Dinner Time

My favorite wife and I left work late yesterday so, instead of coming home to grill steaks as we had planned, we opted to have dinner at a restaurant. She had gone to lunch with a now-former employee some time ago at a place she said served decent chicken-fried steaks, so we stopped in to the place, called the Chop House.

It's biker bar that tries to evolve into a steak house at night. We entered and noticed a huge dance floor in the middle of the caverous place. There were almost no diners, but a few groups were clustered on the bar side of the place. Since we were not greeted when we came in, we picked a booth near the door. A guy finally came over to offer us drinks; we both asked for water. Just after he left, I noticed that the place was a smoking establishment and I noticed a very loud group of obnoxious women near our table. Moments after I noticed the group, a couple of them started shrieking in high-pitched and very loud and disturbing laughter. My wife must have read my face, because she asked, "Do you want to leave?"

I said I did and abruptly stood up, strode to the door, and held it open for her as she came up from behind. I think the people in the place got the message about why we were leaving, but they didn't care.

We got in the car and headed east toward our house but decided to stop in another place, called Remington's Seafood Grill, a place we'd never been. It was outstanding, and not expensive. My wife had grilled sea scallops and I had horseradish-encrusted tilapia. Both of them were excellent, as were the sides, steamed broccoli and cole slaw for me and baked squash and cole slaw for her.

Tonight, I'm grilling New York strip steak and okra...maybe a sliced tomato on the side. If I'd been thinking, I would have quartered an onion and thrown it on the grill, but I'm tired from a long, long day's work.

Now, it's dinner time.