In an attempt to kick-start my blog a bit, I would like to start writing about something I love to do: eat out. I don’t think that I will be writing formal restaurant reviews, but rather something more akin to a restaurant experience synopsis (think editorial, not hard news). Usually one might start a series like this on a positive note, but my experience yesterday is still fresh in my mind and will possibly be more entertaining… and I really needed to vent somewhere - I almost kicked a small helpless puppy right in the small helpless stomach before I remembered that I had setup this blog. These things are designed to sponge-up all the cathartic narcissism one could possible secrete, right? Anyways, here is my first installment of The Andrus Restaurant Experience or: How I Learned to Start Blogging and Stop Kicking Puppies.

Amanda and I have been doing the summer reading program at our local library. After reading a certain number of hours our kids get to pick out a small prize which has historically been something like a picture book, a squooshy rubber fly with neon-green guts, or a coupon for a free sundae at a local ice cream joint. The latest LibraryBooty^TM was a fairly elaborate package of goodies passed out at a local community fair. They got coloring sheets, stickers, crayons, and tickets to rides at the fair. Needless to say, they had a great time running around the fair with Amanda! As part of their prize package the boys also got a coupon for a free kids meal at the Hudsonville Grille - a watering hole just down the road from the fair grounds. After a long day of riding spinning dragons, eating fair food and petting all the 4-H animals, the boys were tired and hungry. Amanda picked me up from work, and the plan was to grab a quick dinner and then head back to the fair for one last round of tractor climbing, elephant ear eating, pig-petting fair fun. Neither Amanda nor I had ever been to The Grille, but we are both ones to try new places and give the benefit of the doubt, so instead of eating what was deemed to be greasy fair-food we decided to cash in the boys free kids meals, and eat dinner at the Village Seafood & Grille (or whatever its name is, I guess it was changed after it opened back up…).

The restaurant was in a small strip mall next to a BP, just off of the highway. It looked OK from the outside and the hostess seemed friendly, but there was a lingering smell of deep-fried fish oils and griddle-seared 80/20 which should have tripped my GreasySpoonDetector. It must have been thwarted that day by the ever-powerful IHaveAFreeCoupon-ReasonJammingSystem, which had to have been invented by the midwest dutch, because the four of us were seated in a Denny’s-like booth and began looking through the menu.

Nothing really jumped out at me, so I decided to go with the Caribbean Jerk Chicken salad (sounds pretty good, right?), Amanda ordered the daily special - a steak sizler with sautéd onions and mushrooms, Broni got a hamburger, and Wesley wanted macaroni and cheese. After a delay which seemed a bit excessive given the amount of people in the restaurant (approximately 5), our food was brought out. Here’s where things took a real turn for the worse. My “jerk chicken” salad would more accurately be described as “small bits of flavorless meat set atop limp iceberg lettuce, over-sized chunks of mozerella and enough salad dressing to fill a kiddie pool… oh and some watermelon and cantaloupe chunks on the side because this is a fancy salad.” Amanda’s “steak” was even worse: it appeared as though someone had taken some ground-chuck, compacted and smooshed it, griddle fried it, tossed a few MSG-laden canned mushrooms and over-sized warmed onion chunks (no, they couldn’t have been fried) on top, plated the whole disaster and then charged me $8.99 for it. I could feel my puppy-kicking urges begin to rumble.

The kids didn’t fair much better. Broni’s hamburger was overcooked, but actually edible (though he didn’t finish it). Wesley’s macaroni tasted like canned Velveeta had been spread over stale noodles (the kind that taste like cardboard box) and then microwaved too long. A bit of background: Wesley loves his macaroni and cheese. Wesley will eat devour huge amounts of macaroni and cheese. Wesley left about half of his meal on the plate.

As if the food wasn’t enough of a strike against this sad little place, they decided to engage their FreeCouponRejecting system (which seems to have Dick Cheney-like ties to the IHaveAFreeCoupon-ReasonJammingSystem) by not allowing me to use two free kids meal coupons on the same bill. Amanda: “But the kids just got these today, and nowhere on the coupon does it say that we can’t use both.” Waitress: “I’m sorry, we can’t take both of them. I can only give you one free kids meal.” Realizing that we were arguing over $3.99, I decided to pay the bill, leave the extra coupon anyways, and get out of there as fast as my grease-filled stomach would let me.

I was so out of sorts, that on the car ride to the fair I somehow got us completely turned around, and started bickering with Amanda as to the exact location of the fair. Had I not come to my senses, my marriage would have crumbled, my kids would have resented me for the rest of their life, and I would still be lost in the back streets of Hudsonville. Fortunately, I was able to reach deep within myself and begin directing my confusion and angst towards the proper target: the HGrille… Seafood… Village… whatever.

The elephant ear and burnt coffee I procured from Carny a short time later never tasted so good.