We Ordered Calamari - Not Cala"hair"i

Ah.... I love going out to dinner on Thursday evenings with my friend of 25 years, Richard. Nothing better than winding down the work week with a dear friend who's always been there for me. We typically trade off exactly who is paying for the meal. Our typical place is what we refer to as "Jennifer's" place. No one else around here really knows what that means as it's our lingo.

Last Thursday, we were attempting to meet at a local Mexican restaurant, just to shake things up a bit. As per usual, R is always running behind schedule and this particular Thursday, he was coming from a meeting in DC. so instead of hoofing it all the way back near home- I get the bright idea of meeting him half way at a local Italian restaurant.

Being Italian myself, I can be pretty picky when it comes to Italian food. Olive Garden is so so... Carrabba's has KILLER, i mean KILLER Italian food. No, peeps, it doesn't actually *kill* - but it's pretty darned good eatin'. Carrabba's comes a close second to Amalfi's in Rockville, but that's a bit of a hike. Carrabba's makes divine cannolis... complete with the pistachios and citron. Just like my grandmother and great-grandmother used to make. Reminds me of my childhood.

But- as usual - I digress....

As I said- I'm pretty picky when it comes to Italian food. Richard is Italian as well - but he's not so picky! Still, this local Italian joint has decent enough food.. or I should change the verb tense to had decent enough food up until last Thursday.

My father always said that you can tell the caliber of the Italian restaurant by the calamari. For those of you unfamiliar with what exactly calamari is. it is made from squid (all parts of it) with the most popular version being fried. it is the time of frying that distinguishes a great Italian restaurant from the wannabees. If the squid is fried too long, it becomes rubbery. There is an art to getting this right. I keep waiting for the day that Gordon Ramsay puts it on the menu in "Hell's Kitchen" so he can scream at the participants as he does with the Risotto. Man, that would be some good TV right there.

So- as usual, Richard and I ordered the fried calamari as our appetizer this fateful Thursday. We were both famished so we were really looking forward to it. After what seemed eons, it was finally served. The first piece was one of the rings and for the first time at this establishment, it was chewy- definitely overdone. Not wanting to be discouraged, I reached for a different piece. Put it on my plate.

To my utter surprise, we no longer had simply calamari as our appetizer. We had cala-hair-i. Eeeeep. There, nestled in the tentacles of the squid was more than simple additions. There was a full length hair fried in with our appetizer. Gah-Rossssss. Richard had picked up another piece- and I somehow calmly instructed him to drop it. He looked at me strangely (yeah, differently than he usually does) - I pointed to the calahairi.. and the O formed in his mouth.

I calmly (surprising, I know) took the dish back to the kitchen. Did not make a scene - why bother. Just calmly asked them to take it back. The server came out and actually asked us if we wanted another serving of it. Um- no. Nothing fried please. So we opted for the spinach and artichoke dip instead. Props to this establishment in that they did not charge us for either appetizer. Lucky me since it was my week to pay. Yesssssss.

Needless to say, I'm not quite sure if I'll ever go back there. Ick factor is off the map.

Success was had that Saturday night, however. Before I went out dancing and met a nice gentleman, Richard and I got together with some other friends for dinner. We ordered fried calamari from that restaurant and yippee skippy- no surprise ingredients! Even better- it was Richard's turn to pay for dinner- so *he* paid for this appetizer. Yesssssss!

Tonight- I'm thinking we'll go back to our old standby - "Jennifer's Place". I do still owe you a dinner at Capitol Ale House though, Chard.