Carrabbas

I love Carrabbas, I always have. Whenever family members fly into town we always go there. I have been going there regularly since 2001 and my wife is so familiar with the menu she would often help out new servers if they should ever trip up.

In a time where most eateries are seeing their numbers decline, there was a queue to get seated at Carrabbas today. I wish I had not wasted the time.

I had the Chicken Bryan, main course $16 for a plate. The order was taken by an apathetic bordering on grumpy waitress who had brought out half a small loaf of hard cold bread between 4 of us which was quickly polished off and not refilled until after the main course had arrived. Even then we had to ask for it. If you are a regular at Carrabbas you will know that the bread is usually excellent and very very fresh.

My food came out small and cold. Yes cold, not just warm not even tepid but cold. When finally the server bothered to come back I sent the food back to be heated up. Less than 2 minutes later she came back with the food dumped it in front of me, stated the plate was very hot and walked away. The plate was not hot, and to my surprise, (insert sarcasm here) neither was the food.

Incidentally, my wife was also disappointed with her food, it was also cold but she was so hungry she ate it anyway without fuss. We both left the place unsatisfied with the service, the amazing shrinking portion size, which incidentally is inversely proportional to the price change over the past few months, and the food itself.

This has been the only time in the past 8 years that we have left the place without ordering the desert rosa. We were just not ready to face another disappointment.

Perhaps this is karmic retribution for us not supporting local restaurants over large chains.
Karma 1, Khurram 0

Yesterday my brother made some really good chicken. This is a variation of a Jamie Oliver recipe. Here is how you make it...

Ingredients
A Small Child
DVD of Kung fu Panda or Ice Age
Chicken Breasts (3)
Soy Sauce to taste
A bunch of Spring Onions
Ginger
Five Spice, 2 teaspoons
Honey, 3 teaspoons
Salt, to taste
A Chilli Pepper
Lemon Juice, some
Oil, a little
Egg Noodles

Unwrap the DVD and remove disk, place disk in the DVD player. Take the small child and place him in the living room in full view of the TV. Turn on the DVD player if you haven't already done so and hit the play button. You must now act quickly because the rest of the cooking is time sensitive, you have 92 minutes.

Take a piece of root ginger about the size of a small child's hand, slice it thinly (ginger not child's hand). Slice the chilly pepper and fry it up with a little oil in a large frying pan. Slice up the onions and add them to the mix. Then cut up the chicken into cubes about half an inch to an inch and add it to the pan also. Once the chicken is slightly browned add everything else and let it simmer until the sauce tends to thicken or you get bored of waiting. During this time you should make the egg noodles.

Remove from pan, retrieve child and serve with egg noodles (the food not the child).

Finish eating and reply to this blog and let us know how it went!