Haunt Cuisine

When you dine out with young kids you know you’re in for an adventure. If you go out in your own city, presumably you plan ahead – choosing a restaurant you are comfortable with. One you know will provide good food, good service, a place where your kids will be comfortable.

When traveling it’s a different proposition. At best you’re making a selection based on a recommendation from someone you trust, preferably a local or someone who should know – a business associate, a concierge, or at least a respectable looking bellman or desk clerk.

At worst, you pull into the first place you see because your kids are grumpy, cranky and they have to have something to eat RIGHT NOW.

Of course that’s what happened to us. After flying most of the day, a hectic plane change in Cincinnati and getting just a little bit lost driving to the beach, we checked into our hotel, threw our stuff in the room and walked out the door looking for food.

To put the rest of this story in perspective you should have a bit of gastronomical background of The Family. My wife and I are not ‘foodies.’ We don’t eat out all that often. When we do it is usually with our kids (yes, I know - we should get out more, just the two of us. That’s another post). What that means is that we usually end up at a ‘casual dining’ chain restaurant. You know those menus.

If it says gourmet burger, I feel like I’ve had a gourmet meal.

My wife is a bit more sophisticated, but my point here is that we’re not food snobs, looking for every opportunity to complain about our meal. If we get what we order, it’s cooked halfway decently and we don’t get sick, we’re satisfied.

One other thing. I have no idea how this happened, but somewhere along the way Chris picked up a taste for seafood. Particularly crab.

So as we’re walking along Atlantic Avenue, Chris spots a restaurant with a crab in the logo and he announces, “I want to eat there!”

As soon as we walked in I knew we were headed for trouble. The décor was faux fishing vessel. That tacky memorabilia hung predictably from every wall. Fake lobster pots hung in fishing nets from the ceiling.

And honest to God, there’s a guy behind the bar with a white beard and some kind of outfit that’s supposed to be fishing garb. At first I thought he was a painted wooden carving, part of the décor. Then he moved. And when he saw me staring at him, he glared at me with eyes that had seen and survived years of terrible Nor’easters. He was The Captain. And we'd be eating his catch.

The only authentic ‘fishing boat’ aspect of the décor was the smell.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

If it were just the two of us we would have turned around and walked out. But if you’ve traveled all day with kids, and they’re hungry, walking out of a place with food is simply not an option, unless you’re the type who considers a mutually destructive exchange of nuclear weapons a viable solution.

So we go in and sit down.

I should mention that I know we’re not the type of patron most servers want to have seated in their section. Frazzled parents with two little boys are not the most desirable customers. Knowing this, I go out of my way to be polite and courteous to the server. It’s the right thing to do, of course, but I also want to re-set their expectation. I’m not going to be difficult, and if I have a special or unusual request I will be gracious and understanding.

I’m just a parent – not a jerk.

Our server is an older woman, very nice, but it looks like she’s served too many hard years with The Captain. This is a job and she needs a paycheck. Still, she smiles and is very personable. She’s not just mailing this in. I smile and banter just a bit.

We order a kids burger platter for Tommy. Safe choice and he’s happy. Then we make the fatal mistake.

The seafood buffet.

It’s our own fault. We should have looked first. Because if we had, we would have left the place and let the nukes be exchanged.

Because honestly the buffet looked like it had been nuked. Three days ago.

But we’re committed now, they have our money and the kids had eaten all the breadsticks our server could bring. Chris has got to have crab. So we go through and choose as carefully as we can. A bit of this, looks okay, maybe just this little piece of that, absolutely none of whatever THAT was…until we reach the end.

It’s didn’t taste all that bad, honestly, but it was very disappointing. To me and my wife, at any rate. Our first meal on our vacation and it did not set the best tone for the rest of the trip.

On the other hand, I left plenty of room for desert. Which was chocolate, and that’s all I needed to know.

So we’re wrapping up this disappointing meal, our server brings the bill and asks how it was. Tommy jumps right in and says, “It was great!” Our server smiles at him and I second his statement. She didn’t lay out the buffet. She was very nice to us.

I paid the bill, gave her 20% and we walked out the door.

Two things.

One - As we left, Chris, who is becoming a very polite boy, says, “Mom, Dad, thanks for taking us to that fancy restaurant. That’s fun!”

Chris, we do need to get out more.

Two – Sometime after three o’clock in the morning, The Captain had his revenge. His catch is on its way back out to sea.

It can only get better from here on out.

It’s great to be The Family Man.