The Eyes of Apocalypse Dog

Well, you can't really see them. But if you were to look into them as it began to rain heavily outside the Piggly Wiggly, you would see the shape of the apocalypse.
Just so we're clear, this is a different day from my last sighting.

Art Should Be About Good Things

All this past week I've noticed the commercials on television for McDonald's new "Southern Chicken Sandwich". What I've particularly been interested in is the fact that for one day they were giving the sandwiches away with the purchase of a medium or large drink. On Thursday I realized that it was the day. So I drove to Monteagle, got in the drive-thru line and ordered me my free sandwich and a medium Dr. Pepper. This seemed pretty similar to the Chic-Fil-A sandwich I had in Bucks County. A small smattering of pickles (2 to be exact), no sauce and a surprisingly moist and chicken-like piece of chicken. It was okay. It was free. It was rainy.

For The Pleasure of C's Distraction

A few nights back my parents and I went to High Point Restaurant in Monteagle. High Point is one of the 'classier' eating options around but my overall impression of our meal, I'm sad to say, was not entirely positive. We started with the Black Thai Duck appetizer, with sesame/peppercorn crusted duck and 'oriental sauce'. I have remarked, in the past, on my difficulty in completely understanding how I can like duck so much, when farm raised but really dislike it when wild. During my time with the ebf's family I had many opportunities to try the wild duck. The meat was always dark and bloody and the taste, well, I can't remember the taste. I just remember a complete inability to eat it (which as my mother points out is a very rare occurrence). How the same animal can have such different flesh. Tender compared to touch. Tasty compared to not-so-much. Dark compared to light. You get the picture. In any case the duck itself was very good. The 'oriental sauce' was, to my discerning palate, nothing more than soy sauce. I would have preferred to do without it entirely.
We all had the lobster bisque. It was not all that great. Too salty for me and more potatoey than lobstery.
Then we shared a Caesar salad, the dressing of which was nice.
I had the filet mignon with a forest mushroom Burgundy sauce and choice of vegetable. I chose the asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. The steak itself was not so bad, I ordered it medium rare. It wasn't up no David Burke piece of meat but it was tender. The real problem (or problems) with this meal were the sauces. The Hollandaise was entirely unpleasant, could not be saved, after one taste I was pretty sure it was awful and the second taste confirmed it. The Forest mushroom Burgundy sauce was salty and had a strange aftertaste I didn't care for. The mushrooms, because of this, were also left untouched. Thankfully the sauce was more around the meat than on top of it...otherwise each bite would have been a challenge.
My father had the Steak Diane and my mother had New York strip steak. The sauce that accompanied my father's meat was, in my estimation, equally oversalted. My mother's steak came with a blue cheese butter sauce and it, of the three, was the best.

High Point's prices are definitely on the high end of things, entrees range from 25 to 40 dollars. For that price I believe one should expect a quality meal, perhaps not orgasmic or ground breaking, that never makes you tilt your head to one side or pucker your lips in distaste. Usually I have faith that a restaurant will only charge such steep prices if they're entirely confident in their product. I don't know whether High Point's management really think they're serving the best possible food or if they know that, in terms of fancy food, they only have one competitor (Pearl's). Whatever their logic may be, I find myself wishing they'd change it.

Subway

Yesterday my father suggested we go out to lunch. My mother tearfully declared she wanted to go to Crust, knowing full well that it was closed on Monday. My father and I patiently gave my mother a number of other options: Mexican, good ol' southern, Papa Ron's pizza, Chinese buffet etc etc. And after each suggestion my mother whimpered. Utterly inconsolable, she raged against our meek attempts at giving her solace. Piqued, she declared 'Let's just go to Subway, what does it even matter?' before throwing herself on our chaise longue and weeping.
I got a foot long BMT (I don't know what BMT stands for however since the B definitely doesn't stand for bacon), half with mayo and mustard and half with chipotle dressing. It was belly filling. At the tail end of my sandwich eating I stopped eating it as a sandwich and picked at its insides, remembering why I didn't, in the past, get Subway meat (lack of actual taste primarily).

Proving Exploded Viewer Partially Correct

Yesterday my parents and I went to Smokin' B's Barbeque in Monteagle. This was largely due to my father's jealousy of my mother's and mine bbq luncheon in Tullahoma. This time I had the pulled pork sandwich and shared some fried okra. Since I did not have this same dish in Tullahoma I can't compare them...but my mother could and the Tullahoma sandwich was better, says she.
Next door to the barbeque join was Lucky Health Spa. The parents told me it was a whorehouse. A student wrote a piece about it in the university paper, I guess, and said they went in and there were a lot of middle-aged Asian women there. Now that doesn't necessarily mean whorehouse...but the fact that all the shades were drawn and that area of Monteagle is prime truck-stop territory, well, I guess I believe it.

It's Getting Foggy In Here

One of the things about being on top of a mountain...or I think it is because of that...is that fog comes rolling in with some regularity. It's particularly lovely when it's still relatively warm. As it was on our way back from the Chinese restaurant.
We stopped at 'the pig'.

And then Fred's.

Friday Chinese Buffet

There aren't many options for dining out in the area around Sewanee. Or, rather, there aren't very many super appealing options. There used to be a truck stop/diner in Monteagle. In the last year, or so, the truck stop was converted into a Chinese buffet. This was my first time at Shan...though I guess I'll have to go back to try out their showers.


It wasn't as bad as I expected. The new owners totally reworked the space to make it almost impossible to remember what it used to look like. Pretty standard buffet complete with gross cheese sticks and meat, meat, meat.