After my talk on science fiction, the group split up into two camps to go out. I went with the camp bent on getting some food, since I was starving. We went to Lebanese Taverna. Usually, the food and service there was great, but this time, it was an interesting experience, to say the least.
Granted, we got there 10 minutes before the kitchen closed, so we had to rush to order.
I ordered a Mythos and lamb chops. I remembered the lamb chops from the last time I’d been there (a different location, but same chain) and we all sat around chatting while we waited for the food to come.
When the food was finally delivered, I wasn’t paying much attention, engrossed in the conversation as I was, and so I dug right into my lamb chops–only to find that they tasted exactly like well-done steak. That’s when I noticed that they also looked like well-done steak, and not at all like lamb chops. The fact that it was steak and not lamb didn’t bother me so much, as I was hungry and perfectly willing to eat steak, but I figured I’d at least mention it to our waiter.
“I ordered lamb, but what you brought was steak,” I said.
He gave me a curious look and said it was lamb.
“No,” I said, “definitely steak.”
He went off to get the manager who came by and asked what was wrong. I explained about the steak.
“We cook our lamb differently,” she said, “and we cut it differently, too. We use different seasonings because some people don’t like the taste of lamb.”
I said, “Well that works out well for them, I suppose, since this tastes like steak.”
At that point several people in the group snickered.
There was no offer to recook them (of course not, since the kitchen was now closed), and like I said, it didn’t really matter since I like steak, too, and I was hungry, but an admission of a mistake on their part would have been nice. I can assure you that people who don’t like lamb would have had no problem with what they served me since they’d prepared it in such a way as to remove all lamb and replace it quietly with steak. People who don’t like steak would have been out of luck.
As we were finishing up, the waiter came by again and asked if we needed anything else, and I’m rather ashamed to say that I muttered under my breath, “Yeah, lamb.” But really, it wasn’t the waiter’s fault.
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