House of Blues

Today Mary and I went to lunch at the House of Blues. HOB just opened in Cleveland a few weeks back, so for those of you who are from actual cool places this story will probably not be very interesting. For months now, every time we'd walk past the construction site Mary would say, "I've GOT to get in there!" in this really intense voice, as though it were some sort of exclusive members-only club reserved for the Fabulous.

So today we finally got in.

Immediately upon walking through the door, a rather stout black woman with a sparkley t-shirt and the teeniest, tiniest nose ring ever walked up and started talking to us. "HI! WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF BLUES!!!" she shouted. "ARE YOU HERE JUST TO LOOK AROUND OR FOR LUNCH?"

Mary took several steps back due to the force of the shockwaves from this woman's extremely loud speaking voice. "Uh, for lunch."

"GREAT! JUST GO PUT YOUR NAME IN WITH THE HOSTESS AND SHE'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!!!!!!"

We gave our name to the hostess, who told us at a much more reasonable volume that the wait would be 20 minutes. Since lunch hour for us is really supposed to be an hour, Mary looked at me for guidance. "Twenty means ten," I said. This seems to be some kind of industry standard. For some reason they feel that if they lie to you and tell you the wait is twice as long as it actually is, that you'll somehow be grateful for the privilege of waiting.

To kill the next 20 (but really only 10) minutes, we headed over to the company store to check out the merch. In addition to the usual fare of t-shirts, magnets and keychains they also have some evil looking plushy cats, several varieties of hot sauce, and some cool and interesting art. Mary noticed the art before I did. "Oh! Look at the glittery chicken!" After Mary both started and completed her Christmas shopping at the merchandise store, we went back out to the lobby.

"Mary, party of two? Your table's ready." Nine minutes, 57 seconds.

We were seated in a room covered from floor to ceiling in really cool art. A sign on one wall read "Barristers Gallery/ Lien Adulteresses Whores/Keep Out No Lien Dopes Pushers". I have no idea what that means, but I want one for my house. Sitting next to us were three guys (two had goofy hats) all speaking in American Sign Language. For some reason, I just love to watch people sign in public. Don't know why, just one of my quirky things. Our waitress was named Tara. There was something just a smidge Kate Hudson about her. "Have you eaten at the House of Blues before?"

"Actually no. We just FINALLY got in here."

"Okay, well I've tried everything on the menu so if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them."

"You tried everything on the menu? Does that come with the job? You have to eat everything?"

"Actually yes, it's part of the training. You have to at the very least put one bite of everything in your mouth and chew it. If you don't like it, you can spit it out, but you have to try at least one bite of everything. Unless you're allergic." I've never had a waitress discuss spitting out half chewed food with me right before I ordered ever before in my life. I liked her immediately.

Tara informed us that HOB Proudly Serves Pepsi Products, so Mary and I each ordered pan seared voodoo shrimp with rosemary cornbread and Dixie beer reduction and a Pepsi. This writer strongly recommends pan seared voodoo shrimp. It was excellent. But we were not yet sated. Dessert was in order.

We elected to split some white chocolate banana bread pudding. This is the best. Dessert. Ever. And it's huge. Halfway through I told Mary I couldn't eat anymore. She said "Yes you can!" and proceeded to divide what was left with her spoon and push half of it towards me. I use the term "half" loosely here. It was more like two thirds and she did it on purpose because she wants to make me fat.

"Oh no you don't!" I said, and proceeded to rearrange the sections with MY spoon so that the bigger portion was closer to her and the smaller one closer to me. This is funnier if you know that Mary is OCD, and having my spoon which has been in my mouth and has my spit on it touching her food is a special kind of torture for her. However, that shit was so good she ate it anyway.

Finally, when we had eaten every last crumb on the table and the check was paid, Mary looked at me. "I'm going to throw up," she said.

"Me too. Hey, since we ate the same thing, do you want to throw up in the same pile?"

"That is disgusting. How about you keep yelling about puke in a crowded restaurant for everyone to hear?"

Don't mind if I do. :) I'm so glad we got in there.