Post by lucavex on Mar 31, 2012 21:37:22 GMT -5
I used to frequent Furr's with my mother in the early to mid-90's in a small town in New Mexico. It was always a treat for me, considering my mother's strained budget, coupled with the fact that she had four children to raise on her own, the smallest luxury was always the biggest deal for me. We made an event of it.
At my behest for a bit of nostalgia, I convinced my wife to return to Furr's with me for the first time in as many decades. By now we live in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I never thought that an eating establishment would manage to offend all five of my senses, but this place somehow managed it marvelously, and in record time. As soon as we entered the doors to the restaurant, my nose was flooded with what smelled like a mixture of tepid water and stale bread. It almost had a nursing home quality to it. Quite pungent.
That's one sense offended, smell.
I look around and the wallpaper is garish and lavender. The floors were a swirling writhing mass of chaotic maroon and khaki. There's two, sight. And all within 7 seconds of my arrival. These guys were on a mission, and I'm convinced that mission was to take my fond childhood memories with my mother and dash them upon the rocky shores of hard reality.
Unfettered, I stepped up to retrieve my tray and silverware. The first tray I selected was full of cracks and holes, so I chose another. The napkin which encompassed my silverware was damp and unpleasing to touch, kind of felt like the inside of dog's mouth (Which, if you've ever fed a pill to a dog, you'll know is most unpleasant). That's three senses they've offended. And I haven't even received my food yet.
My wife selected various seafood dishes, some potatoes, a slice of pie, etc. I selected the chopped steak with mushroom gravy, the chicken fried steak with white (but really more of a sickly beige color) gravy, the spinach, the mac and cheese, fried okra, and finally the Jalapeno Cornbread.
I cannot speak to my wife's experience with her food aside from that she ate her fill, but was almost as equally disgusted as I was by the quality of the food.
I'll start with the Chopped Steak. It was probably the only item on the menu I had selected that had the prerequisite of owning teeth before consumption. Unfortunately, it was bland. Very bland. The Mushroom Gravy kicked the flavor up to a respectable 2, which is the highest mark any of the food I ate there will receive. The spinach needed to be salted heavily to be palatable. Three bites in, and I discovered a stick in my mouth. Delightful. That was it for the spinach.
I tested the okra, which had the same bland flavor. It was almost as is the breading surrounding the hard okra was designed only as a test of the will and determination one would need possess to muddle through one errant piece.
I turned my attention on the chicken fried steak with its pants-colored gravy. The gravy was a flavorless, quivering blob of quickly congealing matter somewhere between the states of solid and liquid. The steak itself tasted as if a scientist in a dark lab somewhere had somehow concocted a breading composed entirely of salt, completely robbing the meat of any flavor it may have previously had.
I took another bite to make sure I wasn't completely mad, and had my wife taste a bite as well, who agreed with my diagnosis. It was at this time that my fifth sense, hearing, was finally offended, thus completing the cycle of evil this place had conspired on from the moment I had walked in. A nearby member of the wait staff must have been carrying far too many dishes, or was simply far too clumsy, and stumbled. What resulted was a cacophony of breaking glass and clattering dishes the likes of which my ears had never heard before, and are still ringing now. The sudden, insistent barking to one another in Spanish did not help the situation.
Grasping for a small sliver of hope from the restaurant, I dove into my mac and cheese, and was greeted by the same lack of flavor that seemed to permeate the building. After that, we gathered up what remained of my fond memories of this place, paid kindly, and beat a hasty retreat from the place so I could return home and nurse my heaving stomach with a glass of water and a cigarette.
The Jalapeno Cornbread was good, though.
At my behest for a bit of nostalgia, I convinced my wife to return to Furr's with me for the first time in as many decades. By now we live in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I never thought that an eating establishment would manage to offend all five of my senses, but this place somehow managed it marvelously, and in record time. As soon as we entered the doors to the restaurant, my nose was flooded with what smelled like a mixture of tepid water and stale bread. It almost had a nursing home quality to it. Quite pungent.
That's one sense offended, smell.
I look around and the wallpaper is garish and lavender. The floors were a swirling writhing mass of chaotic maroon and khaki. There's two, sight. And all within 7 seconds of my arrival. These guys were on a mission, and I'm convinced that mission was to take my fond childhood memories with my mother and dash them upon the rocky shores of hard reality.
Unfettered, I stepped up to retrieve my tray and silverware. The first tray I selected was full of cracks and holes, so I chose another. The napkin which encompassed my silverware was damp and unpleasing to touch, kind of felt like the inside of dog's mouth (Which, if you've ever fed a pill to a dog, you'll know is most unpleasant). That's three senses they've offended. And I haven't even received my food yet.
My wife selected various seafood dishes, some potatoes, a slice of pie, etc. I selected the chopped steak with mushroom gravy, the chicken fried steak with white (but really more of a sickly beige color) gravy, the spinach, the mac and cheese, fried okra, and finally the Jalapeno Cornbread.
I cannot speak to my wife's experience with her food aside from that she ate her fill, but was almost as equally disgusted as I was by the quality of the food.
I'll start with the Chopped Steak. It was probably the only item on the menu I had selected that had the prerequisite of owning teeth before consumption. Unfortunately, it was bland. Very bland. The Mushroom Gravy kicked the flavor up to a respectable 2, which is the highest mark any of the food I ate there will receive. The spinach needed to be salted heavily to be palatable. Three bites in, and I discovered a stick in my mouth. Delightful. That was it for the spinach.
I tested the okra, which had the same bland flavor. It was almost as is the breading surrounding the hard okra was designed only as a test of the will and determination one would need possess to muddle through one errant piece.
I turned my attention on the chicken fried steak with its pants-colored gravy. The gravy was a flavorless, quivering blob of quickly congealing matter somewhere between the states of solid and liquid. The steak itself tasted as if a scientist in a dark lab somewhere had somehow concocted a breading composed entirely of salt, completely robbing the meat of any flavor it may have previously had.
I took another bite to make sure I wasn't completely mad, and had my wife taste a bite as well, who agreed with my diagnosis. It was at this time that my fifth sense, hearing, was finally offended, thus completing the cycle of evil this place had conspired on from the moment I had walked in. A nearby member of the wait staff must have been carrying far too many dishes, or was simply far too clumsy, and stumbled. What resulted was a cacophony of breaking glass and clattering dishes the likes of which my ears had never heard before, and are still ringing now. The sudden, insistent barking to one another in Spanish did not help the situation.
Grasping for a small sliver of hope from the restaurant, I dove into my mac and cheese, and was greeted by the same lack of flavor that seemed to permeate the building. After that, we gathered up what remained of my fond memories of this place, paid kindly, and beat a hasty retreat from the place so I could return home and nurse my heaving stomach with a glass of water and a cigarette.
The Jalapeno Cornbread was good, though.
