Smorgasbord

I'm thinking tonight of restaurants that have dotted my memory.  When I was a boy, from ages 5-10, I lived in a small town in the center of Wyoming.  I remember going every Sunday to the Teton Lodge, a restaurant inside the hotel in the center of town.  Normally, I would order the open-faced roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes.  I can taste it even now.  The roast was so tender.

The restaurant I remember most from my junior high years is a cafeteria in Arlington, Texas, the Colonial Cafeteria.  Every Friday, because my parents were too tired to cook, we went out to eat.  Most of the time there I would eat the ground sirloin steak patty.  I would get it with its natural broth poured over it.  For dessert I would always get the Eagle Brand lemon pie.  So delicious.

By far, the restaurant I went to most in high school was Kip's Big Boy Restaurant.  It was a hamburger place that had the equivalent of a Big Mac before Bid Macs were a part of MacDonald's menu.  The guys from the basketball team frequented the place.  We would go there after the games on Friday nights and sometimes on Tuesdays.  It was the Thousand Island dressing they used in the place of mayonnaise that lingered on my taste buds.

In my 20s I would visit a place called Daniels on a regular basis.  It was only a few blocks from where I lived.  Their chicken fried steaks were to die for.   Lots of crust, lots of gravy, mashed potatoes with cream gravy also, a roll and corn.  It was always finger-smackin' good.

From then on, money flowed a little more freely, so I was fortunate enough to eat at many places.  There are some standouts, however.  There's really not a better flavor for steaks than the steaks served at Outback.  The seafood at Red Lobster is hard to beat even if you visit a coastal city and eat at a local restaurant. I have tried to eat at some really fancy restaurants like Aquarium and some celebrity owned ones like Planet Hollywood.  I have eaten at some chain restaurants on foreign soil like Hard Rock Cafe, Cancun, and a whole host of local color restaurants in states strung out from Washington to Maine.

Besides the fact that I love a well cooked meal, I think they represent something for me.  They help me place my important memories in space and time.  Those memories, too, are flavorful.  The people in them added meaning to my life and made me who I am today.  Along those lines, then, the "flavor" of three restaurants best all others - The Rainforest, La Hacienda, and Little Italy.  Sacred ground, those restaurants, till the day I die.