Salad at The Vineyards, Garden Ridge,
TX
A few years ago my daughter came to
visit me for a week in San Antonia, Texas, where I was working a temporary
6-month contract job for the US Army.
On the final night of her visit she wanted to treat me to dinner at a nice place for Father's Day, but we couldn't find one so we went to The Vineyards instead.
I had driven past this place just a few days previous when I had taken a wrong turn off the paved road and ended up on one of the famous "Farm-to-Market" roads of Texas.
So yeah, The Vineyards is out in the middle of nowhere. Has its own vineyard (imagine that), although at this point in the extreme drought they are but one of many vineyards in the southwest that now grow raisins.
They also had goats. (This is what we call "foreshadowing" in The Biz. It is a very poor example, yes, but it is foreshadowing nonetheless.)
It took 30 minutes after ordering before the salad arrived. I thought maybe it was one of those places that are so fancy that the salad comes at the end of the meal (you know, like that restaurant in "Pretty Woman").
Well the salad was absolute trash. I hate Romaine lettuce anyway and this was some warm, limp-ass Romaine with a really bad house dressing. I guess it took so long to be served because they were busy steaming it. Neither of us could eat it.
After a time our waiter stopped by for a rare visit and I asked if, instead of a doggy bag, we could have a goat bag.
"You want to feed the salad to the goats?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes I do," I said. "But only because I hate goats."
"Well you can't do that," he said. "We tried. They won't eat it."
He then did a one-eighty, or half a pirouette, and performed a rather clumsy pas marché back to raisin jack cellar.
So this got my daughter and me to joking about the salad. How they line the property with it to keep the goats away from the raisins. How the "dressing" was not really dressing, but rather some type of pesticide or "goat repellant."
On the final night of her visit she wanted to treat me to dinner at a nice place for Father's Day, but we couldn't find one so we went to The Vineyards instead.
I had driven past this place just a few days previous when I had taken a wrong turn off the paved road and ended up on one of the famous "Farm-to-Market" roads of Texas.
So yeah, The Vineyards is out in the middle of nowhere. Has its own vineyard (imagine that), although at this point in the extreme drought they are but one of many vineyards in the southwest that now grow raisins.
They also had goats. (This is what we call "foreshadowing" in The Biz. It is a very poor example, yes, but it is foreshadowing nonetheless.)
It took 30 minutes after ordering before the salad arrived. I thought maybe it was one of those places that are so fancy that the salad comes at the end of the meal (you know, like that restaurant in "Pretty Woman").
Well the salad was absolute trash. I hate Romaine lettuce anyway and this was some warm, limp-ass Romaine with a really bad house dressing. I guess it took so long to be served because they were busy steaming it. Neither of us could eat it.
After a time our waiter stopped by for a rare visit and I asked if, instead of a doggy bag, we could have a goat bag.
"You want to feed the salad to the goats?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes I do," I said. "But only because I hate goats."
"Well you can't do that," he said. "We tried. They won't eat it."
He then did a one-eighty, or half a pirouette, and performed a rather clumsy pas marché back to raisin jack cellar.
So this got my daughter and me to joking about the salad. How they line the property with it to keep the goats away from the raisins. How the "dressing" was not really dressing, but rather some type of pesticide or "goat repellant."
After a forgettable dinner we decided to
try a little experiment. We took our goat bag full of the limp, leafy substance
and went outside to visit the goats. We
tossed the salad (no pun intended) in the general vicinity of a herd of goats
gathered near an old tree. This had an
effect on the goats not unlike that of a clowder of cats being chased by
ravenous dogs. Yes, they went flying up
the tree.
The goats remained treed until the
in-house Hazmat crew arrived (which included our waiter) to rake up and dispose
of the toxic vegetation.
Unreal. A goat will eat any damn thing:
cans, carpets, wood, rubber – anything. Saw
one eat a rocking chair once.
But they won’t eat the salad at The
Vineyards.
And
neither would you.
 |
| Not a salad lover |
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