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.

Ruby Tuesday

1120 Shapiro Dr.
Festus, Mo.

Updated:   See the note from Ruby Tuesday Corporate at the bottom of this post! * * * * 


That's right loyal fans, this is our 200th review.
Four years.
It was no contest, we had to go back to where it all started, Ruby Tuesday. Our first review was not at this place, it was instead because of a truly disappointing meal at Ruby T's that we decided to start going other places. Thus, eatandcritique was born.
Ruby T's has proven to be able to pull off exceptional meals. Even their worst effort is better than many places, but they set the bar for themselves very high.
The Place:
Above the interstate and below Lowe's. Not as kitschy as some chains like them, not anymore anyhow. A big bar, lots of seating, a couple of TV's playing sports.The music was safe, from the 70's and 80's a little too loud. Loud enough that it was hard to ignore the lousy songs.
Fortunately there weren't very many of those. One song, U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from the album "Joshua Tree" is still about the only thing worth listening to to ever come out of Bono's mouth.
Elton John's iconic 'Rocket Man' tossed me back to my high school years, when I was introduced to the John/Taupin sound, the early stuff, back when it was good. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics, including 'Candle in the Wind' as well as the rewrite of that song customized for Princess Di's untimely death. Good stuff. Still a little too loud though.
We were greeted and seated. Brittany would be our server. Young, but not too young, she seemed polished and confident.
She took our drink orders, tea, sweet tea and coke. We sat back and looked through the menus, the drinks arrived in a couple of minutes. That was all the time we needed.
The Food:
Remember the salad bar, remember the salad bar. You have to do that when deciding on what to order here. The salad bar is routinely the better bar around, anywhere. You're going to pile it on, so pick a less than heavy meal. Fortunately they offer that

The tea arrived. It was beautiful. Look at it. It almost sparkles, no cloudiness, bright, crisp, fresh. Note to other restaurateurs: If your tea doesn't look like this, it is not going to be very good. Not all sparkling tea is great, but if it isn't this clear, I guarantee that it will not be very good.
We placed our orders.
Me: Petite Sirloin. The recommended sides for that were grilled zucchini and spaghetti squash. I laughed. I gagged, I insisted on a substitution, mashed potatoes and green beans. Seriously folks, zucchini and squash? Nobody actually eats that crap. Brittany assured me, with a smile, that it was no problem.
Angel asked for the tilapia and lobster. She sided it with squash and zucchini.....just kidding, mashed potatoes. Adam took the Asiago peppercorn sirloin.  He added mashed potatoes as well.
Brittany had barely enough time to safely clear the area before the three of us charged the salad bar like sea-weary sailors hitting the docks for a lusty weekend liberty.

My salad

Angel's (blech) salad

They've got everything for a monster salad that you could want, it's all fresh, and most of it is plentiful. This time the crouton supply was a little low, but that didn't concern me. I piled on a little lettuce, a little spinach, bell peppers, red onions, mushrooms, beans, a little cheese, egg and bacon bits and a teaspoon of potato salad. I drizzled a small amount of blue cheese dressing and then a a larger amount of thousand island. During the week I would call this, by itself, a meal. Thus the reason for the 'petite' sirloin steak. Angel and Adam created their own salad versions. The lovely wife poisoned hers with broccoli, Adam punched the lights out on his with French dressing. Then came the biscuits. Mmmmm, cheesy and garlic-y biscuits, soft, fluffy. Those things are dangerously good.

We had time to finish our salads, I finished early since I'd accidentally over-dressed mine. I'll have to start paying more attention to that.
Brittany stopped by with drink refills, I fell in love with her. I simply said "You know this is the best restaurant tea around don't you?" She smiled then looked toward Angel, as people often do when I make bold and brilliant statements.
"He is highly critical about tea." Angel responded, somewhat dismissively. Brittany slammed her back.
"I get that!" she said. She picked up one of the glasses and said "This is what tea is supposed to look like, you don't see that very often!"
She went on to say that she too was critical of sub-par tea and would often not order it in places that she knew to do the job badly. We then started discussing brands. Tea nerds....
"I have one more question. " I said.
"Sure." She smiled.
"Are you, by any chance, married?"
Seriously, I said that. Angel went all old-school wife-furious. Not really though, she knows that I value a good glass of tea and that I take it very seriously, much more so than her. Brittany laughed it off, or pretended to out of respect for my family. On the newly instituted PJTea scale though, I'd easily rate Ruby T's offering a +4.

Petite Sirloin

The meals arrived, exactly as ordered.
The first thing I noticed was the brightness of the beans. As was covered in last week's review of Tanglefoot, it is indeed possible to ruin something as basic as green beans. This small pile was proof they can indeed be prepared simply, yet properly. They still had 'tooth' but were sauteed perfectly. The potatoes were garlic-y but not too much so. The steak... Oh, the steak.

Tilapia and Lobster.

 A great cut of meat, properly tended to, lightly seasoned, grilled to the exact point of being beautiful. Juicy, a little char, tender, smoky. As planned, I was able to finish it all and was not disappointed with a single bite.
Angel gave me a fork full of her lobster topping. It was simply to die for. The first thing I tasted was the lobster, the chunks absolutely melting in my mouth. She managed to finish most of it, but there was a certain richness and a heaviness to it. The fish, she said, was moist and flaky . Tilapia is a very mild fish, it accepts accompaniment just fine, in fact it begs for it. This lobster and cheese concoction took it up quite a few notches.

Asiago Peppercorn Sirloin

Adam didn't say much about his, but it was obvious that he was pleased. The corners of his mouth were in the slightly-up position. "Very good." was his final evaluation. He manages to say things succinctly with a lot fewer words than I can.

 Summary:
Most of the time Ruby gets it right. Occasionally they don't, but on this occasion they hit it out of the park. Brittany was outstanding. The meals were all exactly as ordered, timely and our drinks stayed refilled. She was pleasantly chatty when engaged, but otherwise left us to enjoy the meal. I noticed her at other tables as well, very consistent and professional. Ruby Tuesday's is lucky to have someone as professional and competent as her. She really should be paid more though.
The bill came to a few cents under sixty dollars. Remarkably, a couple of bucks less than we spent at Tanglefoot, but at Ruby's we got a much, much better meal.
The salad bar at Ruby T's is simply outstanding. How often do you order a slightly smaller entree just so you can accommodate a bigger salad? We do this regularly here, nowhere else that I can recall.
Once again, the tea. It's a simple thing, or at least it is generally treated that way. Most restaurants treat iced tea as an afterthought, or with no thought whatsoever. In my mind that's a shame. All I ask is that the tea served be given as much consideration as a frosty beer, a mixed drink, or a cup of coffee. If it is old, cloudy, or bitter, pour it out and make some fresh.
As we were leaving, Brittany said that she was glad to meet someone on the same page with her about the tea. Well Brittany, we are indeed on the same page now, this one. Thanks for making the 200th review a pleasant and memorable one.
_________________

Fans: I haven't forgotten you. Thanks to all of you for making this silly little blog so successful. You've apparently been spreading the word, I come across new readers quite often.
And please, don't be shy, let me know what you think. Or at least tap one of the ads that show up on the page. I get a couple of cents each time someone does that, just think of it as a 'tip'.
Thanks again!


***** The email from Corporate:


First - congratulations on your 200th post! We are proud and humbled to be the recipients of your fine review.
Also we are always happy to hear that our guests appreciate our team members as much as we do! Guest satisfaction is our number one priority, and we are committed to ensuring gracious hospitality and incomparable service. We will proudly recognize Brittany for providing you with such fine service.
Thanks again for your words of praise. We look forward to serving you again soon!

Valerie Dee
Manager of Guest Services
Ruby Tuesday

Paul Mineo's Trattoria

Westport Plaza

St. Louis (Maryland Heights) Mo.

http://www.paulmineos.com/

One of the perks of being a contractor is that though I work at one company, I work for another. My contracting company, my pimps*, handle my actual paycheck, insurance, taxes, etc. The company I actually work at, the one that owns my schedule, my cubicle and the systems I administer, sends my contracting company a single check each month, based on the approved and actual worked hours I put in, no responsibility for deductions or benefits. For this reason I only get a percentage of the amount that I am actually valued at, but my contracting company manages all the paperwork and accounting.  So on my ‘employer’ block on tax forms, I enter my contracting company, even though I’ve only ever been to their offices once, and I don’t even talk with the nice people there very often.

Since the contracting company wants to make sure I’m happy, healthy and comfortable, they take me out to lunch once in a while, three or four times a year.  I work alongside a few other worker-bees from the company but only a very few of us make it to the lunches regularly. Tuesday was special; I was the only one of the small group that could make it.

The two ladies, who I will refer to cryptically as Cori and Haley, were waiting for me when I arrived.

The Place:

Located in Westport Plaza. If you are from the area, that’s all you need to know. It’s a Hotel/restaurant/comedy club/office complex, sleek and modern. It has an open courtyard surrounded by some very good restaurants. Baseball phenom, Albert Pujols’ eponymous eatery is there, as is ‘The Funny Bone’ comedy club.

Paul Mineo is regionally well known based on his father’s long-standing Sicilian restaurant. Paul opened up this large, reasonably upscale establishment in 2007.

The weather was cold, gray, windy and wet. Though the local thermometers said 44, it seemed colder. Not a good sign for the first game of the World Series, which I was told, was occurring downtown later in the day.

The place was tastefully decorated, not really themed, just nice, dark carpet and walls, ensconced dried flowers and tasteful, though forgettable artwork hung on the walls. The large windows on two sides looked out on the courtyard. The tables were kitted with cloth napkins, artfully folded, silverware and heavy stemmed glasses filled with ice water. The menu was a simple single page. This was a lunch menu, so the more upper-scaley dinner items and prices were not available for review.

Both Haley and Cori are quite garrulous, they have to be as they are essentially salespeople. I am comfortable around them though, able to relax and crawl out of my comfortable, quiet shell. Cori had her first child five months back, so all I had to do was inquire as to its well-being and that took care of 80% of the conversation. For some reason, lots of first time moms like to talk about their offspring. I don’t mind this really, as I was a parent of young ones myself as best I recall, and can hold up my half (or less) of the conversation. Unlike when I’m around sports people where, as I mentioned before, I tend to drift off into my own thoughts.

We waited for one more guy to arrive, but after about fifteen minutes decided he would be a no-show.

In the meantime, we’d pretty much made up our minds and treated ourselves to the warm French bread slices that had been served in a wicker basket wrapped in what could have been a cloth diaper. Delivered along with it were several condiment packets of butter/butter-like spreads. They were hard as a rock. The bread was warm, so I scraped the butter out of the little tub and let it warm up on the bread. It never did melt completely. (I hate that.)  The tea was fantastic, perfect. Clear, fresh and a bit on the strong side. In comparison, the tea at Mineo’s was a hardy stout vs. a domestic ‘lite’ beer served by nearly everyone else.

The young man that was charged with refills (and doubled as the fresh-ground-pepper guy)  did a fine job of keeping my glass topped off.

The Food:

I ordered from the non-menu’d specials. Tilapia**, lightly breaded and broiled served in a garlic and herb butter sauce, with a simple pasta on the side and the house salad. Haley ordered the same thing, Cori fancied a dish featuring eggplant along with the soup of the day. I lost interest in her choice at ‘eggplant’. I can no more be objective about dishes that contain eggplant than I can if asked about my favorite Kardashian. Both are so anathematic to me that I have nothing at all nice to say about them regardless of how they are presented.

The bread was excellent, a crispy crust and pillow-soft middle and was quite good in spite of the iceberg of butter that still had not melted completely.

Service was slow for worker-bee lunch. Executives and salespeople might be able to routinely get away with a ninety minute lunch, but those of us that are on a schedule, and only get paid for the actual time we are working, much less so. They serve lunch like they serve dinner, paced, with lag-time between courses.

The salads and soup arrived first. This was a Sicillian/Mediterranean style salad, greens, tomatoes, onions doused in a olive-ish vinaigrette. I had to compare it with Trattoria Giuseppe’s and Poppy’s Ristorante. It was very good, but not quite as good as those other places, the vinegar was a little too pronounced.

We finished those up, Cori oozed lavishly about her soup, something-tortellini and beef stock from what I could tell.

There was another extended wait before the main course arrived, long enough that each of us, while still engaged in conversations about babies and dogs and Haley's constant and complex home improvement projects, could be seen searching the floor for the wait staff.

It was worth waiting for though. The fish was lunch-sized, not too big, very thinly breaded and sitting in a small puddle of herb-y butteriness. To one side was a small serving of penne pasta, (medium length tubes with ridges, cut diagonally at both ends) topped with only a spoonful or so of red sauce and garnished with a thin sprig of some Mediterranean weed or herb. The fish flaked apart perfectly and when tasted with a single lightly-sauced penne, was exquisite. Smooth, tender, buttery with a slight tomato-y kick. Not too much or too little of anything. More tea was poured, more cute baby stories gushed, and before I was aware of it I was full. I’d managed to get through three quarters of the fish before my brain said ‘stop’.

Summary:

The meal was overall, excellent. The salad dressing was a bit strong, but not to the point of being bad. The service was slow, but I think that was how it was designed to be. The staff was attentive to detail and usually there when needed. The atmosphere was quite nice. As for the price, well, I can’t really speak to that. Haley picked up the tab and I forgot to peek. I do know that from reading the menu that each meal was going to be at least ten to fifteen dollars with drinks, which is not terrible, but it is a bit more than I care to pay for a typical lunch. Casa Gallardo, across the courtyard serves a sub-ten dollar lunch that will have you busting wide open at the gut, and next to it ‘The Trainwreck’ serves a cheddar cheeseburger that will literally explode your arteries for about that much as well. As for dinner prices, I can only imagine.

So if you want a pretty darn good meal, Italian/Sicilian-style, and your pimp is picking up the tab, I strongly recommend Paul Mineo’s.

 From Cori: "I really liked the décor and ambiance.  I think the food is good for the price. I like that it’s a family owned business too. The service is good, not great."

From Haley:

"I have dined at Mineo’s several times and the food is usually much better than it was this week. I thought the salad dressing was just red wine vinegar and they forgot the olive oil. The tilapia was okay and the service was a little slow. I was not impressed this week."

__________________________________________________

*Pimp: In this context this is not an insult. It’s just a ground-level, contractor standard term. Contracting companies connect people in their employ with certain skills and talents to companies that are seeking out those very services. The contracting companies take a percentage of the income of those providing the service, you know, like a pimp. (I do not know if they will bail us out of jail.) I mean no disrespect. Of course, to extend the metaphor, if my contracting company is my pimp, then that makes me a . . .

** Tilapia: A freshwater Cichlid, originally found in African lakes. They require warm water (78-82 degrees F.) and thus are only commercially farmed in the U.S. in southern climates. They are omnivores and unlike other fresh water food fish will eat floating vegetation, such as algae, and thus are used as non-competitive pond and lake cleaners. They breed fast and grow fast so they are to edible fish what pine is to lumber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilapia

El Bracero

80 Merchant St.

Cadiz Ky.

Miss Kitty 2

I took Friday off and drove down to visit my parents in beautiful, healthy and responsible southwestern Kentucky. They actually live in Cerulean, but for uptown needs like restaurants, gas stations, or stores of any kind, they have to head to either Hopkinsville or Cadiz. I grew up in Cadiz and attended/graduated from the county’s one and only school. There were not a lot of restaurants back then, the Cadiz Restaurant was there, and there was usually one form or another of a slimy burger place on the east side. Since then the town has grown some, the opening of an actual interstate (I-24) exit caused a mini-boom. There are several gas stations and restaurants there now even though it is well east of what was considered Cadiz when I was a kid.

As soon as I got to Cerulean I walked into the big quiet house and was greeted by my parents’ new cat, Miss Kitty 2. No, my parents are not preschoolers, they just didn’t want to have to come up with or try to remember a new name since the previous Miss Kitty lived a long, long time. Kitty 2, unlike her evil and spiteful predecessor warmed right up to me, not even flinching when I baritoned and barked “HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!” It did wake up my folks though.

We all hugged and greeted, I hadn’t seen them since Thanksgiving. In mere moments my mom asked if I’d eaten. I hadn’t since breakfast so they cleaned up a little and told me they wanted to take me to a Mexican restaurant that they had discovered. It was recommended to them by the pastor of their United Methodist Church (vastly superior to the old 'Disorganized Methodist Church'), Rev Steven Spitzer. I’ve met Rev. Spitzer a few times, he seems to be a sane and reasonable man. My parents like him a lot and respect his judgment, so I could not think of any reason to NOT try the place. Mom added that the pastor would like to know what I thought of the place, so I grabbed my top-secret critiquing notebook and jumped into their space-shuttle-like van.

Mom drove since she and my younger but bigger brother finally and permanently took the car keys away from my father. Dad grumbles about this of course, but he grumbles about most things, in a quiet though monotone-ish and generally annoying way that he finds quite amusing.

I won’t say my mother is a bad driver. There, lets just leave it at that. She probably drives just fine, its just that I get nervous around old people, I’m always afraid they’re going to tip over and break something. I’m haunted by that old lady on TV years ago, the one that had ‘. . .fallen and can’t get up!’

We arrived safely, I relaxed my white knuckles.  Mom had told me on the way about one of the restaurant's dishes, a Mexican-ized seafood plate that she liked quite well.

This place was also on the East side of town in a small shopping center strip. As it was only three o’clock, the place wasn’t very busy. In fact we were the only vehicle in the lot.

The Place:

'El Bracero', translates roughly as ‘strong arm’ usually referring to a laborer, one with strong arms, as opposed to the other kind of strong-arming which relates to Mafioso-like motivational methods. 

The décor of the place was clean and fresh. The walls were adorned with bright murals depicting a view through a Mexican-like casa window or doorway, outward to a beach scene, solitary palm trees, sand, waves crashing in. On the ceiling was a large Mexican flag nailed flat, the colors of the murals and the walls picking up the red, white and green color scheme, with a few yellows and pinks mixed in. The dark green carpet was in very good shape, no evidence of recent vomiting, always a good sign.

The place was staffed by Mexican-like people, attentive, friendly and smiling. I saw no one in particular with stronger arms than any of the others, but most looked stronger than me, so I decided not to cry out for sauerkraut.

Our waiter asked about drinks, my folks both asked for Diet Cokes. I stumbled for a moment. It would have been cool to order a beer, something I’ve never been able to do in Cadiz before. The county only became ‘wet’ a year and a half ago so there would be a novelty to having a beer served to me (legally) in Cadiz. But I was with my parents. Neither of them drink, neither of them have ever imbibed alcoholic beverages whatsoever. So out of respect, coupled with  the fact that I wasn’t really in the mood for beer, I asked for iced tea.

Our drinks arrived quickly along with the ubiquitous basket of chips, a beaker of red salsa, and three salsa bowls. Dad mentioned that he could make a meal out of those chips alone. The house salsa was spicier than I usually get at Mexican places, these particular braceros were bold.  It wasn’t too spicy though, it was a good spicy a little forehead sweat, but no screaming.

The Mexican music played in the background, slower stuff, trumpets and accordions. Sad sounding, yet always with a crescendo toward the end that indicated hope for better times to come. I couldn’t make out the words though, three years of Mrs. Hopson’s Spanish tutelage just didn’t stick. I never really made it past ‘Hola Paco, que tal?” and “Donde esta usted?” which I can remember, but for the life of me I’ve never found an actual use for.

The Food:

We all ordered the plate mom had talked about, the Bracero Seafood plate. Grilled tilapia filets, shrimp, rice, and a salad of shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes. We munched on the chips and talked about people whose names no one could remember, that did something we couldn’t quite recall, back about, what was it ten years ago? Twenty? “Didn’t he marry that one girl, what was her name? No I mean the other one, the dark haired girl from, what was it, Princeton?"

Fractured and meandering conversations like this, especially with my dad are constant. Twisting and turning memory exercises that usually end up with me just agreeing with whatever he said.

They of course asked about Angel and Adam, Angel’s dog-work fascinates them as it does everyone I tell the many rich, only slightly embellished stories about her to.

The food arrived quickly, and there was plenty of it. Three hand-sized filets, eight steaming jumbo shrimp, a large pile of rice and a tower of lettuce and tomatoes.

The fish was perfectly cooked, flaky, moist. The shrimp was expertly seasoned, the rice was…. well it was good. The lettuce and tomatoes were fresh. The tea though was cloudy and a bit bitter.

We continued catching up as we dug through the meal. I realized one filet in that I wasn’t going to be able to finish. Dad was eating kind of slowly, but certainly enjoying it.

I managed to get most of the way through the second filet and all eight shrimp when I finally gave up. I was stuffed to the gills. Mom had finished most everything dad still plodded along. The waiter came by and refreshed our drinks and took away the two plates. Dad looked frustrated. “I hate to keep eating after you two are finished, it makes me look like I eat a lot, but I don’t.” This is dad’s nature, to apologize for things that don’t actually need an apology, a silly, charming trait that I’ve inherited. Thanks dad.

He finally ate all he could and we sat a bit longer enjoying the air conditioned comfort, a luxury very few real braceros are ever afforded. The bill came, dad grabbed it, I made a token protest offering to pick up the tab. I knew going in that my dad would never allow me to pay for it.

Summary:

The food was really, really good. If I could find anything at all to gripe about it would be this. The plate was lacking a fluid of some kind, a sauce or maybe refried beans. The fish/rice/lettuce/shrimp were well prepared but there was an overall dryness to the plate. Some form of liquid bonding agent would have made an exceptional meal that much better. Something for the food to swim or be dunked in.

The price was very good, the plates cost a mere $7.99 each for a big pile of food. We left happy and full.

The drive home was pleasant, I got to look out at the rolling hills of the county that was my entire universe so many years ago. The farms, the quaint homes, the shirtless guys walking down the road, a few horses prancing in green pastures, the tobacco barns, cattle somberly counting down the days to inevitable butchering. All calming stuff of heavily sanitized yesteryear memories.

We stopped at their new Church building. My mom’s a huge church fan and is quite proud of the new place, as she should be. It was unlike any church I’d seen. An auditorium with two long office/classroom wings. The ‘sanctuary’ was designed as an open, high ceiling-ed space, the soft padded ‘pews’, more like connected chairs that could be easily disassembled and stored away to take advantage of the carpeted recreation surface. This building is phase one of a three phase building project. The real, permanent sanctuary is to be built later. The building still had that ‘new church’ smell to it.

We got back to Cerulean and settled in to relaxed talk, all of us full enough to not require any more meals that day. Especially since my younger, but bigger brother was going to fire up his smoker and cook various meats for a delicious feast on Saturday.

As for El Bracero, I highly recommend it. Sure, the four hour drive each way from my home might keep me from going there as often as I’d like, it’s still a pretty good place to eat.