Does That Look Like A Sandwich To You?

The problem with going out to eat with eleven people on Valentine's Day in Chicago is that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE with TOO MANY IDEAS. Because (for some reason) several of us wanted to go somewhere within walking distance of the hotel, and almost every restaurant was jammed full of people, one person in the group decided to that we should all go to this diner on Michigan Avenue which was practically empty.

Okay, simply the fact that this place was empty when every other restaurant was packed full of people should have tipped us off, actually, it did tip ME, Urban and Jim off, but we were with a huge group of people and we had already tried to go to three other restaurants and gotten turned away. So we decided to just go with the flow.

HOWEVER, food is really important to each of us, so in hindsight, Jim said, "Me and Urban should have grabbed you and ran for a taxi out of there!"

It was the type of diner that had one million items. Which is another bad sign. I asked Urban what he was ordering, and he said you can't go wrong with a burger. So that's what we ordered. As it turns out, you CAN go wrong with a burger. It was terrible. Urban ordered a side of fried mushrooms, but the cook misunderstood and put mushrooms IN Urban's burger. The waitress corrected the mistake and Urban kept the mushrooms on this burger. After a few bites of the fried mushrooms, Urban told me to try some.

"Okay," I said. I took a piece of fried mushroom, dipped it in the barbecue sauce and right before I popped it in my mouth, I asked him, "Is it good?"

He shook his head sadly and softly said, "No."

Later on, I noticed that Jim's meal looked like a pile of white goo. I couldn't think for the life of me what that was, so I asked him, "What did you order?"

Jim very angrily and loudly said, "It's a SANDWICH! What did you THINK?" I mean, steam was coming out of his ears. You would have thought I had asked him if he was wearing panties.

I turned to Urban and very quietly asked him, "Does that LOOK like a sandwich to you?"

And Urban turned and said, "Uhm...no..."

Later Jim apologized. He explained that he had told the waitress he wanted gravy ON THE SIDE and she must have assumed he wanted the gravy ON ALL SIDES of his plate. Which was why that SANDWICH looked like a PILE OF WHITE GOO. Later that night I took Jim to South Loop Club for a gyro and he felt tons better. And when we were talking about the diner, I said, "I felt that it was just a waste of twenty dollars."

Urban said, "It was more like wasting a chance for something good to eat, which is WAY more important than just twenty dollars."

Totally agreed.