Wretched, wonderful food

This has been the most mixed bag food weekend of my entire life, skewing significantly to the negative. My stomach is sad, but it was bound to happen after all this time, right? Friday night, we tried to find a supposedly high-quality Chinese/sushi buffet. We thought we were at the right location but it was most assuredly NOT. Greasy platefuls of "Eh [shrug], we may as well eat," later, we were VERY sorry. Worst Chinese ever, and since I already separate out real Chinese food from Americanized Chinese food, it was pretty bad. We didn't actually get sick, but we were extremely uncomfortable afterwards...

The next night we tried to get actual sushi. In theory, not so much of a high-risk venture. In actuality, however, it's pretty terrible when you're hungry, can see food, and they just won't give it to you. We were sitting across from the sushi chef and saw him scrutinize our order, scrunch up his face, and decide to work on the orders of every table in the place that sat down after us. An hour and a half later, with several flagging downs of the waiter and the manager, no one could help us. Apparently, sushi chefs are part of an autonomous collective and cannot be controlled when they run amok. (Bah, angry!!!) So we attempted to get food at some random Mexican place down the street, which was also a mistake. One plate of bean burritos returned to the kitchen and a sizzler plate of stringy beef and tomatoes (hey, I was starving at this point) later, seriously bad things were starting to happen in the stomach arena and I was sick for the rest of the night. Bleah.

Well, we weren't smart enough to listen to karma (though we did leave the bad-luck shirt at home), so we tried for three times a charm at the Melting Pot. Now, sometimes I'm a bit of a food snob about chains, but I have nothing against chains that offer something unique and do their shtick well; plus there's the huge bonus of corporate and national consistency, which is very appealing after the miseries suffered at the hands of the independents. And, I have to say, I've got nothing on the Melting Pot exact deep sense of gratitude and satisfaction. Not only did they give us perfectly good food and LOTS of it (oh boy, that flaming turtle is a dessert of beauty), but the service and environs were quite pleasant and the evening ticked by with flawless predictability. As they say in Mastercardland, PRICELESS.