From time-to-time I like to post a casual critique of some of the local Houston restaurants. As a general rule, I refrain from publishing the Chachos name of the restaurant in order to protect their identity.

Today I am going to write about yet another colourful local eatery. The ambience at this particular location is only the prelude to an astounding experience! If you like a cafeteria-style setting, a lot of noise, dirty floors, and uncleared tables, then this is the place for you! What this restaurant, and again, I am not going to name any names, lacks in ambience, however, it makes-up in service. For starters, as clearly mentioned on their website, there is NO TIPPING! Which makes one ponder the point of the large tip-jars placed on the very front of the order counter and the TIP line on their receipts.

Regardless, whether you are dining-in or sitting in the take-away lane for ten minutes while the selfish jerk in the minivan in front of you orders for her entire extended family because the lazy cow can’t be bothered to cook dinner, the food is simply marvelous. Unless you want onions. I have purchased food from this restaurant a total of five times in the past two years. Aside from being an obvious glutton for both cheap food and punishment, the restaurant is located very close to my residence. Regardless of whether I order at the drive-through or inside the restaurant, the service is consistent. Consistently incompetent, that is. I generally like to order their steak tacos with cheese, sour cream, and onions. Lots of onions. Don’t hold back on the onions! Death by onion overdose, I say!! Please, I beg of you, do not forget the onions.

I have purchased their steak tacos exactly four times to date. The very first time, they forgot my onions! I let it go on the grounds that all new relationships are going to have their bumps in the road to happiness. I remained confident that we, the restaurant and I, would work-out this little mishap upon my next visit. Sure enough, on my next trip to the restaurant, I ordered a shrimp dish and it was perfect! Boatloads of shrimp! Fabulous, I thought, and resolved to return for a third time; whereupon I once again ordered the steak tacos with hellacious quantities of onions, please. For the second time I arrived home breathless with anticipation of forthcoming onion-overload-breath only to discover to my utter astonishment that for the second time I was onion-less. This time it was personal and I called the restaurant to admonish the manager as to their lack-of attention to repeated and clear-cut detail — as also advertised on their website. After much free exchange of conflicting ideas [at one point I was informed that the restaurant had “run out of onions”, even though they are a block away from a huge supermarket], the manager agreed to refund my money from the first two botched orders AND to provide me with a complimentary order. When next I visited the restaurant, I bandied-about the manager’s name and lo and behold, I received my complimentary meal. I ran about three red lights on the way home while gleefully clutching my steak-and-onion-tacos — which is strange because there is, in fact, only one red light on the route — and almost broke my neck getting from the car park to my apartment. I screamed past the scattering kats, threw my handbag in some general direction of a chair, burst into the kitchen, and proceeded to tear my paper bag into shreds. I ripped open the inner foil wrapper with the ferocity of a tigress attacking her prey … and there, there was my freshly-made taco … my steak … my cheese … and NO ONIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, we have no onions!!! Is there an onion shortage in Houston of which I am unaware? Or does somebody think they are doing me a huge favour because I just might have a hot date waiting at home for me while I load-up on the non-existent onions? For the love of Zeus, what is the problem??? . . . I mean, besides my apparent inability to check my order before I leave the premises because I blatantly assume that these also-advertised high-quality cooks know how to correctly prepare an order!

I am not so much of a glass-half-full/half-empty kind-of person as a the-glass-is-at-50%-capacity type. Meaning, that sooner or later I will forget the pain and disappointment. I will sally forth once again on a quest for a simple meal that includes a handsome portion of the elusive onion. Only this time I will order my food without onions! That ought to guarantee I will end-up with the correct order containing a half-pound of onions.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Humour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.