where's patrick swayze when you need him?

In honor of Amelia's boss leaving for a new job in a couple of weeks, there was a sort-of-surprise party that we went to yesterday evening. It was at a fine little dining establishment called "The Pennsylvania Road House." So you assume, with the words "Road House" in the title, that this would be awesome, right? Or maybe you'd assume that, if nothing else, this little greasy hole in the wall cooks awesome food, as little greasy holes in the wall tend to do.

Well, you'd be wrong. It was greasy, all right, but not particularly tasty. Amelia ordered an open face roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes, but the whole plate was COVERED in gravy. I'm not talking a small amount of gravy; I'm talking you couldn't see the bread (and had a hard time identifying the potatoes) because of all the gravy on the plate. I ordered a reuben, which fortunately did NOT feature gravy, but there was so much corned beef on that sandwich that you couldn't taste anything else. We ordered a half dozen chicken wings (wings were on sale there, which I guess is why we had the get-together there), and they were ok, but no where near as good as some of the other places we've had in town. We learned later that until recently (maybe a couple of years ago?) there was actually no kitchen at all at the restaraunt, just the bar. Which maybe explains the quality of the food.

On the plus side, the decor was what I'll call "Trailer Sheik." The walls appeared to be made of cardboard, which made the heaters almost useless (Amelia spent much of the evening with her mittens on). A large bar ran across the back wall, decorated with about every neon sign you can think of. The industrial carpet featured a broad array of stains. The patrons mostly consisted of large men with beards--all of whom I'm sure were very nice, but many of whom featured fashions such as "Tight wife beater over swollen beer gut." The best part? A projector shining against the wall (apparently screens are out of the question at a Road House) featuring Monster Trucks in full-blown technicolor! You know it was awesome when monster trucks take up a fourth of the wall.

Good times.