If you haven't figured it out, I went out to eat tonight (not totally obvious, but if you've been there, you'll get it). It's been a while. I recently discovered there are more things affecting my digestion, and I haven't eaten out because I'm doing my best to keep them completely out until I'm able to reintroduce them one by one to see if they're affecting me.
Today was a really rough day, so my husband basically demanded that we go out to eat to decompress. We've been so busy that we basically have zero food in the house, and I wasn't sure what other choice we had besides going grocery shopping and then making food. That would have sucked because I was already starving.
We planned on a local steakhouse, but when we got there, the parking lot was literally packed. I didn't want to wait for a table for over half an hour, and I hate eating out at packed restaurants because it's more risky, so we decided to try another restaurant a mile down the road. My husband called them on our way, and they said they had no wait, so we were relieved. For some reason their parking lot was just as packed as the first place, so we questioned if it was necessary to try a second location. At that point, I didn't care how badly I wanted a steak. I just wanted food.
My favorite waiter also works at the restaurant we wound up at, so it was ok with me. Unfortunately, he was working, but he wasn't waiting tables so we had to go with a random waiter/waitress.
Even at the end of the night, I wasn't entirely sure what to think of our waitress. When I first mentioned gluten-free, she said we could do basically anything on the menu except for pasta. When I mentioned I had issues with dairy and soy, she asked if I wanted her to grab the gluten-free menu so I could figure out what I could eat. I was a little worried at that point because there was no reason to grab a gluten-free menu due to other allergies.
The drink I ordered was amazing. The waitress suggested it, and I decided to give it a shot. When I first took a sip, I was about to tell my husband how good it was when another flavor hit, and then another, and another, and another. I didn't describe what I had experienced, but rather had him try it, and his reaction was hilarious. He expressed the same reaction I had just experienced very well.
Unfortunately, the drink turned into a huge fail. My favorite waiter had found a few minutes to come chat with us, and at one point, he said something about how my drink had Disaronno Amaretto in it. I froze because Amaretto is made from almonds and I'm allergic. I had only taken a few sips at that point, but I had a horrendous reaction to Amaretto about 10 years ago, and I didn't want to experience that again. My friend quickly scooped up the drink and said he would make a new one without the Amaretto. My husband looked it up and discovered Disaronno is made with almond flavor and there is supposedly no almonds or nuts of any form. It also said the recipe had not changed since the 1500's, but it was hard for me to believe that something made in the 1500's was made with "almond flavor." Did that even exist then?
I wound up getting a prosciutto wrapped pork dish. They said it had butter in the sauce, but I really didn't want a dry piece of pork wrapped in prosciutto, nor did I want the usual salmon I normally get there, so I figured I'd deal with my dairy reaction to get a great tasting meal. It was worth it, but mainly because I didn't seem to have any reaction to it so I question if there really was butter in the sauce. If I weren't such a worry wart, I wouldn't have had that thought lead me to question if there was really gluten in the meal that they hadn't realized was there. If they can make one mistake on ingredients, of course they can make another. Then again, I had no reaction to anything, so of course it was safe. That's just the way my mind works. (Did that even make any sense???)
The meal also had this amazing side of broccoli and cauliflower. I've never liked cauliflower. I don't hate it, but I definitely don't choose it willingly most of the time. Supposedly it's drizzled in olive oil and then oven roasted. I'm definitely going to give it a shot at some point because (I'll say it again) it was amazing!
The waitress ended the evening by telling us that we needed to come back more often, and it was her goal to create a new menu completely based around me. By the end, she realized it was pointless to offer us dessert because there were exactly zero items on the menu I could eat.
We were sure to tip her really well even though I questioned how great of a waitress she was for many reasons (including a very inappropriate comment she made to the table behind me). The tip wasn't really based on her service, but rather on my needs. I know I am a total pain to deal with. I know it takes a ton of extra time to check on all of my requests and such, and I feel they should be rewarded for that as it's taking time from other customers who may or may not dock the waitresses tips for being slow because of me. I feel it is my responsibility to make up for that. The only time I won't tip really well is if they were to outright refuse to check things for me or if it's obvious they didn't actually check. Thankfully that's never happened.
So that's my story. I went out to eat tonight. I think I'll use that as the title. I guess it fits well.... ;)
