Life on the Road

Father’s Day was a little hectic here…

Nick left for his summer experience with Worldview Academy in Denver.  A 7 am flight (checking bags), get to the airport around 5:30, leave home by 4:30 at the latest – so we got up at 3.  AM.

And since it didn’t make sense to go home when our church is so far north of us (on the way home from the airport), we got dressed and ready to go. 

We did have the pleasure of stopping at Krispy Kreme on the way back, since we had some time to kill.  I never buy them from the grocery store, but I also rarely pass up these infrequent opportunities to get some “Hot Now”!

After church, the little ones and I took Wolf to Outback Steakhouse (the Kendall, FL location) for Father’s Day.  A good steak is probably his favorite thing to eat.

Next time, remind me to officially move our Father’s Day celebration to a different day.  Ugh!

It seemed to start out well.  Although they were busy, we were able to be seated right away.

Then came the annoying-but-trivial:  The menu says, “Ask your server about our fresh-brewed flavored iced teas!” 

Actually, all they have is the generic “Sweet” and “Unsweet” tea.  You can also order flavored lemonades (made with syrups) from the bar (no free refills).

So anyhow, we ordered.  Wolf got a steak – big surprise.

We ordered a Grilled cheese sandwich for Jewel, and asked what kind of cheese was on it.  American.  Eeeew!

When we asked about options, she said there was also Swiss.  Not a kid favorite.

At our insistence, she agreed to check with the kitchen, and indeed, a Cheddar Cheese sandwich was made.

Why was it such a struggle?

I ordered Prime Rib.  Medium-Well, end cut if possible.

The piece of meat I got was pretty thoroughly (over-) cooked on the outside.  But the inside was dark pink all the way through.  It looked about like this illustration of “Rare” from About.com Steaks.  While the middle was more towards pink, there was perhaps even less brown border than this!

Clearly, this was cooked at WAY too hot a temperature. 

I can only assume that they were trying to hurry things up, knowing it would be a busy day.  Bad idea!

The bread was also a little bland and stale, and we wondered if perhaps they had baked ahead yesterday to accomodate the holiday traffic.  Again – Bleah!

And isn’t it common to serve or offer steak sauce with a steak, and horseradish with prime rib?  We had to ask for both, and then further ask for sour creme to go with the straight horseradish.  What a hassle this meal was!

Anyhow, the waitress came and took my meat back to the kitcen.  I said to Wolf, “The only way that is going to have any hope of being cooked right is if they butterfly it.  Otherwise it will just be totally dried out and gross.”

Guess what?  Yeah – it was totally dried out and gross.  At this point I was sad to hear Wolf say that his steak, while thin enough to be relatively done, was also dry and tough!

The manager came over while I was taking Jewel to the restroom, and told Wolf he would make me a new steak.  That was not necessarily the resolution we wanted at that point, since the meal was over and the kids were fussy, but he was in such a hurry he didn’t even ask.

He brought the plate back, and the new Prime Rib was cooked…  Adequately, I guess – probably in all fairness it was cooked to Medium; I wouldn’t have sent it back if it had come that way the first time.

Just for reference, Medium-Well should look like this (again from About.com):

Unfortunately, by now the kids were squirmy, and we just needed to get going. 

I explained this all to the managers, who stood there with a blank face.  I felt very awkward, and didn’t know whether to stop or keep talking…

Eventually, he took it to pack up to go, and also agreed to take it off the bill.

But it didn’t feel like a “warm and fuzzy” resolution, nor like a happy Father’s Day experience.

It’s not like Outback doesn’t have packed-to-capacity traffic on other days (every weekend!), so I’m not sure why this happened.  But it sure did shake my confidence in them as a nice place to get consistently good food and service.