I received one of those 'get to know you' emails today from my cousin. You know, the kind that asks you all kinds of random questions. You always learn something new about someone, even if you have known them your whole life.
It was so hard to answer some of those questions with the obligatory one or two words. Take, for instance, the question, 'what is your favorite restaurant?' Sounds easy, right? Well, that depends...is this a date night restaurant? a family meal eatery? a work day lunch? a girls night out? The reason for the meal and the persons I am sharing it with affects what my choice of 'favorite' would be.
Date night would be Texas Land & Cattle Steakhouse, hands down. Jim and I both love the smoked sirloin and they make a pretty mean house salad. For a family meal it would probably be Chili's Bar & Grill. They have a diverse menu so it is easy to please everyone...hamburgers to pasta. A work day lunch: for a sit down meal would be Las Palmas, a great little Mexican place near the office; pick up would be Jason's Deli, I love the turkey wrap. Girls Night means a definite trip to La Madeleine French Bakery...because heaven knows Jim would not be caught dead in there. It is a great place to sit and visit uninterrupted.
As I was driving home this evening, I found myself thinking about how I struggled to answer this question. The fact that I would need a qualifier to answer the question is just a sign of how my life have changed.
I grew up in the late 60's - 70's. Eating out was a HUGE deal. If my memory serves me correctly, we ate out maybe five or six times a year. My kids see that in a month, easily. I don't remember having many eateries to choose from. I think there were three in my hometown.
The most frequently visited would have been The Little Pig. This was a hamburger joint, painted red with razorbacks on the signs. It was tiny. Back in the day, you walked up to the window to place your order and wait for your food. I think they added room for a few tables inside later on. I remember the awesome, homemade, never frozen hamburgers. Real hamburgers with real onion rings or french fries. They probably served bar-b-q sandwiches too, but right now I can only think of the hamburgers.
On the south side of town there was a truck stop. I can't remember the name of it...Trudy's maybe. I remember eating there only a few times. I had my first club sandwich in that diner. I thought I was all grown up with the frilly toothpicks in each quarter of the triple-decker sandwich; pickle slice and potato chips on the side. Highfalutin'!
Further down the highway, at the edge of town was THE place to eat...The Catfish Inn. It is the only one of the three that is still open today. And it is still THE place to eat. My father-in-law and mother-in-law still make it a priority to eat there on their visits to the area. Don't dare go into the place if you are on a diet. Heaven have mercy, everything in there is either fried or cooked with bacon fat. It is a buffet with fried catfish, fried shrimp, fried chicken, green beans, turnip greens, fried okra and that is just the first steam tray. For dessert, the homemade cinnamon rolls call your name, but you better hurry and grab one or the tray will be empty and you will have to wait for the next one! Walk in on any fall evening and you will find the women dressed up for dinner and the men in camouflage...some straight from the deer stand. My last time to eat at the Catfish Inn was last spring after my niece's graduation. I met my cousin and her husband there after the ceremony and we ran into one of our relatives that I had not seen in twenty+ years. It is the place to see and be seen!
When I was in junior high, the Big T came to town and we kids were so excited to have a real live drive in. The line would be wrapped around the building every Friday and Saturday night. If you wanted pizza, you would have to drive to the next town for Pizza Hut.
My kids eat drive through at least once a week...and pizza was a pretty common delivery item until we moved out here to the boonies! It is not that I don't like to cook...we just find ourselves grabbing something quick after a ball game or I need to run errands after work so I pick up chicken on the way home.
Here is my question to you, what is your favorite restaurant? Can you answer in two words or less? Or like me, do you need a qualifier?
2 comments:
I think you are talking about Sammie's Drive In that eventually became Sammie's Restaurant not Trudy's. Was it across from the Big T? There was also a Well's Drive In. They had great hamburgers too. I know the original Little Pigs closed but has the new one closed too? You go to Arkansas probably as much if not more than I do and I live closer. Can you believe I've never eaten at the Catfish Inn? I don't even know what the place looks like inside. A good friend of mom's used to own it and I never ate there.
Your right about when we were going up. Eating out was a BIG DEAL. We are trying to cut down on eating out so much but to tell you the truth sometime it is cheaper to eat out at a hamburger place than to go to the grocery store.
My favorite place to eat no matter what the occasion is Copeland's. It is a Cajun restaurant. Cajun's are great cooks, just don't ask what you are eating. HA HA
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We had this conversation at our house last week about how eating out used to be fun and exciting. Now it is where and what food are we going to eat? Growing up we didn't eat out all the time and those question were so simple to answer and easy to be content with a juicy hamburger and fries. Yes eating out growing up was BIG Pizzas,Wyatts,Captain D's wherever it was special and that Pizza tasted extra good there was a contentment.
In 87 I remember coming home from work we would look at each other thinking Ryan's on Dairy Ashford stop get $20 out and that was realy nice.
Tejas is our place, we have become friends over the years and you feel at home.
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