearly satisfied with his work, he advised me that my potato was now fit to eat.

Fantastic.

Our spontaneously extravagant night wasn't a total bust. We found a fun band to watch (though hunger-induced weakness inhibited our dancing) and we were among friends. At the end of the evening we came away with a few lessons. First, fine dining is not my cuppa. Second, impulsiveness and extravagance do not always make the best bedfellows.

Oh...and lastly...the next time some guy dressed as a Drum Major asks to "fluff my potato" he's getting a kick square in the pair.

*photo by bookchen