Afters

Saturday was a NOVA weekend, and there were no new movies to see, so we fell back on the "let's go out for a bit of nosh" alternative. Usually we've been going to the Macmenamins restaurant, John Barleycorn. Food a little bit pricey but tasty and varied, location good for me since it's ten minutes away from home. You may recall that I took Jean and Kelly there for the great Armagnac experiment, and it got good marks from them.

This time, however, a larger group of people than my little clique was involved, and they voted for Applebee's. I was hesitant, and Dan started to give me a hard time about it. This isn't uncommon, as it seems Dan and I have gotten into the habit of good-natured ribbing bordering on the argumentative. I've been pondering this, and I think it's because I've got a whitish beard and thinning hair on top, so I remind Dan of his video partner, Terry. He and Terry have a tempestuous relationship, which has more than once broken out into publicly raised voices. So I hope I'm not headed in that direction!

Anyways... Dan was giving me a hard time, and I was hedging, but went with the herd. The food was okay, but uninspired. The talk was fun as usual. Sunday I told Jean where we went, and the whole story of my hesitation and the ribbing I took. Jean, it turns out, has eaten at Applebee's with work colleagues, so she knows it as well as Barleycorn.

"Why would they want to go to Applebee's? It's a chain. Okay, John Barleycorn is part of the Macmenamin chain, but that's local, so it has some flavor. At John Barleycorn, the food was expensive, but there were a lot of good choices, and the atmosphere was neat. At Applebee's, you get fried chicken strips. It's like an expensive Denny's."

I rest my case.