Vacation Part III : Saturday Dinner and Debacle

On to Sunday! Well, let me recap Saturday a bit.

After we checked into our B&B, we went off exploring ... well, mainly looking for our next meal...yeah, we totally planned the trip meal to meal :) And it was awesome.

Sidebar: I don't think I was hungry the ENTIRE trip! And I may have gained maybe 2 maybe pounds. Whoops!

Anyway, off we went, back downtown near the Grove Arcade...there is a great strip of restaurants and little shops down there and we had explored a bit earlier in the day. Here is where sticking to the script would have come in handy. We had a couple of ideas of where we wanted to eat, however, apparently the rest of the population of Asheville had the same thing in mind and there were waits at the restaurants, and it was going on 9pm...which for me, is a tad late for eating a whole meal. So we ended up at a cute italian restaurant with outdoor seating.

We decided to be adventurous and order the 'steamed artichoke' appetizer. Well, I am used to artichoke hearts and know that I love them (especially in the artichoke dip that my Mom makes)..anyway, out comes THE ENTIRE ARTICHOKE, slam-chopped in half, warmed, with some sort of drizzle on top. I think oh wow, let's dive in, and start cutting....and cutting...and chewing..and chewing .. J follows my lead...there are sharp points in the leaves, the leaves are super chewy and I find myself chewing and not getting anywhere. Now I don't know if you've ever eaten an artichoke before, obviously I have not (in whole form), because apparently (as we learned the next morning when talking to other guests over breakfast), you are not supposed to eat the leaves!!! WHAT! Apparently, you are supposed to peel back the leaves and only eat the heart. Now why someone would charge $10 for something that is only good for 4 bites is beyond me. Well I did manage to eat the heart (as did J) after we both (discreetly -- or not) spit out the bundle of chewed up leaves (gross, sorry). Aaannndd....on to our entree...a split 'local' pizza which was fontina, tomatoes and cured pepperoni.

Another quasi disaster - this place has a brick oven or a wood burning oven, so you'd think that the crust would be crisp and taste delightful. Well, somehow the crust on our pizza was soggy. WHAT! I KNOW! We muddled through it since it was late and we weren't too hungry (esp after the artichoke debacle) and THEN it starts RAINING! Oh sidenote: the waiter barely checked on us. Luckily we were under an awning and were waiting on our check when the downpour took place. The waiter never offered to have us come inside or anything, so we're huddled in our chairs, as close to the window as possible, as to not get backsplashed from the rain. Finally he brings us our check and due to our experience, his lack of attention, he earned himself a $3 tip. Wrong? I think not. Granted the food wasn't his fault, but the fact that he barely checked on us and let us sit out in the rain, his fault.

So the first day, not always the smoothest on a vacation...getting our bearings and whatnot ya know. It's all good. On to Sunday...(this post was longer than I had intended so I'll break it up even more for ya lol) . Thanks for reading :)

Um, did you have any vacation disasters (meals or otherwise)? that you'd like to share? Maybe I'm not alone lol!