The Unexpected... and the expected

We found delightful surprises on our little weekend trip - unexpected sights that we would have just missed if not for a glance in one direction rather than another, or a longer walk here or there. In Newport's Old Town a sea lion was 'grooving' on the sun and breeze, on a side road out of Yachats there was a directional sign for a covered bridge - and sure enough - a covered bridge! (There are quite a few in Oregon actually, most of them near Lebanon, Oregon, not surprisingly, where a large group of Pennsylvania Mennonites settled.) At the lighthouse a glimpse of blue turned out to be a wild iris on closer inspection, a Devil's Punchbowl was 'as advertised' although we almost walked right by it because, for some reason, we thought it was on the other side of the trail. And in Cannon Beach the tide was low enough to allow us to observe a starfish 'loose his grip' at Haystack Rock.

But we DID expect to find wonderfully good crab cakes in a restaurant in Cannon Beach where we'd had them before. We've been raving about them to people ever since: "Oh you have to go here... best crab cakes we've ever had..." When the hostess showed us to our seat - with a spectacular view of Haystack Rock no less - and inquired whether we'd ever been here before we told her that yes, we had, and couldn't wait to come back for the crab cakes. She was so pleased. "I'll go tell the chef," she said, gushing about how much he'll appreciate the compliment and our remembering them. We ordered, naturally, the crab cakes... and when they came, they were terrible! I really couldn't even eat them. All the natural juices had been drained out of the crab and they were dry and chewy and gummy and had too much 'green stuff' in them so that you couldn't even taste anything else but 'green.' (I am NOT a fan of 'green.') The waiter, who had listened to the hostess exclaim to the chef, beamed at us and asked if we were enjoying them. What to do?

Now, Mark and I are the last people in the world to be 'high maintenance' at a restaurant. Having both been married to people who were, we prefer a no-fuss approach to eating out - be pleasant, have a nice time, lower the stress level. (Not that "I'll have the number 5 but with chicken instead of beef and baked instead of grilled and don't put any parsley on my plate and I want the dressing on the side..." isn't another way to go. Or to play musical chairs and refuse the first table offered and ask for another one over there, or on second thought maybe THAT one would be better, but not until half the party had already been seated. Scars we have, from the past...)

But the crab cakes were SO bad. So Mark asked the waiter if he wanted the truth, and then said, not wanting to put too fine a point on it, that we were a bit disappointed, they were maybe a little overcooked and we wondered if perhaps the recipe had changed since we'd been here last.

Appalled, the waiter gushed apologies, went to talk to the chef, came back with apologies from the chef. Then the chef himself came out to talk to us (and give us his card - which perhaps didn't make sense in the circumstances, but by then nothing did.) The waiter came back and offered us a free dessert (which we declined, just on general principals but mostly because we were mortified at having made such a scene and just wanted to leave) and then insisted that we wait a few minutes because the chef was making us some more crab cakes - "He wants to do better!"

(I'm not sure I get the notion of responding to 'I don't really like this' with 'Here, then - have some more!' but that seems to be the typical response to a complaint about any product. If you write a letter to a company telling them that their tile cleaner failed on all points to do absolutely anything about cleaning your tile and you just thought they should know in case they want to re market it as a breakfast drink or something, you will invariably get back a coupon for a free bottle of - you guessed it - their miserable tile cleaner.)

Anyway, we finally were able to slink out of the restaurant, extra box of crab cakes in tow. Cats followed us all the way back to the car.

Mark tried them later and said they were better, but just not what we'd expected.

(AKKKkkkkkkkk! No matter what I do, Blogger will not put paragraph breaks into this posting! I'm going to go nuts here...)