So, We're Not Going to the Black Angus?

A Restaurant Review:

There's a new restaurant in the 541 (Eugene, Oregon, USA). For those of you familiar with your Eugene restaurant scene, it's where the Black Angus used to be, which became the River Ranch, part of the West Brothers' empire. Where the Black Angus is known for top quality steaks at top quality prices, West Brothers' specialized heavy BBQ fair at medium quality prices. For those who know their Eugene geography, but weren't down with free meals on their birthdays, it's on Franklin Blvd., across from the old Romania car dealership. Down at the end there where you merge from the freeway. It also happens to be a hop and skip from where the new basketball arena will be (God willing. Ha ha. Phil wants it, it's going to happen).

Anyway, the new restaurant is called The BOULEVARD Grill(it appears in all caps whenever the word is mentioned on the menu). I don't know how old the restaurant is, I just noticed it the other day, but the parking lot looked packed, so I figured there must be some word out somewhere. I was hungering for meat on Tuesday and thought I'd make Ginger go with me to give it a try.

As I am about to savage this restaurant, I want to make clear that I do not believe that any of the people who work for or own The BOULEVARD Grill are evil people or bear anyone any ill will. I am sure they are all fine people struggling to do the best they can. Failing, but struggling.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that all of the cars were parked not in the restaurant parking lot, but, rather, were parked in the adjacent hotel lot. Not to worry, though, it was only 5:30, so we were agonizingly early for dinner. (I forget why we were eating so early, I think I was just hungry as all get out.)

The first hint that there might be trouble came when the hostess went to seat us. First she said "Two?" and responded to my nod by grabbing two menus. To quote Dr. Evil, "Pretty standard stuff, really." But then she hesitated, went back to her seating diagram, erased where she had sat us, moved us somewhere else, and took a step toward the dining room. But wait, maybe over there would be better. Back to the diagram. Another move toward the dining room, then back to the diagram, and back toward the dining room--this time for real! I don't expect perfection from people, I really don't, but when your job is acting as hostess at a restaurant, it is one of the basics of the job to know where you are going to sit the next party that comes in. In fact, other than grabbing menus and walking people to a table, it's your only job.

So we sat down and looked at the menu. One thing was obvious right away, this restaurant existed to plunder the tourists who stayed at the hotel next door, to plunder people looking to grab a bite before the basketball game, and to plunder the fine folks who attended the Olympic Trials. And old people. The place was lousy with old folk. For you big city folk, the prices might have been par for the course (FORE!), but for us small town folk, a $31 ribeye is bit of a joke. Twenty-seven dollars for halibut is a lot. (For those that didn't notice, I'd like to point out that I used the work "folk" three times in the last two sentences. I call that a tri-folk.) So I knew I was going to be blowing the budget. I didn't mind it too much, I expected the food to be good.

Waitress comes over and takes our drink order. I order a pint of Nikasi Pale Ale, Ging sticks with water. (I'm not a big fan of people sticking with water in restaurants. Restaurants make a lot of their money off of drink sales. Have a glass of wine and leave the sticking to water to the local pizza joint). The waitress brings my glass of beer and takes our order. Ging orders the special "Asian" scallops appetizer and the red snapper. I go with a wedge salad (large size) and the fried chicken for dinner. I had been watching an episode of Good Eats about making fried chicken and Alton had given me a jones. The menu described the fried chicken as coming with corn mashed potatoes and smothered in sausage gravy. I wasn't too sure about smothering the chicken in gravy, as fried chicken must be eaten with the fingures, but I thought I'd let it roll. Surely, the fine restaurant owners know what they are doing.

The waitress mentions that they may be out of the red snapper. She thought she heard the chef shout that they were just as she was leaving the kitchen. She was going to check and let us know. I thought it odd that a restaurant might run out of a special (it wa son the paper insert menu) at 5:30 pm, but what the hell.

Back to my beer for moment. It was distinctly non-pint-like. Normally, this would be upseting, as a pint is usually only 50 cents or something more than a glass and you're pretty much ripped off for being the small-glass chump, but in this case, a full pint is $1.50 more and the price of a pint and a glass were once-per-dollar equivilents. Still, I did order a pint.

We got bread, we got garlic butter, very tasty.

The waitress came back to inform us that yes, they were out of the snapper. Ging, with some coaching from me, had prepped for this moment, so she was ready to counter-order with the eggplant spring rolls.

Shortly thereafter, our appetizers arrived. All plans to share the scallops went out the window. There were just two. The were slightly under done. Not so much that you would get sick, just enough that you would worry about it. The had a vague "Asian" taste to them in the sense that you could tell that at one time they had touched soy sauce, but that was about as Asain-y as they got. The real problem with the scallops is that Ging never should have ordered them. She doesn't really like shellfish, but one time I accidentally made the most kick-ass scallops ever and Ging has been convinced she likes them ever since.

The wedge salad was awesome. Half a head of iceberg. Blue cheese, bacon. Could not have asked for more. No complaints about the wedge salad.

Waitress is back at the table. It seems that they are out of the eggplant spring rolls. She is very sorry. Terribly sorry. Is there anything else she can get Ging? We get a menu to look it over. She's back in a couple of minutes. Ging goes with the porcini ravioli. I forget to order another beer.

Again, a surprisingly short time later, our dinner arrives. Yes, my fried chicken is liberally smothered in gravy. No problem, as I do not have too much dignity to suck gravy off of fried chicken before I eat it. I gave up dignity a long time ago. Ginger gets her rather small plate of pasta. And I remember to order a beer. A pint, I say very distinctly, of Ninkasi.

The chicken was good. Pan fried, not deep fried. Alton had just taught me you can tell because with deep-fried chicken the skin and crust will pull away from the meat the first time you bite it. The gravy, however, was interesting (the academia "polite, interesting = crap" interesting, not the actual interesting). It didn't taste bad, but the sausage in the gravy was not country sausage or breakfast sausage but, I believe, keilbasa. Some kind of casing sausage sliced and cut into quarters. Weird. The mashed potatoes were flavorless and closer to the glue end of the mashed potatoes spectrum than the clouds end. I ate the leg and the wing and was oddly full.

In order to kill time while Ging ate, as I was full (see above), I visited the bathroom rest area. Luckily, I knew where they were. There were no signs or visual cues. The bathroom was awesome. Just in the door way there was mural of a campus scene. It involved Deady Hall, which is pretty iconic around the U of O, but several other buildings that do not reside on our campus. They were buildings with crosses on the top. On another wall was a mural of a stadium with a big sign over it that says "Hayward Field," which makes sense, as the Olympic Trials, National Champoinships and other big track meets will be held here in the coming years. Except that as I looked at the picture, I thought that it didn't look like Hayward. I realized it was actually a statium and the reflection of a stadium in a reflecting pool, which certainly does not exist near Hayward. Odd. And then, on closer inspection, I realized that the stadium in question was not Hayward, but Autzen. Double odd.

Having finished my business, but failing to make use of the complimentary mouthwash, I returned to my table. Ginger was done eating, so we were just waiting for the witress to come round (maybe with that beer I ordered) so we could request the check. The waitress hit the tables on other side of us without seeming to notice that we were just sitting there (not drinking our beer). The next time we saw her was when she brought the beer. To her credit she offered to box up our remnants and brough the check right over. For some reason the check was brought on a plastic bright green clipboard with rulers on either side of it. If I'm paying $17 for fried chicken, I'd like a little class with the check.

Check paid and 3 oz of my pint drunk, we left. There was a new hostess by the door as we were leaving. You expect the hostess to give you the ol' "Thanks for coming, have a great night." Not in this case. We got glared at. I swear to God he had yellow eyes. Yellow eyes! Glared at.

There you have it. The new BOULEVARD Grill. Unless the father-in-law is buying, do not check it out.