The Cold Dinner

Article

I am trying my hand at another avenue this week and that is restaurant analysis. Now I know that many of you are thinking, “Matt, you know less about food than you do movies!” And granted I wouldn’t know a le fromage blanc from flocons de maïs, but be that as it may, I still have a wonderful idea that may revolutionize our dining experience. Or at least mine. Many cities and states have done away with the smoking sections of our favorite eateries, right? This is the greatest idea since they installed stadium seating in movie theaters. I have never smoked so I it always amazed me how the smoke knew what section to stay in. And no offense to my smoking friends but, can you really not wait to get to the car before setting one a blaze? Will the food somehow not settle unless followed immediately by a billowy gust of smoke? But I digress, I didn’t really want to talk about that issue at all. What I am thinking is far more significant. What I am proposing is that we now substitute Smoking or Non-smoking with.. are you ready? Freezing or non-freezing. It’s brilliant. I don’t know how many times my wife and I have tried to eat our food with our teeth chattering like one of those wind-up monkey toys while scraping the ice off the top of our hot sauce and,,,,,, well you get the picture. Many times I wish I was in the smoking section so I could set the table next to me on fire and get some heat circulating. My wife actually got up Saturday night and asked them if they could turn off the air conditioner. And our thanks to the management for actualizing obliging her request. But we still pondered the question as to why they had the air conditioner on in the first place when it was 42 degrees outside? Are there that many hot people in this world? Are we the only ones that have this problem? I have met a few other “cold” people who, like us, always feel as if the rest of the world is soaking up all the heat somehow. And I have heard the lame excuse of, “well you can put on enough close to get warm but you can’t take off enough to get cool.” This usually is stated by someone who has a resting body temperature of 102 degrees. I am singling out restaurants because this is supposed to be an entertainment article. But many department stores are just as bad. I can’t imagine how many things we would have bought if we could have lasted in a store more than 5 minutes without our blood freezing. Luckily we have noticed that movie theaters are pretty good about keeping the room at a nice temp. Maybe it’s all the closeness of warm bodies but lately I haven’t had to bundle up to watch a flick. I am sure many of you “other” people think that theaters are as hot as pizza ovens and you come out feeling like une tarte flambée. Well all this talk of food has made me hungry. I’m not sure what establishment Nelly wrote his hit song about, but I wonder if they serve lunch. I would love to for once be able to proclaim loudly, as I woof down a grilled chicken sandwich, “It’s getting hot in herre!” With my first and hopefully last restaurant critique, I’m Matt Mungle.