Dallas Saturday Night

It didn’t take long for Ryan and I to experience southern hospitality Texas-style. For dinner Saturday night we decided to follow the “when in texas” philosophy and try a nice steakhouse. Even though we had to walk right past the Capitol Grille to reach it, we opted for the local option called Nick and Sam’s, which was recommended by several people. The night started off quietly with a drink at the bar, but then quickly turned more interesting. We had learned earlier in the day that there were three bachelorette parties staying in our hotel and, sure enough, two of them were seated at Nick and Sam’s. The best part about the party sitting near the bar was definitely the gift the bride-to-be’s girlfriends got her to wear around her neck. Let’s just say it was made of rubber and they all took turns taking picture with it and leave it at that. This is a family blog after all. While that was interesting enough, it really didn’t compare with what was up next for us.

Our waitress was a very attractive, classy, well spoken and articulate texas girl who paid attention to every detail of our dinning experience. After ordering appetizers (we had been sitting for about 20 minutes at this point) it was time for another round of drinks. When I ordered my usual grey goose/club soda with a lemon (Ben orders his with :”NO GARNISH”), Alisha (our waitress) remarked: “oh, that’s my favorite drink as well”. The following conversation took place:

Aaron: “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah I drink it because I don’t like the taste of tonic water and it also has less calories”
Alisha: “right, that’s why I drink it as well. The only other drink I have is scotch”
Aaron: “Wow, that’s my second choice as well I drink it all the time. What brand do you prefer?”
Alisha: “Dewars”
Aaron: “Oh” (thinking to myself: this is one high class broad). “So, how do you you’re your scotch?”
Alisha: “Well, it depends on how I’m feeling. Usually, I’ll drink it on the rocks or neat, but if I really want to get fucked up, I’ll just shoot it!”
Aaron: (After a long pause trying to process weather or not our waitress in one of the nicest/most expensive restaurants in Dallas just said “fucked up” when describing her drinking habits.) “Ok then”
Alisha: “Yeah, well maybe I’ll come join you guys at the Hotel ZaZa after I get off work and we can have a few and see where the night takes us.”
Ryan: “We’ll have the shots of Dewars lines up for you.”

At this point Ryan and I just sat back and wondered what the heck just happened. Texas really is a much different place than either of us is used to. Not only did we not ask this girl any questions about herself, in less than a minute, she had told us that she likes to shoot Dewars and get “fucked up” and invited herself to join us at the bar later. If this is what it’s like at the high class restaurants in Dallas, what must it be like at Hooters?!

The best part is that it did not end there. She made several other comments during the course of our meal, which to put it mildly, strained believability. She told Ryan when he was done with his bone-in sirloin, that: “it’s always good to suck on the bone at the end”. She explained that the chocolate soufflé had: “a warm moist center”, and then laughed. Finally she recommended the key lime cheese cake for dessert because of its: “crème filled center”, and laughed again. There were other comments that I am not going to mention here as I’ve already gone too far I think.

Ok, so the food I would rate as a B+. The house salad was a mix of romaine and iceberg lettuce with chunks of tomatoes and a sherry wine vinaigrette. Not bad, but too much dressing for my taste (which I has asked for on the side, but they forgot). Next we sampled the lobster mac n’ cheese as it was touted as one of the best menu items. We order it as an appetizer and it was very good. It probably could use a little more lobster meat though and was overall just a little bit bland. Then, for the main course, I had a filet (medium plus) and Ryan had the bone-in sirloin. Ryan’s had significantly more flavor than mine and was very good, certainly above average. Mine was, again, just a little bland, but not bad. The grilled vegetable were very good; they actually tasted like they were fresh off a wood fired grill. The best item was probably the ranch flavored shoestring onion rings. We both ate these by the fistful. They were a little hard to dip in ketchup because they were so brittle, but the taste was fantastic. Finally, for dessert, was the banana bread pudding with vanilla gelato (which the waitress explained was made with milk instead of cream…thanks for the explanation), fresh strawberries and caramel syrup. I probably could have eaten three of these by myself after my meal with no problem. It was for sure the best part of the meal, and mixed with a bailey’s on the rocks, was the perfect cap to the meal.

Now, with one of the most bizarre dinners in recent memory over, we walked back to the hotel and went to the outdoor bar for a drink. At the ZaZa, they cover their pool and set it up with a DJ at night, when it turns into probably the biggest scene in Dallas for the evening. Ryan immediately spotted AC Slater (I don’t know his name in real life) sitting in the reserved section. We also had seen the guy from the last season of the bachelor in our lobby earlier in the day (I don’t know his name either), so it appears we picked the celerity hangout for our hotel.

The DJ was not bad, but he was no MiFo (inside joke for the norwell gang). A little too much techno and R&B for my taste and not enough 80’s music, but I guess this was a pseudo club and he had to cater to that group. Ryan and I took position sitting on the waterfall where the DJ was propped up so we could have a good vantage point over the dance floor. Two girls were kind of checking us out (probably more Ryan than me) as they were dancing, so I went over there and said: “I’ve been sitting there waiting for you guys to ask me to dance, but you haven’t done it, so it looks like I’ll have to take matters into my own hands”. A little reverse psychology here. It worked and they latched onto us for several hours. I say latched because one of them literally would not leave Ryan’s side and kept falling asleep on him on the couch we were sitting on. The other one was a real interesting piece of work. I initially tried dancing with her and it was going well for a while, but then she started spinning off on her own, kind of outa control and literally covering the entire surface of the dance floor. Then she told me that she was: “a little weird”. My response was simply: “I can see that”. For some reason this did not go over well with her and that pretty much ended my night with whatever her name was. Now, since I’m invested in writing this blog, I decided I needed a picture of AC Slater to post. The best tactic in my mind, was to get the two chicks to let me take their picture with him since I certainly did not want a picture of AC and Me floating around the Internet. Initially, the plan worked great as girl #1 was able to sweet talk her way to sitting next to him on the couch in his “special” section. Everything then immediately fell apart as girl #1 (the weird one), in her drunken stupor, walked into the picture and promptly knocked AC’s beer all over him. Needless to say, they were removed by security and the photo-op was dead. Oh well, I’m sure you all know what he looks like anyway.

Once the dancing girls were done for the night, another girl approached Ryan and started playing with the buttons on his shirt remarking how much she liked them. Unfortunately for me, I only had a tee shirt on with no buttons. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that she believed her height to be 5’9”, which was clearly not true since she was the same height as me, but wearing 6” heels. When I broke the bad news to her that I was 5’9” and there was no possible way she could be as well, she removed her shoes to see if it was true. Standing a good 4-6 inches below my eye level she still could not believe that she was less than 5’9”. This reminds me of someone else I know from norwell, who I played high school football with, but I’m not going to mention his name here. She called over one of her friends who confirmed that she was not more than 5’7” and probably more like 5’6”. Sorry Ryan, I think I ruined that one for you.

Now, probably my favorite part of the night was meeting the two moms that were out with Ryan’s girl. When Ryan told them he was from Illinois, they immediately spat back: “eew, your from Obama land”. God Blass Texas is all I could think. I told them I was from Massachusetts and they proceeded to vomit on the floor (figuratively). The tables quickly turned when I assured them I was one of the only registered republicans in the commonwealth. Actually, I’m a registered Independent, but I think most of you know where I stand on the issues. Now, one of them was named Lori and really looked like she could be Jewish. When I asked her this question, she seemed to recoil as if I had just accused her of killing the baby Jesus and bluntly informed me that she was a Baptist. Missed the mark on that one I think. “Ok”, I said “well, do you know any nice jewish girls here”. Again, blank stare…time to move on from this line of questioning.
Finally, when they turned the lights on and Ryan and I made our way to the lobby we caught up again with the button girl. We were standing there talking to her when a drunken fool stumbled by and came up to her and said: “Hey, I’d really like to tell you that….um….that…..welll….I…..um….”, not being able to control myself at this hilariousness, I laughed pretty hard in his face. Interestingly, he did not take well to this and shoved me back a few feet. In my head I’m wondering if Ryan and I are actually about to get into a fight in the lobby of the hotel ZaZa at 2AM with a bunch of drunk Texans, but as I regain my focus, I see Ryan moving forward and them moving backwards. A good sign for sure. The dude’s friend pulled him back and pushed him out the front door as I informed everyone in the lobby that he was: “just a drunk Irishman with a faux hawk haircut”. Yes, the perfect cap to a typical night on the town in big D.