St Patty's Day, Interrupted

We went out to dinner for St. Patty's Day last night. We had to, I'm Irish!
We went with friends to the Melting Pot for their Irish beer dinner. The setup was pretty nice--they had a big room with 3 long tables and 3 fondue pots for each table.

As a side note, Troy didn't like the setup. As he said, if I wanted to go to dinner with some strangers, I wouldn't have chosen the beat bloated dude we had to sit next to. For the record, the couple near us were actually very nice. A bit chatty, but nice.

Anyway, the first course was cheese fondue, of course. It was paired with Kelly's Irish Cider, Raspberry flavored. I loved that stuff! Wow, I could drink that all the time. I'll have to find somewhere to get my drink on with that stuff.

The second course was salad. I chose the Caesar. It had Parmesan-crusted pine nuts. They were outstanding, and a nice addition to a Caesar. I'm usually pretty picky about my Caesar salads.

(flashback to '93) My Caesar pickiness stems from a cross-country drive I was on. Stopped at a Denny's in Utah. Yeah, I know, a Denny's in Utah. I ordered a Caesar salad because how could you mess up Romaine, croutons, Caesar dressing. Yes, you can get all fancy with that (made tableside, anchovies, parmesan shavings, etc), but at its core, those are the 3 things that make a Caesar a Caesar. Take one away, and no Caesar. So anyway, I order my Caesar, there in Denny's and the waitress says:

"what kind of dressing you want with that?"

Me: "Excuse me?"

Waitress: "What kind of dressing do you want on your Caesar?"

Me: "Caesar dressing"

Waitress: "Honey, I know you want a Caesar, but I need to know what kind of dressing you want on it"

Me: "Can I have Caesar dressing?"

Waitress gives me sort of an angry look

Me: "Caesar salads generally have a dressing on them called Caesar dressing. Why can't I have that?"

Waitress: "We don't have 'Caesar' dressing"

Me: "Ranch?"

Waitress: "Yeah, I can do ranch for you"

So out comes the salad with Romaine, tomatoes, carrots and ranch dressing. I guess in a Denny's in Utah, "Caesar" means you want Romaine lettuce instead of iceberg in your salad. Oh, and you want to pay $1.00 more for that "fancy" lettuce.

The best Caesar I had was in Florida. One of those places that make the salad right at your table. Kind of cliche, but in this case, the salad was awesome. Hint of anchovies, garlic croutons, Parm shavings, a very garlicy fresh-made dressing, Really crisp Romaine cut at bite-size pieces. Yummy.

So back to St. Patty's Day...
Paired with the salad they offered Wexfords. Wexfords is one of those Irish beers that, like Boddingtons and Guiness,comes in the pub can with the little ball in there that makes the beer pour all funny. Now don't get made at me purists, I say funny to mean just that its different than your standard beer pour. Usually, I don't like beer that comes in funny cans with little balls in it. However, I reallly enjoyed Wexfords. Or maybe I was just in love with my Parmesan-crusted pine nuts and my taste buds were dead from the Raspberry Cider. In any case, it is a beer I will order again.

The entree was standard Melting Pot fare--raw meats and veggies for you to boil up on your own. It was served with some double-chocolate malt bock stout nasty crap I would rather not taste or drink. So I gave mine away.

Ah, and then towards the end of the meat course, comes the Smithwick's. Ah, I love me some Smithwicks.

But then came the phone call. From the sitter.

Little Zack fell down and bumped his crown. And cried for 20 minutes. My son doesn't cry for 20 minutes. He only moans at night for 20 minutes when he wants his bottle or his mommy. So we left. Early. Before the chocolate course. Great sadness.

And I didn't get to finish my Smithwick's.

By the time we got back to check on him, Z was his old happy self, no sign of pupil dialation, etc. We think the crying was cause he got scared when he smacked his coconut.

Did I mention I didn't even finish my Smithwick's? And that I didn't get the chocolate fondue?

Tonight is our anniversary (13th!) and a trip to Morton's. Maybe no interruptions this evening.