Category: Food and Drink

In an ongoing All Blogs go to Heaven story, we went back to LaShish for dinner last night. Dave had never been and we talked it up pretty good.

Well, the good news. Food is still good. While the place was empty when we first got there it did actually fill in well by the time we left. We still didn’t see the "waiting room only" from a year ago or so… but they are doing pretty well.

The bad news. For the first time ever we got bad service. I’d put it at terrible. (Hall Road location) The waiter we had started off well… but as soon as he saw we weren’t going to order any alcohol… he basically ignored us! I could see his waiting on a group of 6 that was boozing it up pretty good… he was all over them. But we never got treated right. Three of our party ordered Sierra Mist and it was bad. So they got a fresh round (a long time later) and that was bad too. I won’t detail everything he could have done better… but for the first time ever I left LaShish dissatisfied with the experience. Too bad.

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about the ownership of the LaShish Restaurant chain being investigated for possible ties to terrorism. Here in Detroit, this has been an ongoing story with regular updates and tabloid quality reporting.

This Saturday we had our annual June Birthday and Anniversary Celebration for everyone in our family. (I think there are 10 or more celebrations combined into that single meal.) As usual, everyone got together and we devoured the infamous "Flaming Tower." This tower of Palestinian goodness packs beef, chicken, lamb, shrimp, and vegetable skewers together… all piled high and topped with a ridiculous bowl of fire. It’s so tacky that you have to get excited about it.  As my beloved wife mentioned a few weeks ago, I don’t like holidays or celebrations all that much. But for once, I love this thing. It’s just a lot of fun and the flaming tower is the center piece to our day.

But, this is what bothered me with this trip. The place was empty. The sad thing is that I think the place was vacant because of the investigation into the ownership. And, it was really sad to see such a great place so empty. Now, I’m as red-blooded as everyone else… but I just don’t get why people would stay away from LaShish. Here’s a couple of things I thought of.

1. It’s one of the best places to eat in town. In fact, I can’t think of a better place to eat for the money.
2. The wait staff is now and always is fantastic. They are knowledgeable about their products and overly polite to "stupid Americans" who say all the wrong things culturally.
3. The ownership is under investigation. Last time I read the constitution there was something in there about "Being innocent until proven guilty." Does this somehow not apply to people of Middle Eastern decent? Have Americans gotten that dumb?
4. Even if they are guilty… you would think that the place would be packed full of Bush haters.
5. Even if they are guilty, you would think every Presbyterian in town would be required to eat there to "not support Israel."

So, if you’ve been staying away from the place because of this investigation… cut it out! The place is still fantastic.

Man, I’m so positive you would think I were hired to endorse them or something? I can see that headline "Baptist pastor signs endorsement deal with Palestinian restaurant" Bring it on.

Kristen and I were enjoying a nice dinner at Texas Roadhouse on Hall Road. Suddenly, after we’d finished and were in the process of paying… we heard a commotion. I was convinced that it was that annoying birthday thing where everyone screams and claps to embarass someone on their birthday.

Nope! Those workers at the restaraunt were shouting "Fire! Everyone get out." There wasn’t much chaos, but there was a sense of urgency.

A few moments later we were out in the parking lot… amazed that we’d been a part of a building on fire. I looked up on the roof and sure enough there were flames coming from the roof. Sadly, within a few minutes the parking lot was empty and many of the people there were happy to get something for nothing. What a weird way to start a date!

Last night Kristen and I went to Kruse & Muer in downtown Rochester. it was the start to a pretty nice date night. Any night where we don’t have the kids is a date night these days!

We had a few funny moments worth mentioning.

1. – We thought it was pretty clear that there was a rear entrance. But we still don’t know if that was an entrance because we felt like we walked through the kitchen to get to the hostess desk.

– Since we came in the back door we ended up right in the front of the line to put in our name. She looked at me and said, "As long as you’re only going to be here and hour we can get you in right now." I thought… no problem. Then the very next person asking for a table for 2 were told "30-50 minutes." Kristen and I looked at each other and said… that’s never happened to us before!

– For "a rush table" the server sure wasn’t in a hurry at first. It was about 10 minutes before she came to our table… which was fine because their menu had too many options. I’m a big fan that if you have a specials menu it replaces the regular menu.

– Kristen ordered the Atlantic Salmon and I ordered the Santa Fe Grouper, even though I am pretty sure there aren’t any grouper in New Mexico!

– When our meal came Kristen got a quite large piece of salmon and I got a tiny little fillet of grouper and a big pile of rice… but I could see on our servers tray another order exactly like mine. She looked at me quite puzzled.

– My plate was empty in about 5 minutes. It was good but it went REAL fast. Well, about 2-3 minutes after that the manager comes up to us blushing… "Um sir, somehow we screwed up… here is the rest of your order… sorry about that." And she slid another steaming plate of grouper!

– Then our waitress came over, very apologetic and explained that she had written on our order "step on it" and the chef misread that as "split it."

The best part of this is that this little posh restaurant was so embarrassed about doing this to me and I couldn’t have cared less! I wasn’t going to complain about the small portion because I am too ignorant about posh little restaurants to know how much I should have gotten! I kind of figured that since their other posh restaurant in Rochester, Rochester Chop House, had left us hungry… it must be something posh about small portions!

Of course the best part of dinner was the company. That sounds cheesy but it is true. It was fun for Kristen and I to go out and be alone together.