lack Angus is a chain of steakhouses in the US. They're not real high quality, but they are semi-upper class dining, at least for a chain restaurant. A bit nicer than Red Lobster, or the Red Lobster of steakhouses, Sizzler. I'd eaten at Black Angus a few times as a kid with my grandparents, but hadn't been there in over a decade, and hadn't even thought about eating there again.

That all changed when I moved to Northern California in the summer of 2003, and moved in with a woman who still ate beef (though she's almost entirely given it up since then, for calorie and mad cow reasons). Even back in 2003, Malaya didn't eat beef very often, but she did occasionally get the desire for a cheeseburger. And for her birthday in 2003, she wanted something better than that. Thus... Black Angus time.

Since we drive past the restaurant every time we go to run some errands, it's possibly we'll return at some point, and if so another blog entry will likely join this first one.

November 29, 2003

For lunch/dinner we went out to Black Angus, where we had a $10 off coupon, and pretty well pigged out.  Malaya got surf 'n turf and I got a grilled chicken breast.  Both came with two side dishes, and they let you order a dozen fried shrimp for $3 along with your entrees, as an off-menu bonus item. Malaya also got a mango/cranberry martini which was quite tasty, judging from the few sips of it I had.  The only real annoyance with the food was the deceptive menu photo of my chicken breast.

The picture in the menu showed it on a bed of mixed vegetables, mostly carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, and that's natural enough.  Who doesn't serve grilled chicken on some grilled veggies? So I got onion strings and rice as sides, figuring the rice and veggies and chicken would go nicely together.

The food arrives, and I've got a chicken breast, onion strings, and rice pilaf.  No veggies of any kind.  I asked about it and the waitress said that the mixed veggies was a separate order (and it was one of the things on the sides menu) and that the menu picture confused a lot of people.  Me included, obviously.

I asked for the side of veggies and she said it was only a dollar, so no biggie.  Except when it arrived it was a big dish of veggies of which at least 85% were shredded string beans, straight from the can and chewy.  Mixed in were a few bits of nearly raw broccoli and some slices of squash, which were pretty okay.

I ended up having just enough squash bits to alternate bites of the chicken (which was very good) and rice, and it wasn't bad, but I was feeling a bit like a bait and switch victim. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised; I mean it's not like anyone goes to a steakhouse for the quality vegetables, and the salads they served us as part of our meal were pretty janky.  But being as I don't eat (cow) steak, and the photo in the menu showed the chicken breast with the sort of veggies you'd want to come with a chicken breast...

Mid-meal I sneaked away and cornered our waitress and told her it was my gf's birthday and asked if they could bring us out a cupcake or something.  The waitress said that we actually got something off of the dessert menu, and said she could put in a candle.  And low and behold, she did, bringing it over, sans singing waiters (per my request) with their compliments.  It was damn tasty too; a scoop of vanilla ice cream over a sort of chewy brownie with hot fudge swirled over that.

Funny how the stuffed-full Malaya and I were suddenly able to find room once there was chocolate cake and ice cream in front of us.

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