Don't Eat Here

On Saturday the 21st of September, 2002, I wrote the following in my diary.

I'm thinking of cashing in on this TV chef fad. I had an idea for my own show, all done on shaky camcorder with me in my own kitchen cooking up my version of Mexican food - lots of close ups of the bin as I mutter I don't believe in food hygiene - it's all bollocks in the background. It's all bollocks, would become my catchphrase just like Jamie Oliver's Dick Van Dykisms. My face would be on tins of Sainsbury's produce captioned go ahead, eat it; what's the fucking worst that could happen? A second idea along these lines would be my book Don't Eat Here, a guide to all the misleading eateries into which I have stumbled.

Seventeen years later, it seems like my cookery show isn't going to happen; and Don't Eat Here is probably a bit of a non-starter given that I try to avoid eating at crap restaurants and diners, so the list is thus far hardly of length sufficient to justify an entire book; nevertheless and for what it may be worth, should you, gentle reader, happen to find yourself in San Antonio, I'd recommend giving the following a wide berth. A couple of these have actually shut up shop, but the advice should still be heeded if you're a time traveller.

Chili's Grill & Bar. Someone described this sort of joint as Chuck-E-Cheese for adults, although it wasn't Wikipedia because they describe it as a casual dining restaurant chain. There are a fucking million of these places dotted along every single highway, each parking lot heaving with trucks spilling gurgling knuckleheads out across the asphalt. Once inside you will find a lively environment, as I'm sure they call it, with a thousand flat screens just above head height and every single one showing a ball game of some description. The deafening soundtrack will comprise either football commentary and associated amiable horseshit or hair metal hits of the eighties. The food is brightly coloured and highly reflective due to some weird glaze, even the burger buns. Everything drips with a bright yellow goop approximating cheese, and if you so choose, it's actually possible to order a side of fries with your burger and fries burger, which comes with fries; and coke; or children's fizzy beer if your name is Josh or Greg or Hunter or one of those.

There's a guy with a dog who lives in one of the houses at the back of our own. Every once in a while I hear him calling to the dog as I work in the back garden. The dog's name is Bear, and the man has a deep, slow voice. He enunciates each word as though someone has hit him around the side of the head with a baseball bat only a moment before. One evening I heard him calling to his dog, variations on the same sentence over and over. 'Come on, Bear… don't you be a coward now, Bear…'

I have no idea what was going on, but I'll bet he eats at Chili's.

Chili's proves that the free market economy does not work.

Flair. Everybody in Alamo Heights seemed to think Flair was amazing, but then I never cease to be amazed by what people in Alamo Heights consider amazing. Mexican street food, they screeched all across our local bit of internet. The term refers to what is simply known as food in Mexico itself and, practically speaking, means tacos but nothing else typically served on a Mexican street. We therefore ordered tacos. The waitress was of the kind who endeavours to involve herself in the diner's existence by commenting awesome in response to one's order, as though surprised and impressed by our choices, perhaps not having realised that tacos were on the menu at her place of work. There were ten or twelve other members of staff watching, having nothing else to do because we were the only customers. Our tacos came and they were nice enough - although pathetic compared to the standard of those served at the mighty Cocina el Jibarazo on Austin Highway - and they cost about three times what they should have cost, presumably because that's what the dingbats of Alamo Heights expect to pay. As we left, the waitress informed us that we might like to keep Sunday free because they would be having a DJ, meaning we could eat average but grossly overpriced tacos while a young man with a beard tickled the decks with a crucial selection of proper nang tunes. We didn't go back on Sunday, or indeed ever again.

The Granary. Admittedly this was a few years ago, and Bess had told me that lunchtime at the Granary was amazing. Unfortunately we went in the evening which is characterised by a different menu and, seemingly, a different approach to the dining experience. I don't remember what I had, and I don't remember it being bad, but I distinctly recall that the waiter spent at least five minutes telling me what the chef was going to do, and liquid nitrogen may have been involved. This delayed my waiter's return to the kitchen with my order by at least five minutes, which was annoying because I was hungry and didn't really give a shit how the chef was planning to prepare whatever it was that I'd ordered. For all I cared, he could have eaten the ingredients, shat them directly onto the street outside, and then driven a steam roller backwards and forwards over the resulting fecal patty, providing it tasted good. I suspect this gastronomic prologue formed part of an holistic dining experience, at least judging by the drinks being served in fucking jam jars.

J. Alexander's, which I can't quite keep myself from thinking of as J. Arthur's, is another of those casual dining things, but without the million flat screen tellies. The food seems initially promising, providing you're not put off by all the toadying, congratulations on your choice and so on. The main problem is that when the food arrives, it's not great, and worse is that it's almost great yet isn't, presenting a culinary analogy of that truism about androids and how the closer they come to appearing human without actually quite getting there, the weirder and more upsetting they seem. I ate at this place quite a few times due to the preference of a family member, and even food which tasted decent left me feeling as though I'd gorged a bucket of salted lard for the rest of the afternoon. The very last time I ate there I had some pasta thing which was so salty it made my mouth sore as I was trying to eat it.

Jack in the Box. My word probably isn't worth much here as I've only eaten at Jack in the Box once, and it was nearly a decade ago. Jack in the Box is a burger chain in the McDonald's mode distinguished mainly by a greater emphasis on irony in their advertising. I was in one of those moods where you just want to eat something cheap and crappy, and so I ordered what I believe may have been a burrito. I'm not wild about burritos anyway, so it wasn't a great choice, but I only discovered that I wasn't wild about burritos after I ate this one which was essentially a tube of dense, endless meat. It was wrapped in a tortilla and was hot and heavy. It felt like a cosh, something which could be used in a fight, and was additionally so salty that it made me cry. I doubt there's enough irony in the world to get me eating another one of those things, and if it helps illustrate my thesis, I might draw your attention to the fact of McDonald's having failed to make this list.

Lupe Tortilla. It seemed like a bit of an event when the Lupe Tortilla chain opened a restaurant in San Antonio, but as we realised once we ate there, whilst the place might seem a big deal in Houston, we have actual Mexican food in San Antonio and therefore no real reason to eat what is essentially Mexican food for white people. Fancifying and generally pissing about with what is on the plate doesn't fool anyone. Additionally irritating was being asked whether we had eaten at Lupe Tortilla before as we were shown a table, the implication being that we might need to prepare ourselves for having our collective and figurative gastronomic nuts blown off. This would have been fine had they served us something amazing, but instead we got Mexican food for white people and a waitress zipping back to ask how we were enjoying it every three fucking minutes. Admittedly, the second time we went - invited by a friend to celebrate her daughter's graduation - the food was significantly better but, you know, first impressions and everything...

Olive Garden. This is yet another chain, but a notionally Italian one, Italian here mostly translating into a large garden spade's worth of pasta dripping with cheese sauce; which presents a genuinely mouth-watering prospect when you're in one of those moods where you yearn to be pumped full of the saltiest carbohydrates money can buy, but every decision I've ever made at Olive Garden has inevitably turned to regret somewhere around the third or fourth mouthful. Further regret is encountered when the bill arrives, along with generous helpings of incredulity.

Southside Chinese. It wasn't called Southside Chinese, but it was on the southside and neither Bess nor myself can remember what the place was called. The one thing Bess does remember is being seated upon the lavatory when an elderly gentleman entered the cubicle and already had his pants down with the words, 'I really need to go,' before she was able to fully assess the situation, dress herself, or even finish her own business. It probably wouldn't have mattered quite so much had the food been great, but unfortunately it was mostly a sort of warm, faintly spicy grease to which soft, tasteless matter had been added apparently so we could tell that it wasn't soup. Amazingly, the place has since closed.

Alamo Fish 'n' Chips. There's another fish place more deserving of inclusion in this list, but they're supposedly something to do with the perfectly legitimate business operations of a local group of legitimate Mexican-American businessmen, if you know what I'm saying. The food was lousy, took ages to arrive, and the staff seemed puzzled by our order. Other customers seemed to pay much more for their own orders, and I'm guessing in used notes, but the packages they received in return didn't look a whole lot like anything they were likely to be tucking into once they got back to their trucks. However, I'm absolutely certain that these transactions were all entirely above board and legal, with no suspicious dimension whatsoever, and I don't want any trouble, so Alamo Fish 'n' Chips it is. There's a big old Union Jack painted on the sign outside, and although the crinkle cut chips served are just like those my grandmother used to bring back from Tesco and then fry in her chip pan, the fish is frozen and therefore not really anything special. Furthermore, the ceviche promised by the menu seems to be there only so as to lure my wife, who has thus far always arrived just as some other customer has allegedly scoffed the last dollop; and the guy kept asking me how it was every two bleeding minutes seeing as how I'm from England and all, which was annoying. The invitation on their facebook page reads Please come joy us many items on Specials, fresh & tasty Seafood, lightly on batter, home made tartar sauce and coleslaw you not going disappointed but I'm afraid I prefer Long John Silver's. 

Wing Zone. I still don't understand how it's possible to get fried chicken wrong, but America found a way. The best fried chicken seems to be the cheapest and crappiest, for some reason, usually the kind served with the faintest suggestion that whoever prepared it has spent the morning changing the oil in their car and hasn't bothered to wash their hands. Being situated at over five thousand miles distance from south-east London, amongst my less enticing options are Popeyes which specialises in gradually serving the dryest, least succulent, and most mouth-desiccating meals derived from an egg-laying bird; and Wing Zone which is similar but with a bright orange sauce which tastes like what happens when you hold the terminals of a nine volt battery against your tongue.