Bayou Birthday

I love birthdays.  There’s no other day that only celebrates YOU.  I love other peoples’ birthdays and of course I love mine!  I stretch out the celebrations as long as I can!  My birthday  celebrations began Friday night when Christina and I got together for dinner and a movie.   I had reserved Hot Tub Time Machine online and it was waiting for us in the Redbox so we went and picked that up first.  Then we decided to try a relatively new deli for dinner.  Here’s where things got weird.

We walked into a big restaurant space that has been divided up into two different restaurants.  There’s the sit down restaurant called Frankie & Louie’s.  It’s a Cajun style place.  We walked through Frankie & Louie’s to get to the deli- Main St. Deli.  Once we got to the deli though, we thought maybe we should eat at the sit down restaurant.  It seemed pretty hopping!  There was no one in the deli but lots of people in the restaurant.  The restaurant is very interesting.  This space has changed hands many times.  It’s been a couple of Italian restaurants and even a steakhouse.  I hope this one sticks.

We walked back to the front of the restaurant and asked the hostess to seat us.  The decor has a very distinct bayou feel.  We were seated next to a couple of turtles and a hedgehog!  Real life animals!  It’s like eating in a zoo! We waited for a few minutes and a woman came over to welcome us to the restaurant, which has only been open a few months.  She chatted with us a moment then walked away.  We waited some more, then waited some more.  Finally, after over 15 minutes with no waitress appearing to take our drink orders we got fed up and went to the deli. The lack of server attention worried us as did the huge party of about 20 ladies who were seated in the restaurant.  We knew if we couldn’t even put in a drink order that fighting for the chef’s attention with 20 ladies was not going to be fun.

We were placing our orders in the deli when the deli man told us to hold on a second.  He was needing a moment to put Christina’s order into the computer so the shared kitchen could start working on it.  Aarrgh!  We were not happy to hear that even though we gave up our seats at Frankie & Louie’s that we’d STILL be in the same kitchen queue!  We explained our frustration to the deli man.  He said hold on and disappeared for a moment, returning with the dining room supervisor.  We then explained our situation to the dining room supervisor who offered up an apology, but only after doubting that we had been properly seated.  He thought we just went in and sat ourselves like a couple of nutjobs gone restaurant rogue!  Then he left.  With no offer of “hey, why don’t y’all have a seat in the restaurant and let us try again?”, no freebie, no coupon, no nothing.

We went back to waiting for our orders.  I had ordered sandwiches, a rueben for CSP for later and a turkey sandwich for me.  I also ordered two knishes, one for CSP and one for me.  Deli man heated up my knish while we waited for Christina’s pizza.  They had promised the pizza would be ready in about 12 minutes which was reasonable.  We certainly didn’t mind waiting 12 minutes or so for a fresh pizza.  But that 12 minutes turned into 30!!!  For a 9 inch pizza!  Insane. By the time her pizza was ready my knish was cold.  A knish is a pastry wrapped around a potato mixture.  It’s not something you can heat and reheat and reheat.  I wasn’t looking forward to eating it.  Deli man did comp us each a canned soda and a plate of 2 cannoli.  By the time we walked out of there we had been there for over AN HOUR and hadn’t even eaten a bite of food!  Insane!

We brought our food home and ate dinner.  Christina’s pizza was really good.  It wasn’t a 30 minute wait good, but it was nice and full of fresh ingredients.  My turkey sandwich was nice but I won’t be ordering their knish again.  I have yet to find one that can live up to Carnegie Deli.  When CSP got home from work he ate his knish and rueben.  He LOVED the rueben!  Said it wasn’t as good as Carnegie, but a very close second.  The cannoli were tiny and had cold, mushy shells.  Very ho hum.  Won’t be paying for those.

We had a big time watching Hot Tub Time Machine.  So funny!  Loved all the 80s references.  Plus I’ve had a long term crush on John Cusack.  If anything ever happens to CSP I’ll wait a respectable amount of time before I marry Mr. Cusack.  The pugs loved all over Christina.  In fact, Molly & Zoe got so lovey dovey on Christina’s lap she had to separate them.  They kiss each other sometimes, with tongue.  At first it’s cute but there was just too much girl on girl pug action that night!