Thursday, September 29, 2011

More About Food I Can't Eat Any More :-)

I cannot tell you how many years ago this happened but I believe it was in 1998.  A co-worker and I had to spend two weeks in Dallas, TX for the job.  For some reason I was considered very conservative where food was concerned and my friend was considered adventurous.  Little did they realize the restaurants he was always talking about the next day were the ones I picked out.  We went to some very interesting places but the night I am going to talk about now is the night we went to the Brazilian restaurant.

I should be able to remember the name of it but my senility is kicking in right now.  With all the cooking shows, tourist shows on now I'm pretty sure everyone knows about Brazilian restaurants.  But in 1998 neither he nor I had heard of one.  We could were just driving around on 'restaurant row' and did not particularly want to go back to the Lebanese place when I spotted this place sitting out by itself and suggested we try that.

(Ok, I just did a search and the name of it is Fogo de Chao. )

We got there and found out it was a one price fits all place.  Pretty much it was (at the time) $24.96 a person for the salad bar and all the meat and sides you could eat.  In 1998 that was a pretty good price for a meal but that was nothing compared to what it would be by the time we left.

We went in and were seated then headed to the salad bar.  It was a very nice one and neither of us skimped on the salad.  Then we headed back to the table to look at the menu but that was pretty wasted.  The waitress explained the procedure with the big, round, checker looking thing that was green on one side and red on the other.   This place had thirteen different meats and when you turned the green side up servers would come by and stop with every one of those meats on big, long skewers and cut you off as much as you wanted.  If you wanted to be left alone just turn the red side up and concentrate on eating.   Lordy, I wish the servers in some restaurants around here were that easy to find or get rid of.

So,  upon finding out there were thirteen different meats we decided we were going to try every one of them.  Now, it was not just the salad bar and meat there were sides as well.  I do remember there was some kind of cactus and baked plantains.  Other than that I really do not remember the sides.  So we started in on those thirteen meats and the servers also kept those hot sides coming even before we got low on them. 

I believe it was somewhere around seven thirty in the evening when we got there.  It was close to eleven thirty by the time we left.  Suffice it to say we did not waste any of the intervening time.  I will not waste either of our time detailing exactly what we had mostly because I cannot remember it.  But a brief synopsis of the meal was I had nine of the meats and my friend had eleven.  We each had a bottle of wine during the meal.  (Bottle, not glass).  After the meal we has some monstrous desert then Irish coffee.  Maybe we had more and those sides kept arriving on schedule the whole time we were there.

It has been over thirteen years so you will forgive me if I do not remember the exact tab we ran up but as best I recall it was around three hundred and sixty dollars including tip.  But it is not nearly as bad as it sounds since we were both on per diem and that was only about three or four days of our food money. 

But, gluttony has its own punishment.  I remember that drive from the restaurant back to the hotel.  Neither of us could even look at another food place.   My friend said he did not sleep at all that night and we were both glad it was Saturday and we did not have to show up for work the next morning.  He said he spent the whole weekend throwing up and could not eat  until the middle of the next week.  I only threw up the next morning but I really did not want any food for a couple of days myself.  And even then it was very small meals.

It was right after that food orgy the symptoms of diabetes began showing up though they were not recognized at the time.  It was not too long after I returned home the diagnosis was made.  Now I cringe to even think of how much food I put down my gullet that night.  It would last me a couple of weeks  now and probably be less expensive as I cannot eat that kind of rich food at all and expect it to stay down,.

Amazing the things one can do when one is young(er) and (more) stupid.  Maybe we would have been better off in the long run going back to Hedarry's (Lebanese place) but I'm sure it would not have been such a lingering memory.

1 comment:

  1. I am sad that my trip to Hedarry's was ruined by my double-flu. That food was so good and I was too sick to enjoy it. :(

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