On the Border...of Edible

*****UPDATE*****
I sent an e-mail to On the Border - pretty much said what I blogged. They e-mailed me and called me and offered and are in the process of giving us our money back. WOW!!! Thanks OTB, I wish your food was yummier.
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I didn't want to cook tonight. My motto today was "Survive until five!" Moose was happy to oblige. We didn't feel quite like fast food and decided to try the new restaurant in town, On The Border. We placed a take out order for the Pico Chicken and Shrimp, Spicy Chicken Chimichanga and the Border Sampler. The gal on the phone and at the restaurant when Moose picked up the food were super nice.

We have no complaints about the staff.

That having been said, we are so disappointed. The Pico Chicken was terrible. The chimichanga was edible but only just. The sampler was greasy and was pretty much untouched we all had a nibble and then stopped eating it. The beans were O.K. but nothing to write home about. The salsa was middling at best. All in all, we are wondering if we can get our $43.97 back. We are still hungry not because there wasn't tons of food but because we couldn't eat it. We feel as if we were cheated. When you spend that much money on food you expect it to be edible.

I ended up microwaving corndogs for the kids.

2 out of 7 thimbles

In Which We Try a New Sushi Restaurant

Moose noticed during a sushi run the other day that Hot Pot 'n Sushi has a happy hour. $1 per plate from 2-4pm. This was indeed exciting news and today the kids and I decided to try it out.

We arrived just after 2 pm and as I approached the door I read the fine print "With $2.00 drink per person." Snap. We always drink water at Sushi Restaurants. So we ordered 4 sodas (yuck) they arrived and they were huge glasses.

As we stared at the conveyor belt we were disappointed. There was nothing that we liked, no Tuna, nothing with cucumbers or avocados, no seared albacore, no unagi, and much to Commander C's dismay, no watermelon.

We ended up settling for 4 plates of salmon nigiri (I think salmon is better cooked - call me crazy I just think the flavor is better) 2 plates of dumplings, some white fish, some shrimp nigiri and I begged a tuna off of the chef. There was a crunch roll that was met with less than enthusiasm. Then we had cream puffs and one plate of sesame balls for dessert.

There were many things on the menu that were not on the belt and according to the sign the deal was for items on the belt only. There were a plethora of rolls with sauce on them but none were identifiable as our choice sushi ingredients.

The nigiri peices seemed a bit small and didn't look as fresh as they could. There were also MOUNTAINS of plates stacked up ready to put on the line. At Sushi Town the chefs are actually making sushi and then putting it on the belt. If they do have piles of pre-made sushi sitting around they hide it well.

On the plus side. The chefs were nice, talkative and Japanese, call me racist but Japanese sushi chefs make me feel better about quality. The hostesses were again nice and talkative and the ginger was not dyed (I assume dye is why some ginger is pink and other ginger yellow.) The lady sitting next to us had a full on conversation with Nutmeg and the sushi chef and they both kept cooing over how smart she was. She said "Her daddy must work at Intel."

We ended up with 17 plates and 4 sodas making the total $23. I don't know that we saved any money over going to Sushi Town and paying regular price. We probably would have paid the same price and would no have consumed 96 ounces of pop and 5 plates of dessert at Sushi Town. We would not have wasted as much. Our satisfaction would have been higher at Sushi Town and our tummies happier.

We have only been home for an hour and Nutmeg is hungry again, since she only ate one finger of rice 2 dumplings and a cream puff.

Once in the car we decided the only thing we liked better was the cream puffs and I happen to know that I can buy a box of 36 of those at Albertson's or $5 or so.

So Sushi Town has kept us for their business but I can't help wishing for $1 happy hour there.

Notes to Self (and Moose)

Do not take the kids out to eat.

Do not take the kids out to eat at Newport Bay.

Newport Bay is much more expensive than you remember.

Newport Bay has cut down on their portion sizes, 5 slices of seared Ahi Tuna for $22 is not a good value.

Order the Salmon.

Nutmeg will NOT eat her burger - just order fries.

Newport Bay DOES take reservations - waiting 35 minutes is not fun.

Your cell phone has a cool game to play while waiting.

It is amazing how Newport Bay can take an inch of apple and slice it to look like 3 kid's servings of apples.

The $15 off card you get in the mail will pay for the tip or you could look at it as they pay for 2 kid's meals which your kids will not eat. This is NOT a bargain.

The next time Samurai Mom is too depressed to cook dinner she should make a run to Sushi Town and pick up a box of corn dogs on the way home.

Even though $14.99 a lb at the market seems dreadfully expensive it is a bargain compared to eating at Newport Bay. It is OK to buy $3o worth of salmon at the grocery store.

We will be eating off of the food storage this next week to make up for the bill at Newport Bay.

Print out this note and refer to it the next time you are tempted to eat out.

Sushi Town: a review

Last night Moose and I were on a date and had 50 minutes to grab dinner. We swung by Nice Rice only to find that it has closed. Moose was sad because he actually liked a place that he thought I would like. So we drove over to to Sushi Town and tried that.
Sushi Town is a conveyor belt restaurant where all the little dishes with plastic lids rotate along endlessly. You see something you like, you pick it up. Everything is on color coded plates. At the end the waitress counts up how many green, blue, yellow or red plates you have and gives you the bill. It felt a little soviet and a lot Japanese though the employees appeared to be mostly Mexican.
I had 2 plates of Maguro Nigiri (raw tuna), 1 plate of Unagi (grilled freshwater eel), and a specially ordered avocado roll. Moose had a teriyaki chicken bowl.

The tuna was good, the unagi was also good, not the best I have ever had and not bad like the Vancouver Unagi. The avocado roll had a lot of avocado in it and had that taste which is due to the ripeness of the avocado not the preparation. Moose said his teriyaki bowl was terrible. All dishes were notably free from mayonnaise (see Vancouver Unagi.)

So all in all a mixed review. I liked it, it was dirt cheap (all that for less than $11.) Moose will not be condescending again. Maybe I can make it a girl's night out or introduce the kids to sushi in an affordable fashion.

The best part is that you sit on stools around the conveyor belt right next to whomever else is there, and you can eavesdrop on their conversations. For example if you had been sitting next to us you could have overheard this conversation:
Samurai Mom: See this color here, that is why I named Unagi, Unagi.
Moose: Yep.
Samurai Mom: Did you ever in your wildest dreams think that you would be so lucky as to have a wife that named her purse after sushi?
Moose: No, no I didn't.

Then you might have stifled a laugh just as the girl next to me did last night.