Seattle Day Two

This is what American suburbia looks like at the dinner time. My parents and I ended up having supper at a Chili’s restaurant in Bellevue on Day Two of our trip. We wanted to eat something quick before sitting down to the new James Bond film and the restaurant is near the multiplex. It’s in one of those long box-store strip malls that stretch on for blocks and blocks. This strip mall came complete with a grocery store (Quality Food Center), a Barnes and Nobles book store, a Michael’s craft store and an Old Navy clothes outlet. My parents were in awe of it all. There aren’t any box store strip malls in North Vancouver. The excitment spilled over to the idea of eating at a Chili’s.
But they were less impressed once we actually stepped foot inside the restaurant. They didn’t expect the blaring early 90s music (Dad’s hearing is starting to go so he spent half the meal going "What?"). When we opened the menu’s at our table, the menus were caked with crud from past dinners. I think I had some sort of cheese-byproduct binding my pages together. Our server was earnest but definately overworked. He looked stressed and rushed through welcoming us to the restaurant. He also dropped the napkins and forks in the middle of the table for us to sort out. And none of us were sure if our noses were playing tricks on us, but we all noticed a faint urine smell wafting through the restaurant.
So by the time our meal came, our expectations were pretty low. Which may explain why all of us were surprised by the fact that our dinners tasted okay. Mom and Dad both got the Guiltless Grilled Chicken. The chicken breast came with steamed veggies, rice pilaf and a whole cob of corn. It was a lot of food. The chicken breast was the pre-seasoned, frozen variety, but moist. The steamed broccoli, peppers and carrots were quite fresh looking. Dad loved how the corn came pre-buttered. I had the Guiltless Pita – chicken strips with lettuce, cheese and a side of black bean sauce. It was all right. A bit messy to eat because the filling kept falling out of the pita and the sauce kept falling out of the bread and onto my hands. It was definately a three napkin dinner. The best part is no one got food poisoning as Dad had predicted during the meal. And the movie was good as well (my parents have a pretty simple rating system for films. If they fall asleep... it’s bad. If they stay awake... it’s good.) They stayed awake for the whole thing.