Si Senor

Mexican Bar and Grill
227 Arnold Crossroads Ctr.
Arnold, Mo.
On The Web

There's a lively, vocal and active local FaceBook group I belong to called Jeffco411 that occasionally posts a link to this fine site. This week Angel and I were struggling to come up with something different to try. I had an idea. Mexican, but not the ones we've been to already. So I posted a note on Jeffco411:
"Eat and Critique! Is looking to review the best Mexican restaurants in Jefferson County. Where should we go?
P.S. we've already reviewed Los Portales in Hillsboro, several times.
Thanks!"
To my mild surprise and delight, there were about 125 replies in the first 24 hours.
Scrolling scientifically down the list, one place started to be a standout.
This one. Not by a lot, but those posting about this place seemed more articulate and better looking than most of the others. Yes, being attractive will get my attention. I never said that this operation was a democracy, or fair, or unbiased. I set my own standards here and rule over the site with an iron fist, a velvet-y, handsome iron fist.

The Place:
Since this was in Arnold, we invited Adam to join, he agreed. He lives in South St. Louis County and works in Arnold, so this was less of a drive for him than us. It's located in one of that city's many, many shopping center. Arnold is Jefferson County's largest city. It's location at the northeast corner make it basically a suburb of St. Louis. I've mentioned before that I don't particularly like Arnold, but that's mostly because of the often very heavy traffic and confounding intersections. They do have a lot of nice places to eat and shop. So as long as Angel drives, I can tolerate it.
Just as we entered, the staff was finishing off a singing, clapping Happy Birthday tribute to some snot nosed kid. Adam and I looked at each other, his eyes wide. (see the post about Texas Roadhouse a few weeks back and you'll see why.) I decided to keep an open mind though, for at least a little longer. I wanted some enchiladas.

On the inside, the place was brightly and boldly painted and mural-ized floor to ceiling. Colorful parrots, lizards throughout, even on the booths, chairs and tables. It was quite busy as well, in terms of people. Nearly every table filled to capacity with families, groups of seniors, and just about every kind of person you can imagine. There was a buzz, a  din if you will, but not really too bad. It barely drowned out the Mexican music playing faintly in the overhead speakers. We were seated at the very front, next to a window.
We were greeted by a handsome young man named 'Carlos' if his name tag was to be believed. Very gracious and polite, he asked about drinks just as the chips and salsa were delivered by another handsome young man. The entire staff were in neat black shirts and they all looked busy, competent and efficient.
There were TV's on the walls and hanging from the ceiling, all muted. Golf, some kind of golf game was underway. In my mind the only thing more excruciatingly boring than golf on TV is the actual game itself. My in-laws watch a lot of TV golf, they even play golf. It is the one and only thing I don't care for about my in-laws. . . lets just leave it at that.
The Food:
The chips were perfect. The salsa, beautifully, refreshingly fresh with a slight, but noticeable sweat inducing bite to it. Not overpoweringly hot, just right on that narrow edge between pleasure and discomfort. You know the sensation, right?
We gobbled them down, all three of us love this part of a Mexican meal.
Carlos returned with our drinks, one tea and two Diet Dr. Peppers. He carefully took our orders making sure and rechecking that he had it right. His accent had a thickness to it but we managed just fine. I'm currently learning to speak a foreign language myself, I know how difficult it can be, the nuances and oddly shaped syllables. The answer to your question is of course, 'Icelandic.'
Not really a handy language to know, there are only about 300,000 native speakers of it and almost all of them also speak English.
This was not helpful with Carlos, I got the impression that he was not Icelandic. My perfectly practiced "Hvað segir þú gott?" just bounced right off of him.

I'd researched the menu beforehand so the choice was pretty much made already. Angel and Adam didn't struggle long either.
Me: Combo; one chicken enchilada and two beef flautas. The combo came with beans, rice and a 'corn cake'. I ordered the flautas specifically so I could say 'flautas'* out loud and write it several times. It's not what you think. Flautas is Spanish for 'flute'. It is a wheat wrap rolled into a long cylinder shape, filled with. . . something, then fried.
Adam: Chipotle Chicken Chimichanga.
Angel: Steak and shrimp. This was weird and surprising. On Saturday I'd commandeered the kitchen and prepared us a five course dinner. Grilled steak and shrimp, garlic toast, salad and roasted potatoes. She loved it, there was even enough left over for her to have steak and shrimp for Sunday lunch as well.
This was to be her third steak and shrimp meal in a row. I guess I'd really dialed in on her tastes. . .

Then the Si Senor staff made a mistake. Angel's plate was delivered in just a few minutes.
Have you ever gone to lunch or dinner with people from work and you all order but the food comes out in incomplete batches? Someone, usually me, is stuck sitting there at a blank spot on the table while everyone else politely watches, as their lobsters start to approach room temperature waiting for every one else's food to arrive. . .
Well, that's what happened here. Angel's plate arrived then, for about five or more minutes, nothing else. Fortunately for Angel we're all familiar family so she went ahead and un-apologetically dug right in. Adam and I didn't mind, we just wanted our food. Still it was a notable gaff, though not a fatal one.
One could say that the meals were worth the wait, because they were very, very good.

The chicken inside the enchilada was lightly spiced and quite moist. Usually at Mexican joints the bulk-cooked and steamer-warmed shredded meat ends up being quite dry. Not here. The light coating of enchilada sauce made me want more of it, a gallon or so would have been good. To my surprise and giggly delight, the flautas was quite tasty. The beef was also lightly spiced and quite smoky tasting. A very good little finger food. As always, I chopped up my enchilada and stirred it around into the cheesy beans and rice. I love that combination, when it is prepared right, and this was. Once again they'd held off on overdoing it. They let the beans and rice speak for themselves without going all Taco-Bell with the seasonings. The corn cake, a mush of corn meal with actual sweet kernels embedded in it was quite good as well.
There was absolutely nothing I did not like about the meal.
Angel too was quite impressed. "They grilled the broccoli instead of just steaming it." And "The shrimp is beautifully spiced."
Adam didn't have to say much, I know when he likes and doesn't like things. He loved this. "The chicken is very good." He even sawed off a chunk to let me try. Yep, he was right.
"I didn't share my shrimp." Angel said, unnecessarily.
Summary:
There was that one and only one misstep. Staggered serving time. Easily fixable, but it would be annoying if it turned into a regular occurrence.
Angel said she'd already decided what to order next time. The seafood soup. She had seen it on the menu but passed over it for the same stuff she'd had twice before in less than 24 hours. Someone else had ordered the soup and she saw it delivered, long crab legs dangling out the side of the bowl.
The food itself was really, really good. I hear they make a pretty good margarita as well.
Now about the price. There was some mention on the Facebook group about Si Senor being a bit pricey. Well, compared to some of the other Mexican restaurants in the area, I suppose that it was. However, at forty nine bucks for three meals, it's cheaper than the popular chain places like Applebee's or Ruby T's or Olive Garden. The restaurant was very clean, the ingredients were all fresh and the staff was well trained and polite. Some of the local Mexican places are essentially dingy dives with pretty drinks. This place worried about its food, they didn't just pop open some cans and fry down some ground beef saturated with powdered taco seasoning.
This was much, much better than that. They've set the bar pretty high for a very reasonable price. In the coming months other places that were recommended will be visited, I'd have to say though, they are going to have to really impress me to beat Si Senor.






*Flautas. You need permanently juvenile male brain parts to giggle at this. In case you don't get it 'flautas' looks and sounds like the word 'flatus' which is a fancy word for 'stomach' gas.  You know. . . farts.

Chick Fil A

1 Arnold Mall
Arnold, Mo.
On the web


I don't recall the exact moment it happened, but Angel made this choice. It had to be that way, I'd never even think of it.
The elephant in the room.
Not because of that anti gay marriage thing or the being closed on Sunday thing though.
I'm not saying I support or even agree with the owner's position on gay marriage. That's a whole different matter. Positive change takes time, sometimes a lot of time.
No,  the reason I wouldn't ever have thought about Chick Fil A as a meal choice is that I really don't care for chicken sandwiches. Why? Two words: Breast meat. More on that later.

The Place:
During this past week Angel had another round of post-surgical checkups. She's still not able to comfortably drive for long distances, so I took part of the day off to escort her to the medical center in that vague region called 'South County' near Lemay Ferry Road. There may be a named town there, I don't know. St. Louis County has 90 municipalities and 10 unincorporated census designated places. As you travel up and down or back and forth through the county, you hop from one to the other, mostly seamlessly and unnoticed. I suppose if you are from one of those towns or places, you know them apart. I'm not from here though. I'm so not from here that people are very disappointed when I struggle to answer the first question everyone in the area asks each other when they first meet. "Where'd you go to high school?"  I think it's the basis for some sort of local caste system.
During our little trip, we knew we'd be able to grab a lunch while in the area. So a few days ahead of time Angel asked me if I liked Chick Fil A. I answered that I'd never been to one before and told her about the not caring for chicken sandwiches thing.
"They have other stuff." She answered. So I went online and hunted up a menu. They didn't really have other stuff, it was really just chicken as a wrap, in a salad and as nuggets.
Another problem. I have modified my weekday meal regimen to accept very light lunches, just enough to get me through to the next meal. Disrupting this pattern has proven gastronomically disruptive. She suggested the nuggets instead, but I had to also try the waffle fries.
So we headed up the road to Arnold, just this side of the Meramec river from South County. There may have been one in SoCo, but she knew the one in Arnold.
I'd seen these places before, just never been inside. It was apparent that a lot of other people knew about it, it was three quarters full when we stepped in. A real mix. A few lunching contractors, elderly couples and groups, and several moms with sticky, smelly and noisy preschool children. I got that, chicken nuggets are great kid-food.
The Food:
We stepped (actually I stepped, Angel hobbled) up to the counter and were properly greeted. Angel knew the order, so she took charge. I noticed the overhead menu listed the calorie count for each item. So did the kid's menu. You don't see that so prominently posted in other places. Good on them.
Angel ordered the 8 nugget combo, with waffle fries and lemonade for both of us. I'm not sure they even offered tea, nor do I think I would have asked for it anyhow. I've not had a lot of luck with fast food tea. Angel paid up and we found a table. We grabbed some napkins and ketchup on the way.
Pretty soon, our number was up, I fetched the food at the counter. A nice young lady had brought out our lemonades during the wait. Meanwhile, sticky, smelly and noisy preschoolers ran and squealed up and down the aisles. I tried to ignore them. I'm good at ignoring children, just ask my own kids, wherever they are.
It actually looked pretty good. These nuggets weren't the cookie-cutter processed version you find at most fast food places, this was actual, irregular chunks of chicken breast. The golden brown breading was not too thick. The waffle fries looked okay. I would rather they had fried a bit longer, they looked a little pale and not crispy.
The obvious question lies on the near horizon. "What kind of dipping sauces did you get?" I can almost hear you asking.
The thing is, that of all the tasty parts of a dead chicken, the thing that has been the focus, for a very long time, of selective breeding is the breast. That's where the largest part of a chicken is now, so the more one single bird has, the greater the meat-profit it becomes. The downside? It is virtually tasteless. A drumstick, wing or other darker meat parts have their own flavor. Breast meat does not. It's the tofu of the poultry world. If the whole breast is breaded and fried, there's never enough coating taste to carry through to the last several bites. Chicken nuggets, almost always breast meat, (because there's more of it and it is easier to harvest than dark meat) but there's just not enough flavor there to get all worked up over. So nuggets are pretty much always dipped into a sauce of some kind. The lady at the counter had asked which sauce we wanted and rattled of a list. I had her repeat it since I didn't catch anything after 'Ranch'. Not because I like Ranch, quite the opposite. I don't get ranch, on anything. It's almost like a universal sauce, added to everything, hot wings, potato chips, occasionally a salad. I don't hate Ranch, I just think there's too much of it.
The lady opened her litany with 'Chick Fil A sauce'. I asked her what that was. She struggled with a
coherent answer, Angel suggested it was like a barbecue sauce. I nodded, which in my culture signifies 'yes' or  'I agree' or 'I'm pretending to listen' depending on the context. Angel passed that on and also asked for Honey Mustard as a backup. She assumed, wrongly, that I like honey mustard. She so doesn't get me sometimes.
Back at the table we peeled open the sauce packets, not a minor task, neither was opening the  needlessly complicated ketchup packet (pour from this side or peel from the other side to dip.) Way too much effort went getting into these overthought packets. I read the sauce packet to verify the ingredients. It read like 'War and Peace' Sure enough it started with sugar, oil and 'bbq sauce'. After that was a list of spices that pretty much every spice I'd ever heard of. They dragged this bbq sauce through an entire spice rack.
For the first nugget, I went commando, no sauce. I wanted to taste the chicken itself so that you, my fickle fans, don't have to.
It was pretty good by itself. Not quite as pronounced as KFC, but similar in taste, pleasantly peppery.
The next nugget went into the Chick Fil A sauce. Yeah there was a bbq taste, but it had been dragged through an entire spice rack. Most noticeably, unfortunately was the mustard. You remember how I said earlier that I don't care for Honey Mustard? Yeah that's  it. My brain will only properly process the taste of mustard if it is thick, yellow and most often squeezed onto a hot dog or hamburger. I don't even care for Dijon, nope, just the cheap yellow stuff. I did accidentally dip a couple of nuggets into my ketchup, that was probably the best sauce at the table. Go with your own weird taste choices though, don't go by me on this.
The waffle fries were quite good, if not a little under-cooked. I would have liked them just a bit crispier, but I liked them enough to finish them.
Summary:
It served quite well as a 'light' lunch. Not too much food for a noontime sitting. The chicken was indeed far superior to those dubious sourced cookie-cutter nuggets at most places. Angel enjoyed hers quite well, but we knew that was the case going in. The place was clean, though busy, the staff was cheerful, friendly and competent. All in all, a pleasant experience. Except for all the children, I think Chick Fil A should not allow children. It would make for a much nicer meal for us hard working, tax-paying, non-sticky grownups.

Arby's

"Lights. Seen in the sky above the Arby’s. Not the glowing sign of Arby’s. Something higher, and beyond that. We know the difference. We’ve caught on to their game. We understand the “lights above Arby’s” game.
Invaders from another world.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here, and it’s about 100 feet above the Arby’s."
 - 'Welcome to Night Vale:  Episode 1 - Pilot'  -   *


690 Truman Blvd
Festus, Mo.
On the web.

This exercise was the result of a barrage of commercials boasting Arby's 'Smokehouse Pork Belly' sandwich. At first I quivered, then my man-brain started chanting 'big bacon, big bacon . . .'  Angel seemed curious as well. Angel's a very curious person, she likes trying out new things, LOTS of new things, some nice and pleasant, many too physically demanding and weird to repeat, ever, or even discuss openly again.
I was skeptical, but that's what I bring to nearly every party, rampant yet intensely articulate skepticism.
In a case like that, our two minds being of two or more minds, we like to have a backup plan. We discussed this and came up with what I just now mentally invented 'The Chinese Solution'.
Build your own buffet. Order a little of several things, some known, some unknown, bring it home, divide it up, voila! Buffet.
I would make the run, the nearest Arby's to our heavily fortified compound is, of course, in Festus, which is now four or more miles further away than it was a couple of months ago when they finally started to re-construct the crumbling little bridge between us and higher civilization.
I left early to make a couple of utility stops, Lowes for some more succulents (a new, drought resistant, hobby of ours.) and PetSmart for a siphon hose, which they did not have, and three, fourteen cent gold fish. The fish were for our only standing aquarium. (in Maryland we had as many as 28 active aquariums). Our one remaining goldfish, Dowager, has been seeming quite listless since the last of her companions were summoned to Jesus. Even the algae eater that acts as Dowager's housekeeper, seemed to be bored. So we thought an infusion of youth and vigor might be just the kick in the dorsal fin she needs. These three 'comets' were only fourteen cents apiece, as opposed to the two or three buck goldfish at Walmart, because people tend to buy large quantities of these rather simple and plain fish to use as feeders for even larger fish. I told the lady serving them up that I was rescuing these, that they would be free to romp and play for however long they wish, up until the blue, swirling waters of goldfish heaven spirit them away from their mortal coils.

The Place:
At the end of Highway A, at 61/67 in Festus. Too vague?  It's in front of Walmart. There, is that better?
The three new fish swam in a small bag in the passenger seat, not seeming to mind the ride much, but not overly enthused either. I tried to come up with names for them, I tried Huey, Dewey and Louie, but that seemed too dated. Shem, Ham and Japheth popped into my head, but that seemed even more dated, so I abandoned the idea.
The short drive from the pet supply store to Arby's was short and uneventful. I parked, glanced around, took a full pull of cool-ish autumn air, girded my loins (to pull up and tie one's lower garments between one's legs to increase one's mobility) and headed in. Looking above the tall sign, I detected no lights hovering one hundred feet above it. I didn't know what to make of this. Were we not worthy?
Hardly any customers, so I took a head count. There were exactly zero other customers in the place, fewer than I'd originally thought.
I had the order mostly figured out, Angel had crafted a list but I wanted to put my mark on it so she wouldn't think I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever (which is the actual case). Being the sole patron, I took my time. I told the patient lady behind the counter to prepare herself for real work, the order would be complex and full of mind blowing twists and turns.
The Food:
One each:
Smokehouse Pork Belly
Smokehouse Brisket
Sliders:
Chicken
Roast Beef
Corned Beef
Sides:
Onion Rings
Potato Cake
Curly Fries

Pork Belly

Angel had told me to make sure to get Horsey Sauce. I'm not sure what exactly Horsey Sauce is, but I was hoping for her sake that it was not made from actual horses.
I spat out my order to the young, patient lady. She reacted like a pro, pushing single function buttons on her POS terminal (for sake of this post, POS stands for 'Point of sale', not the profane phrase I usually employ the acronym for.). She didn't miss a beat, she punched those buttons like George Jetson himself.
The tab came to forty something dollars, as I recall, I wasn't really paying attention. I swiped the POS slot and stepped back to welcome the thanks I so richly deserved. She asked my name, I showed her my passport, birth certificate and Radio Shack 'Battery of the Month' card. My papers were in order, in fact a little too in order, she just wanted to know whom to call when the order was ready. My bad, I get stopped and interrogated a lot, so I'm always prepared.
It didn't take so very long. Being the only customer has that as an advantage. She was bundling up the last item when she stopped, looked into the bag and pulled something out and threw it away. "Fix another Corned Beef Slider Rex!" She called to the back. This made me wonder what exactly can go so wrong with a corned beef slider that renders it completely and immediately unworthy to give to a customer.

Brisket

While waiting for the new and improved slider, another lady tried bundling the bundles into a slightly undersized plastic bag. It was a clumsy attempt, I feared crushed food. I gently pulled the bag away from her without punching her or calling  her vile names, because I'm a gentleman. I really was afraid she was going to get too frustrated with her task and blow a gasket, or crush my curly fries, which is worse.
The drive home was again, uneventful. This was fine and perfectly fitting, since I'd already decided to try to have an uneventful weekend. On Friday I about lost it when young Tim, a co-worker, said "Have a great weekend!" as I was leaving. "Stop ordering me around!" I screamed back. A 'great' weekend usually involves energy, effort and goals, I wanted absolutely none of that noise.
I handed off the bulging, undersized bag to Angel, she had met me at the door. Meeting me at the door is usually the thing one or more dogs do, but it was Rudy time and he always runs away when anyone comes to the door. Rudy has some comical fear issues. That's why we love him, his weaknesses and fears make us laugh.
She tore open the boxes and bags and lined the food up for the photo shoot. I snapped away, turning and poking and peeling away at the comestibles, to make them a little more photogenic. I reviewed the photos as Angel dutifully pulled out some plates and knives and started slicing everything, small portion, sample size.

Sliders

Our score card:
Pork Belly. I tried this first while the taste buds were still fresh and dusty. I did not care for what they were awakened to. I had imagined it to be bacon-y or salty, but what I got was a sickly sweet, greasy bite.
The sandwich was billed as having barbecue sauce, but this taste profile was mustard-y and too sweet. I could not really taste the meat itself, just the icky sauce.
Angel didn't mind it as much, but she added that she'd probably not want to eat a whole sandwich of it because of the sweetness.
Brisket. I thought this to be a vast improvement over the pork. Slightly smoky, much less intense, though Angel called it 'smoky, but bland'.
The sliders were all problematic in a specific way. The bread to protein ratio. Both of us started popping them open and plucking the meat. Way too much bread. Angel referred to the chicken version as 'A chicken nugget pasted to a bun' and 'a waste of money'.  It did look like that. The meats, especially the new and improved corned beef were quite okay, but it was really hard to be sure since there was only about a teaspoon of meat on each of the sliders.
The Sides:

The sides.

Angel liked the onion rings. I liked the taste okay, the subtle sweetness of the onion came through, but thought the breading was too thick.
Curly fries are curly fries, neither of us prefer them over normal fries. They tend to clump up in the fryer and have greasy and gooey spots. As far as curly fries go though, they were okay.
The huge fail here was the potato cake. Angel said they were too breakfast-y, as if that were an actual thing, but I got the idea, too much like those hash brown patties you get at fast food drive-in's. I was upset when I discovered there was no frosting or candles on my potato cake. That would have been nostalgic for me. I used to get a potato cake for every birthday. . . hang on, an internal memory error has occurred. . . . . . .  Oh, I remember now, I used to get a potato for my birthday. I was not my parents' favorite child. I'm over it now.  
Summary;
As I sit here typing away, listening to some smooth jazz  about three hours after that meal, my tummy is still queasy. It's a fried fast food thing with me. This stuff makes me sick. It's a cosmically high price I pay to inform you, my fickle fan base. I'm just not sure you are worth the agony anymore, you don't call, you don't write . . .
The service was good, the place was clean, though I'm still curious as to what went wrong with the original corned beef slider. . .  Maybe I don't want to know.
In a nutshell, I will not be making that trek to Arby's again anytime soon. Nothing, especially the star attraction Pork Belly even rose to a rank of 'pretty good'. Later, we were talking about it again, Angel said the only thing she would go back to Arby's for was the good ol' original roast beef. "They should stick to what they do best."
But you shouldn't take my word for it when it comes to fast food anymore, since it makes me sick and everything. I just can't take it anymore.

"We understand the lights. We understand the lights above the Arby’s. We understand so much.
But the sky behind those lights – mostly void, partially stars? That sky reminds us we don’t understand even more."
 - 'Welcome to Night Vale: Episode 25 - One year later' - 



* 'Welcome to Night Vale' is a podcast.  I have been reading/listening to it for about a year. As with most things new and interesting I discover, I first heard about it on NPR during my long, dismal commute.
It's certainly not for everyone.
Back when I was working toward a graduate degree in educational psychology with the University of Southern California (true story) one of the professors (a real 80's California Psychologist) offered an evaluation of each of us in the class after several weeks of classwork and discussions. She came to me, I didn't expect much, since in this class, as with almost every 'group' activity I'm ever involved with, I pretty much sat quietly in the back, avoiding eye contact and chit-chat.
"Dennis, you are a divergent thinker."
I politely thanked her, then rushed home to look up the word 'divergent'. It simply means 'different'. Apparently the professional analysis concluded that I don't think the same way other people do. This pleased me greatly. I'm not unique at all, many, many people can also be considered 'divergent thinkers', just not all in the same way.
Things that appeal to me seem to fall above, under or to either side of 'average'. You well know by now that I do not follow sports, any of them, and that I listen to music, hardly at all. So that opens up a little cerebral real estate that is often filled in with anxiety, trivia, anxiety, curiosity and anxiety.
Anyway, wordplay, sentences and phrasing also often delight me, along with a boatload of divergent - style thinking. That's what hooked me on Night Vale.
Night Vale's podcasts are presented as WTNV radio broadcasts. Cecil reads about current events, community groups, disasters, public service announcements, etc.
In a desert town in the southwest where odd matters of time, physics and metaphysics intersect, but are not quite in a way we regular people in the real world understand them.  "Time doesn't work in Night Vale"
No dogs are allowed in the dog park, no people either, you may see hooded figures in the dog park. Tell no one, drink to forget. The Sheriff's Secret Police are watching you, always, everywhere, for your protection and they hardly ever kidnap children.
"All hail the glow cloud!", a giant inexplicable glowing cloud that also is a member of the PTA.
Libraries are dangerous and scary, and only actually contain a couple of books anyhow, one being an autobiography of Helen Hunt.

From Episode 15:
Welcome to Night Vale.
Ladies, gentlemen, you. Today is Street Cleaning Day.
Please remain calm!
Street Cleaners will be upon us quite soon. We have little time to prepare.
Please remain calm!
The City Council has issued a statement in 20-point all-caps type saying:
RUN! RUN! FORGET YOUR CHILDREN AND LEAVE BEHIND THE WEAK! RUN!

Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but for totally indecipherable reasons, it appeals to me greatly. I now follow a few NV groups, bought the book, etc. These people think differently.

Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen

4103 First Missouri Credit Union Dr
St. Louis, MO

Web site


Angel saw a commercial, or something.
Adam said he'd join us since it was not far from his bunker , across the mighty Meramec river in South St. Louis County.
A couple of months ago, during the hunt for a decent fish sandwich, Angel would often bring up Popeye's 'squished fish patty on a bun' commercial comparing (wink, wink) a 'certain' fast food chain's square fish patty (McDonalds) as 'seafood' to Popeye's 'Butterfly Shrimp Tackle Box.'
"I like my squished fish patty on a bun!" she repeated, probably a hundred times.
She was not looking for seafood at Popeye's though, she wanted to try the chicken. I told her I'd take yet another one for the team and get something fishy.
The Place:

South County. I'm not sure that's an actual municipality or whether it refers to the general area that hugs the Mississippi between the Meramec and St. Louis City. The city itself is not in St. Louis  County, it is a county/city entity all its own. The county that surrounds the city is made up of over a hundred municipalities, some distinct, others merely a blur between stop signs.
This location is fairly new. It was clean and sparkly inside, in the way only polished plastic can sparkle. The motif, fast food modern. There was not any attempt to make it look like anything other than fast food.
Angel and I already studied the online menu and were pretty set in our order, Adam was starting from scratch. Finally we ordered, Angel first. My turn came, I was prepared. "Fish and shrimp combo with coleslaw and a small drink."
The young man repeated back. "Fish and shrimp combo?"
"Yes"
"What side with that sir?"
"Coleslaw."
"What size drink would you like with that?"
"Small."
We filled our drink cups, I found us a shiny plastic covered table.
The Food:
I sipped my tea. I quickly looked around for an alternative drink. The tea was old, metallic and bitter.
Nothing. I don't like sweet drinks, period, other than juices. You didn't know that about me?
We sat waiting, I looked around as I am wont to do during eatery reviews. Six tables occupied, three people waiting for take out / pick up.
After five or eight minutes of note taking and analysis, I looked around again. Six tables occupied, three people waiting for take out / pick up.
None of them had food.
More people came in and ordered and waited.
Something was wrong in the kitchen. Orders were backed up, all of them, no food going out at all, for nearly twenty minutes.
Probably out of cooked chicken, since that seems to be the flagship of the brand.
A twenty minute wait at a sit down, waited on at the table restaurant is no big deal. At a fast food joint, it's an eternity.
Finally we were served.
It was a really brown meal. At first we couldn't tell the orders apart. I figured out mine because of the popcorn shrimp.
Angel: Mild chicken and coleslaw.
Adam: Spicy chicken tenders and mashed potatoes.
We also ordered a couple of the apple pie for later.
All orders come with their 'signature' buttermilk biscuit.
We noticed something immediately. There was no coleslaw.
A lady from the counter stopped and asked about sauces. We mentioned the missing sides, she apologized and disappeared, only to return a moment later with the slaw.
She asked again about sauces. I looked around. "Tarter sauce please."
She asked Adam and Angel as well, they declined.
A couple of moments later, she came back with a couple of condiment packets in her hand. "Which sauce did you ask for again?"
"Tartar sauce please."
She looked at the packets, turned around and walked away.
She soon came back with the right stuff.

I then started sorting through my basket. One thin, scrawny piece of fish, two thin, scrawny pieces of fish. three, THREE thin, scrawny pieces of fish. . . 
That's it. If you look at the photo, you'll see three small, rectangular objects, that's the fish. The fillets were about a quarter inch thick, probably less. Broken apart it would all fit into one cube of an ice tray.
Easily half the portion, if that much, of that pathetic squished fish patty on a bun at that other fast food restaurant.
It was also tough, rubbery and dry. So thin that it overcooked browning the breading. The majority of the real estate in the basket was occupied by popcorn shrimp. Also overcooked and so heavily battered that the shrimp inside was little more than a condiment. I disassembled one to measure the breading vs. shrimp ratio.

Shrimp on the left, breading on the right.

Statistically, I had a basket full of fried flour. Had they been crispy rather than rubbery, I night have eaten more than three of the approximately half cup of fried flour balls.
The biscuit looked right, too right, as if it had been made by a robot. Too round, too flat surfaced on top and bottom. I looked around, all over the place and could find no butter being offered, I decided to go ahead, commando style.
Ah, they had buttered the top. . . not the middle, mind you, the top, then added salt to make it seem like there was more butter than there was. The effect was a dry, too salty biscuit. Even Adam picked up on that butter/salt trick.
About a tiny fillet and a half of fish, three bites of biscuit, and three fried flour nuggets, I tossed the rest away. I had about half the coleslaw, nothing special there, creamy, sweet, with an odd hint of some herb, dill, cilantro, something Angel couldn't quite describe it either, a little off putting, whatever it was.
Adam complained about the mashed potatoes. Apparently Popeye's claims a Louisiana spiced mashed potato. To Adam, this was sacrilege. Mashed potatoes aren't supposed to be spicy. "Mashed potatoes are already southern, why do they have to mess with that?" He screamed.
 Angel rather enjoyed her chicken, it had a touch of spiciness without getting silly.
Summary:

Here's a photo of what I didn't eat. I'm at an age and station in life that I will just not suffer lousy food. I'm hardly a gourmet or a food snob, but there are certainly standards, limits. My food was not good, none of it. I'd rather waste the six or seven bucks I paid for it than shove it into my face because it was in front of me. I figured I could go home and make a sandwich out of whatever was lying around and be much more satisfied than with this pile of abysmal fried flour coated, rubbery seafood scraps.
I'd rather eat Guy Fieri's lightly seasoned flip flop.
Like I said, Angel liked the chicken okay, the sides, not at all. Adam was at best, 'meh' about his. The consensus was that we could not think of any reason to ever go back. Better stuff is readily available, just about anywhere.

Ruby Tuesday

1120 Shapiro Drive
Festus, Mo.
On the Web

September 2015 marks this prestigious journal's sixth anniversary! Nearly three hundred highly
researched, sane and articulate posts, highlighting and occasionally skewering eateries in our limited universe.
Once again, I feel obligated to regale you, the fans, with the story of the birth of Eat and Critique.
By September, 2009, we'd lived in Jefferson County for a little over three years. We continued a tradition, an appointment of going out to eat on Saturday evenings. It was a way to interrupt our very busy lifestyles and spend some quality 'us' time.
Choosing a place to go was always a chore. Three years in, we'd pretty much settled into a rut of a handful of places. One of those places was Ruby Tuesday.
If we were celebrating something, a new job, a new client,, etc. This is where we would go, since it was the pricier of the rut-places. I usually got the same thing, yeah the rut was that deep. Steak, mashed potatoes and sauteed green beans. This particular meal, everything went wrong. The steak was overcooked, the tea was bitter, the potatoes over salted, the service was lousy, the courses were terribly timed, the check took forever, our waiter disappeared, twice. . .
I was livid. I complained about it for hours, maybe days. I was threatening to write a terse letter to the corporation. Somewhere in all that righteous indignation, I declared that we would absolutely, positively, drag ourselves out of that rut and find new places.
That's is how all of this started. My frustration with a lousy meal at Ruby Tuesday.
So, in honor of that bad meal, we decided to go there on this, our sixth anniversary.

The Place:
It's a Ruby Tuesday, one of the many mid-level chains of 'sports bars' like TGI Friday, Chili's, Outback, etc. Like the one parodied in the movie 'Office Space'. I can't usually tell them apart on the inside. They used to have more sports junk on the walls, but that went away in a small, infrequent, but refreshing display of good taste.
As you step in, you come face to face for the only real reason we ever go there, the salad bar.
We were greeted and seated in an area to the left of the bar, pretty much the same place we always get seated. Katy introduced herself and handed out menus. Not that we really needed menus, traditionally we always get pretty much the same thing.
The Food:
 The main thing at RT is the salad bar. We pick our meals based on how hungry we will be after we have our big salads.
Due to fairly recent conversations, punctuated with a lot of finger wagging, with my doctor, I have drastically altered my lifestyle. I won't bore you with details, but the alterations have worked, all my 'numbers' are back where they should be. Bottom line, I can't eat as much at a single sitting as I used to. That terrible meal I had six years ago has even been paired back. Instead of the salad bar and a full sized steak, potatoes and beans, sometimes followed by dessert, I order the Petite Sirloin and mashed potatoes to supplement the salad. I don't often even finish that.
This is what I went with again. Angel surprised us by going off script and getting the crab cakes. Adam put us back on course, choosing the chicken tenders. He doesn't do the salad bar. No appetizer this day.

Katy took our order and was nearly washed away by the slipstream we left in our rush to the salad bar. We have salads at home frequently, but keeping everything fresh is a problem. We rarely have everything we want at the same time as we want it. This is what makes RT's bar perfect. it has everything and it is all fresh. We don't have to buy heads of lettuce, pounds of mushrooms, etc. just to let them mostly spoil in or chill box.
What did I pick for my salad this time? Well, 'everything' is probably the best way to sum it up. I topped it with two dressings, blue cheese and Italian. I should point out that the photo makes it look massive, but that is not a full sized plate. Besides, this was the main course, the meat and potatoes were just side dishes.
We finished off our salads as well as the complimentary cheesy biscuits. Had we stopped then and
there this would be a completely positive review.
Katy brought the main courses a few minutes after we were finishing the salads, perfect timing. The plates looked rather sparse, nothing on them other than precisely what we ordered.
Right away I wished I had stopped with the salad. The steak was overcooked. I don't send things back, it takes too long. I ate about half of it, but was fortunately already sated by the voluptuous salad. I didn't finish the potatoes either, they were too salty. The steak also seemed too salty, something I was hard pressed to explain. It's a steak, you don't need more than a pinch of anything added to it. To over-salt steak is nothing short of criminal.

When I mentioned this to the family, Angel chimed in. "Well I wasn't going to say anything, but the crab cakes were too salty. I thought it might just be me."
No dear, it wasn't. The chef was heavy handed, we've seen it before. Jilly's has been serving food laden with an oceans' worth of the mineral for several years.
Adam said his meal was "good". That's all. He doesn't talk a lot.
Adam and Angel decided to order some dessert to take home. RT was pushing a Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake. That's what they both went with. To me, pumpkin is an Autumn decoration, not a flavor. I don't eat or drink anything with the word 'pumpkin' in it. Besides, my tolerance for sugar is way down, so I rarely have a full dessert anymore.
Summary:
We were not really disappointed, the salad bar was great and our expectations for the other stuff was not very high. It is a shame that they managed to ruin a perfectly good cut of meat though, again. Katy did a spectacular job, her timing and attentiveness were excellent, no complaints there. Since we lived in Maryland for five years, our expectations for a crab cake anywhere else are considerably lowered. Nobody out here gets them right.
The real sore point with Ruby Tuesday is that we only occasionally get it all right, yet it still costs more than most other places we go, the tab this time was over sixty dollars. That's a lot to pay for a salad and small, incorrectly cooked sides.
Yeah, we'll go back, for the salad, but maybe only the salad.

Oriental Buffet

774 S. Truman Blvd.
Festus, Mo.

After last week's very disappointing Chinese (Panda Express) meal, we needed to refresh our palates. One of the most telling indicators that the food wasn't that good was that no one ever touched any of the leftovers. Angel says that's a sure sign that it was just wrong.
So we decided to go to a decent Chinese place and rub the Panda's face in it.
The Place:
Less than one mile south of, and on on the same road as Panda.  PE is on a lot just north of the big Walmart, Oriental Buffet is in a shopping center on the lot south of Wally World. Yeah, that close. It doesn't appear that their business has suffered much from the big Hibachi Grill, also less than a mile away, or the mighty Panda. OB looked as clean, well staffed and popular as ever. Overhead, twangy Chinese instrumentals played quietly, as if a part of nature itself.
The steamer trays were loaded up. The first station, for  sushi, was offering pretty and colorful stuff in sticky rice, stuff that I will never take. I just don't like sticky rice.
We were greeted at the front counter and immediately led to a four top in the middle of the tidy dining area. Without even sitting down, we gave our drink orders, tea, tea and coke and were pointed toward the ample serving area. Yeah, that fast.
The Food:
The offerings at Panda were very limited. Not here, I counted seven or eight types of chicken, several types of shrimp and other seafood, including frog legs, lots of wrapped fried things, different kinds of rice and noodles, a whole station for salads, another for desserts. . .  you get the point.
We loaded up. As usual I took small samples of lots of things, rice, noodles five different chickens, bourbon, honey, orange, black pepper and General Tso. I also grabbed a spring roll a rangoon, a couple of fried shrimp and some pepper beef. In other words, everything I 'd had from the Panda, plus much more.
By the time we returned to the table, the drinks were waiting. It just doesn't get faster from order to forkful than this.

Angel's plate looked similar, though she'd also found some sauteed green beans and had some chicken on a stick. Adam had some of his favorites, broccoli (blech!), white rice and sweet and sour chicken. I like sweet and sour, but for some reason, buffets around here think that the chicken for it needs to be coated like a corn dog in breading. When I make sweet and sour at home, it's no different than that for the other sauce/coating options, very lightly breaded, just enough to make it crisp.
The first thing I dug into was the noodles. I love noodles. But I like fried rice as well. This poses a dilemma at some non-buffet Chinese places, noodles or rice, rice or noodles. That's why I love a buffet, I can get both.
Angel  and I agree, the rice here was so much better than at the Panda. Which is ridiculous, fried rice

is one of the simplest things to make. You certainly don't crowd it with veggies, especially corn. Who puts corn in fried rice? But I repeat myself.
Even Hibachi, the colossal buffet on the nearby hill makes better rice, and chicken and everything else. Even though when we did a two night comparison a while back, Hibachi lost out a little to the Oriental Buffet.
There wasn't a lot of conversation while we cleaned our plates. And clean them, we did.  This was a great idea, to restore our respect for the cuisine.
We all had small dessert plates, mine, of course was banana pudding, with a vanilla wafer, and the bananas in thick red sauce you only find at Chinese places.
Summary:

Simple. Everything was better than at the Panda. It was fast, had a much wider variety and as if that weren't enough, the bill came in six dollars under what we paid at the Panda.
I've had better Chinese food. Primarily when I was stationed in Japan. But that's a bit of a drive, I doubt that I will ever have that again. However there's also Springfield, Mo. where Angel is from and where I spent seventeen years of my own handsome life. Springfield is where you find the best Americanized Chinese food in the country. Seriously, it doesn't get better. If you've ever had 'Cashew Chicken' or as it is known some places, 'Springfield Style', you'll understand, it was first created there.
However, I don't live there anymore either. So The quest is constant to find at least pretty good versions. In our vicinity, in the small window of driving time we can allow for these weekly excursions, Oriental Buffet wins every time.
The tea isn't very good, just ask for water instead, there's so many great flavors on your plate that you don't need to worry about what you drink.
The staff is efficient, tidy, busy and quickly on the spot to remove plates or refill your tumbler. The price is right, the selection and quality is a lot better. AND they have takeout options!
I do not understand why anyone would prefer the third rate food at Panda Express over this place. Of course, I also don't understand why there's always a line at the drive through at White Castle. Some people just want crap, I guess.

McAlister's Deli

170 Gravois Bluffs Circle
Fenton, Mo.
On the Web

This too was Angel's idea. I don't recall what prompted it, maybe a commercial or ad somewhere.
Before we start though, I need to apologize for the poor quality of a couple of the photos. My trusty tablet died, I took over another one that Angel bought but rarely used since she got her newest smartphone. This was the first time I'd had the new/old tablet on a critique run and the built-in camera has different sensitivities from the one that died.
    McAlister's is a medium sized chain headquartered in Oxford, Mississippi. It's higher end than fast food joints, but still with the overhead menu, the order counter and relatively quick service.
I impressed Angel with this factoid since she's actually been to Oxford Mississippi and I haven't. About ten years ago, a few weeks after hurricane Katrina, Angel and a group of volunteers, mostly from or associated with the Humane Society of Calvert County, Maryland, loaded up an RV and a big, flat trailer loaded down with animal crates and made a fast run to the stricken area to help rescue dogs. One stop they made was in Oxford, the hometown of one of the volunteers.
The Place:
Gravois Bluffs (pronounced 'Gravy' by Angel) is a very large retail complex just across the St. Louis county line. The main parking lot itself is several acres and along the front there is a line of 20 or more, mostly franchise, eateries. McAlister's among them.
I don't like going there, especially on hot July afternoons. All that concrete and asphalt does nothing to stifle the sweltering heat.
Angel announced this place earlier in the week, I poled my two nearest work-mates and got two thumbs up. Well, Tim gave a thumbs up, I'm optimistically assuming that what Doug showed me was also a thumb. Tim even had a couple of recommendations, which Angel based her selection on.
The place had a stylish, modern, but relaxed feel to it. The overhead music was contemporary pop, not the worst kind of overhead sound. I was pleased and impressed with the many large black and white photos of long ago Fenton. I'm a sucker for historical photos of local places.
We went up to the counter and took our time.
By the time someone behind the counter said 'Next', we were ready.
Angel: Big Nasty with mac and cheese and sweet tea.
Me: Half French Dip and chili with un-sweet tea,
Adam: Chipotle Chicken Grill, Broccoli Cheddar soup and Root Beer (Barq's)
We found a table and waited. We had our drinks. I was seriously impressed by my tea, probably the best restaurant tea I've had anywhere. McAlister's is quite proud of their tea, often having tea-based promotions. They've earned that pride, this was a great glass of tea.
The Food:
Eventually, the food arrived. The plates were sorted out and placed. I opened my sandwich and was .
. . underwhelmed. There just wasn't a lot of meat on the bun. The chili cup was sloppy, there was even a large wad of chili spillage on the plate.
As I was photographing the plates, Adam announced that there were no napkins. I walked around the joint and couldn't find any napkin dispensers and had to stand in line at the counter again to ask for some. These minor things started piling up in my mind. I was hoping to breeze through a positive review for this highly recommended place.
The chili was lousy. First, it didn't have beans. I know some people like this sort of thing, but I don't. I consider bean-less chili to be a hot dog topping, a meat sauce, little more. Also, other than the meat and the broth, I could see nothing else. No onion, peppers, nothing. It may as well have been canned hot dog chili. It also was rather tepid. Served a little too cool.
The meat, Black Angus, on the sandwich was quite good. There just was not very much of it, at all. Angel and Adam even commented on my meager portions.
Angel's 'Big Nasty' is what Tim had recommended. I'd read up on it. It's an open faced roast beef
sandwich slathered in brown gravy. I knew this would be right up her alley. She did not regret her choice. She wanted to try the mac and cheese as well, no disappointment there either. She left a lot of bread behind. We've both been cutting down on the starches and just can't handle a lot of nature's packing material anymore. Often we've found and My puny-meated sandwich is a good example, that sandwich places are not picking up on this national trend of cutting back on excessive carbs. Subway certainly hasn't got  the memo. You don't need a mega-bun to just hold some meat and toppings together.
I tried a bit of her gravy'd meat. It was pretty good. Not spectacular, but quite okay. The mac and cheese seemed a little on the cold side. She let me have her pickle, which was nice since I only had about a tablespoon of meat and and about four tablespoons of the chili.
At the time, Angel said everything was good, though later she said that in hindsight, the gravy might have been a little salty.
Adam had finished first, his sandwich was also a bit sparse. He was disappointed that he ordered a sandwich and soup plate and didn't think he needed to specifically add chips or something, claiming that at Cool Beans in Hillsboro the soup and sandwich choice comes with a side. I agreed, I was happy to have a third note, Angel's pickle. I wondered why Angel and Adam got a pickle but I didn't.
Summary:
Well, as you can see I had a few issues. I went in with high hopes and left with a less than 'two thumbs up' opinion. Some of these things were obviously minor, easily correctable errors. If I've said it once, I've said it forty seven times. A pile of minor, easily correctable errors are indistinguishable from one huge infraction. It is indicative of weak management, either in the store or on the corporate level. I appreciate places that want to elevate above 'fast food', I really do, but with that higher price tag, we expect better than fast food service.
There's some really good things about what McAlister's is trying to do, but it is no time to take their eye off the road. I'd love to love this place. The ingredients are all there. But at this point I just can't recommend it to someone I wanted to impress.

Kettelhut's Smokehouse

1267 N. Truman Blvd.
Crystal City Mo.
On the Interwebs
Facebook

We were looking for recommendations for a good fish taco. Two conditions apply. Jefferson County, excluding Arnold and no fast food joints.
The only places mentioned so far, Taytro's and La Pachanga, there were problems with. Taytro's only has them on their lunch menu and we didn't really care for any thing else at La Pachanga.
So we didn't even try, Angel made a last minute call.
The Place:
Just opened up last September, we reviewed it the first weekend after that. As is the standard for a new place, we made note of some issues to follow up on. I don't care who you are, the first few weeks open is going to have issues. Service especially, the team hasn't had time to work out the kinks. That was several months before this trip, they've had plenty of time to get their act together.
I also told Angel and Adam what they'd ordered on that first trip. More about that later.
Kettelhut's is decorated in a theme of Memphis Blues. There are 'Beale Street' signs, photos of blues musicians and wall decor of saxophones, guitars, etc. The overhead music is all blues, all the time. I like this type of music better than some others, but I can't say I want to hear a lot of it. To me, it gets a bit repetitious after a while. It was tolerable for the time we were there though.
We were seated in a booth, remarkably the same booth as the first time from what I recalled from the wall decor above us.
Abby came by and introduced herself and took our drink order. She seemed nice. Tea, tea and Pepsi.
The Food.
I decided pretty quickly, a simple pulled pork sandwich. Nothing fancy. I sided it with baked beans and fries, almost as an afterthought. We'd had their 'Fried Taters and Onions' on the first trip, I'd mentioned that I didn't like thick cut fried potatoes, so I decided against them this time.
When Abby returned we were ready to order. Angel disappointed us by ordering the same thing she had the first time. I encourage the family to mix it up a little from time to time. But since I'd told her what she had the first time she just replied to my sigh with a "It sounded pretty good when you told me."
So she asked for a 2-fer, ribs and chicken, sided with cucumber salad and fried corn on the cob.
Gratefully, Adam shifted gears and ordered the BBQ Nachos, which are available as an appetizer or a meal.

I checked the time. On the first trip there had been a significant time delay between ordering and service, this is one of the things I was looking for.
The thing about a smokehouse is that there just shouldn't be a long wait. Everything's already made. Big batches of sides, slow cooked meats already cooked. . .
They did not disappoint, less than ten minutes. They also got all the orders right. So far, so good.
I was a little surprised by the amount of fries. My plate looked more like a French fry meal with side of beans and a sandwich. Too many fries is hardly a crime though. I just thought they overshadowed the main event and there was certainly more than I'd ever be able to finish, especially seeing that they'd been a tad over-salted.
The beans looked impressive. Nice and dark. There was more bean juice than I usually care for. The taste was outstanding though. This wasn't baked beans from a can, these were slow cooked, in house, with a hint of molasses. Mmmm
There was more meat on the sandwich that I originally thought. They'd piled it on quite generously. I tasted a sliver, definitely smoky, but a bit dry. That's what all the bottles of sauces were for. I chose two sauces, a sweet one and one called 'Pappa's Pride' which I highly recommend. A little sweet but less so than many bottled brands.
The fries were pretty good, but a little too salty and way, way too many of them.
Angel plowed through her meats like a Jurassic raptor. (BTW, the raptors in that movie were

modeled after cretaceous period dinosaurs, not Jurassic.) She claimed that the chicken was nice and crispy with a moist and tender interior. The ribs, tender and meaty. The corn, surprisingly wasn't dry from being fried. The 'toast' was barely toast. Cooked on one side only and barely buttered. "I think I OD'd on meat." she said.
Adam's nachos were "pretty good" though he added that there was too much cheese. . . as if such a thing were possible.
Abby kept the drinks refilled and processed the bill quickly.
Summary:
Frankly, we were impressed and quite satisfied. All the original, startup issues had been resolved. The food was good, the service, by that I mean Abby, was top notch, the tables were being cleaned promptly, orders were correct and served in a timely manner. . .
All for forty bucks.
Yeah, pretty much no significant complaints. It's good to see a local business do well, I hope they are here to stay.

Ruby Tuesday

1120 Shapiro Dr.
Festus, Mo.
On The Net

Earlier in the week I got word from Angel. "We have a Ruby Tuesday coupon."
Hint, taken.
Of all the franchise bar/restaurants, It's about the only one we go to very often. It's never been perfect, but it is only rarely terrible.
It was because of a very bad night at RT that we started looking for other places to eat back in 2009. You could say that Ruby Tuesday is the birthplace of Eat and Critique.
The Place:
It used to have walls lined with junk. Sports junk, iron tools, etc. Much like 'Chotchkies' in the movie 'Office Space'. They got rid of all that 'flair' a few years ago, painted the walls, toned it down a little.
It still has a central bar, but overall it is no longer an open invitation to frat-style rowdiness.
There are booths on the sides, a bar area, and an entry. Separating the bar from the entry is the world's best salad bar. This bar is why Angel likes going here. Meals are chosen to be compatible with a mega-load of salad.
A couple of young ladies greeted at the podium and chatted over charts, finally deciding to put us in pretty much the same booth as we always end up in.
Pretty soon, a young, energetic man stopped by asking for drink orders. We replied with the usual. He skittered away.
The Food:
I scanned the menu, Angel and Adam debated appetizers. I don't usually get involved in appetizer discussions, I only rarely partake. They usually want wings, which I do not care for.
When the young man delivered our drinks and Angel put in the appetizer order. I heard the word 'sampler'. Something must have caught her eye that Adam might not care for. That could be a lot of things.
It didn't take long before the menus were closed. In front of us were some of those luscious cheddar biscuits. I held off, I had a plan.
As we waited I noticed the tea glasses. Or rather mugs, worse, plastic mugs. I don't like drinking out of plastic cups. We have a few at home that I've never had a drink from. I'd rather drink from a Bundt pan than a plastic cup. That is usually not an option at restaurants though. I expect a plastic cup in lower end places. RT is not lower end. Besides, this was a cheaply made, faux beer mug. I'm sure RT has a bunch of actual glass mugs at the bar. . .
Seriously, like the Styrofoam cups at Savannah's Smokehouse last week, this sort of thing is one of those annoying little details that just set up for a 'beneath my price range' mood. I knew going in that this bill would be in the sixty five to seventy five dollar range. Give me an actual glass for Pete's sake!

 No time for that now though. We placed our entree orders:
Me: Top Sirloin, fries, salad bar.
Angel: New Orleans Seafood, Zucchini (blech!) and salad bar.
Adam: Rids and Chicken Tenders, with fries.
The young man almost got trampled in our rush to the salad bar. There's
nothing exotic at the bar, there's just a lot of variety, a whole lot. And lots of types of dressing as well. I loaded my plate up with a few greens, mushrooms, onions, cucumbers, peppers, cheese, bacon bits, egg, etc. Thousand Island dressing this eve'.
The appetizer tray arrived, four selections. Spicy wings as orange as expected. That color of orange is only found in one place in nature, traffic cones and barrels. I've never looked at a construction site and drooled for the flavor of anything that color. In the service, I once painted my office that color. The Inspector General was making the rounds and I'd read a report that said that this color is a people repellent.  It also causes headaches after a day or so.
Also on the tray were some un-spicy wings, miniature cheese logs, or something, and tiny Thai spring rolls.
This is apparently what caught Angel's eye. Adam would never touch one of those. I would though.
So I tried one. Not bad, not bad at all. Pretty darn good as a matter of fact. Angel agreed. That's the only thing I tried. Adam tore into the messy orange wings. They'd asked for the 'mild' version, Angel said it was still too spicy for her. Adam seemed to like it though. Most of the rest of the stuff ended up in a box, bound for Adam's lunch bag. He had to work that night.
I gulped down most of my gloppy salad, too much dressing again. It sure was good though.
Soon, too soon, the entrees arrived. This has been one of my complaints in the past. Badly timed courses. It doesn't happen every time, just often enough to be frustrating, leaving the table with too many plates and having to choose between abandoning or finishing the salad and appetizers while the entrees slid toward room temperature.

I pushed the salad plate aside. Steak trumps all.
I carved a sliver off the left side. The juices started flooding, threatening to drench the fries. I didn't care, the fries were an afterthought. I wanted steak. Besides, the fries weren't all that special anyhow, maybe an afterthought for the kitchen crew as well. Too much salt.
The steak did not cut easily. This worried me. I recalled having a problem like this at RT before. So I sawed through it with the finesse of a hyena. I was right, the steak was perfect, buttery, not tough to chew at all. For some reason, I doubt if it was concern for my safety, the steak knife was better suited for clubbing than slicing.
The steak itself though, was excellent. Not topped or sauced, just bare, naked, charred and bloody meat on my tongue. A little salt, a little pepper, a bit of butter and a flame. All a good cut of beef ever really needs. I saved a little though, to go with the cheddar biscuits. Sunday breakfast with steak, eggs and some of those little red potatoes I'd picked up at a produce stand earlier in the day.
Angel likes seafood. But I repeat myself. Her plate was packed with zucchini (blech!) and a tilapia filet coated in 'Parmesan cream sauce'  and drizzled with some shrimp. Mostly zucchini (blech!) though. Later in the meal I noticed the fish barely looked touched. "The sauce is too salty." She reported. Fortunately, the zucchini was good. I told her I sincerely doubted that. Zucchini, to me, is like Pleather. It's fake food. You use zucchini when there's nothing else available, or if you are trying to replace something on your plate with a more healthy, if not more disgusting, alternative.
"I'll order something less daring next time." She summarized.
I shared a sliver of steak with her. Yeah, it was good.
Adam, not surprisingly, didn't say much about his plate. He inherited a

double dose of introvert. Or is it introvert squared? Anyway, he doesn't say much about anything. For example, when asked if his messy batch of ribs was good, he answered: "It's ribs." He also finally said that he was not impressed with the fries. He struggled mightily and messily breaking down the ribs. He must have had an even duller knife than I did. They did provide extra napkins though, which was good since with him going after those ribs with a blunt instrument there was splatter, not unlike the front row at a Gallagher show, during the trademark sledge hammer  vs. watermelon bit.
I suppose the chicken was fine, he said nothing about that, but it did end up in his takeout box.
No dessert, thanks.
Summary:
If it sounds like a mixed review, well that's kind of typical for Ruby Tuesday. Some things are great, some, just not quite right. The bill came in under sixty five dollars, after a ten dollar appetizer coupon. I tipped the difference. The young man was most satisfactory, he kept the drinks refilled and was attentive to our desires, such as actually leaving out the ice when Angel asked for more tea 'without ice'. No complaints about Ryan S. (That's what the receipt says.)
Angel pointed out that the busing crew was MIA, a table beside ours hadn't been cleared the whole time we were there.
Details, those annoying little details.
And that's the thing. These issues are 100% laziness or mismanaged priorities. The awful plastic
mugs, the mis-timed serving, the lackluster fries and overly salty fish, nothing that required any actual recipe really popped. The steak was excellent, but that was 90% cut quality and only 10% skill. Details, details . . . at a price I don't really think worthy of such annoying details.
We'll go back, salad bar, and the steak is pretty good. But other offerings? We're still searching for go-to alternatives.