Val's ALL-YOU-CAN Feast

Thevictorian family went to feast at a local all-you-can-eat catfish restaurant Thursday evening!

Yes, we don't get out much. The end of the school year was busy, and Val has been on this cutting-back, wise-choice dietary regime, and Hick has been off to France...so our special-occasion dinners were all backed up.

After signing the papers and driving The Pony's new used car off the lot, we headed, in separate vehicles, to the FelineFish Skillet. Not its actual name. Val has to change names to protect the guilty. This was to be a celebratory feast for Mother's Day, Graduation, Retirement, and Car-Buying.

Let the record show that Val did not make wise choices. Nor did she cut back. You only retire once in life. So you might as well eat all the catfish you can. I had good intentions. I had been dreaming about going to this place for four months. About the time I started the cutting-back, wise-choice dietary regime. I figured I could have one piece of fish. Two pieces of chicken. A spoonful of slaw. One fat fry. Yeah. I could do it. Hadn't I gone for four freakin' months without being unwise? Including the weekend for The Pony's Special Award ? (STILL not a leg lamp).

Let the record show that not only was Val bereft of wise choices...she was a dietary simpleton! Seriously! Who can sit in an all-you-can-eat catfish house and resist the catfish, tartar sauce, chicken breast strips, sweet-and-sour chicken sauce, shrimp, fat fries, ketchup, slaw, hush puppies, honey butter, garlic mashed potatoes, and baked beans? Not this ol' ravenous Val!

That was just the food we ASKED for. The menu is much more extensive. More on that in a minute.

I figured that one meal out of 17 weeks of meals was not going to bankrupt my caloric savings. I admit that I lost count on what crossed my lips. I DO know that the baked beans were crappy, so only one taste reached my gullet. And that Hick ordered the garlic mashed potatoes, usually a favorite of The Pony, in a tiny bowl for himself. So I only had two spoons. Shrimp is never my guilty pleasure, so I only had two of them. Hush puppies are the domain of The Pony, and nary a one crossed my plate or lips. As for the fish...it was more than a lonely castle-homed bowl-dweller, and less than a school. The chicken is where I lost my head. It's my favorite, though not as good as it used to be, what with half-breasts being served up in the past, and mere chicken finger-sized portions under the new management. Fries, I had a few. And of course SLAW! But I DID drink water! Not soda.

Of course I justified my feast. Had I not returned from the doctor only two days previous, with a glowing report of losing 39 POUNDS more than I originally thought? Still...I took the next three days to severely cut back, to balance out my presumed caloric calculations of the feast ingestion.

But here's what outraged me about our feasting experience. You knew there would be something, RIGHT? Because Val does not type up these manifestos just to hear her own fingers clicking on the keyboard.

All you can eat means ALL YOU CAN EAT!

Did I make myself clear? You would think the owners of the FelineFish Skillet would know the meaning of those words. What they entail. The connotation of unlimited portions. But it seems that once they put out that language bait, and set the hook, and reel in their customers...they forget all about that implied promise!

I dare not link their menu. But I will type up what's on it:
____________________________________________________________________

FELINEFISH SKILLET

Family Style
ALL YOU CAN EAT
FISH/CHICKEN/SHRIMP
Endless Side Dishes/Endless Hush Puppies
Loosen Your Belt

Adult (12 YRS & Up) 12.99 / Child (5-11 YRS) 5.99 / Child (4YRS & Under) FREE

Creamy Cole Slaw
Baked Beans
Fresh Cucumber Salad
Fried Okra
Applesauce
Cottage Cheese
Crispy Potato Wedges
Steamed Vegetables
Steamed Rice
Fried Corn on the Cob

AND at the very bottom of the menu, where it lists HOMESTYLE SIDE DISHES, the above are listed again, as well as

Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Caesar Salad
______________________________________________________________________

So, you see, they plainly advertise on their menu, that they hand you when they seat you at the table, that this restaurant serves ALL YOU CAN EAT. They declare that the side dishes are endless. They even tell you to loosen your belt!

We did not have an issue with the ALL YOU CAN EAT. Even though the waitress was so slow in bringing more fish that we requested that I imagined her driving to a pond, digging for worms, sitting on the bank, waiting for a bite, reeling in her catch, driving back to the restaurant, fileting that fish on a wooden counter out back, tossing its guts to neighborhood cats, rolling it in cornmeal, frying it up, and finally bringing it to our table. You would think that an ALL YOU CAN EAT fish restaurant would have some fish already fried during the dinner hour.

No, we had an issue with the family of five who came in when we were waiting for our fish, and ordered the ALL YOU CAN EAT. Our waitress (no wonder it took so long for our fish--she couldn't even get in her car to drive to the pond yet) asked them which sides they wanted. The matriarch of the family said, "All of them."

WELL! You would have thought they asked for a 51 % share of the business!

"Um. We don't really bring all of the sides."

"It says here, 'ALL YOU CAN EAT. ENDLESS SIDE DISHES.'"

"Yes. But...um...we usually don't do that. Do you know which ones you want?"

"We want to try them all."

"Okay...um...how many of you want Cole Slaw?" And she proceeded to ask how many wanted each of those side dishes! When she got to the Fried Corn on the Cob, the matriarch said that everybody wanted one. And the waitress said, "EVERYBODY?" Hick in a tuxedo pumping a handcar! It's a 3-inch tiny cob, the size you might get at KFC, not a full-size roastin' ear! We tried it right after the place underwent new ownership, because the waitress pushed it. It is not that good.

After taking the order, the waitress left to go catch our fish. And the matriarch cut eyes at the other three adults at the table, and said, "I'll be darned if I'm paying $12.99 and not getting all the sides."

Heh, heh.

Somebody's gotta keep 'em honest!