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Monday 12 September – part eight: what’s that in my dish?

As we heard the coaches arrive, we decided now was the time to leave and we headed off to Bryce Canyon Lodge, where we were hoping to get dinner. It’s a beautiful place.



It was chaos when we walked in, with a lot of people waiting in line for the dining room, which didn’t bode well, but the manager Luther soon came out and told us that, if we weren’t in a group, to move to one side and that got rid of a lot of people. He warned us that they were busy and that there would be a wait, but when we saw that there was only one other couple in front of us and they told us that the wait would be around 15 minutes, we decided that was fine.

We picked up our buzzer and, as it worked all over the Lodge, we headed over to the gift shop, where we got a book, fridge magnet, Christmas ornament and a couple of postcards. Mark also found a mug he liked, so got that as well. When we went to pay, we were told that they couldn’t take international credit cards, as their system was down. Fortunately, it only came to $32, so that was OK, but it was a good thing we knew that, as we’d be sure to check in the restaurant if they were having similar issues before we ordered.



Just as we were paying, the buzzer went off, so Mark went to check in, while I finished up. We were seated next to a window....



.... and quickly met our server, whose name I don’t remember, but he reminded Mark of Lurch from the Addams Family (is that right? ) and he ran through the specials with us. The menu was very extensive, with the entrees running to two full pages, so it took us a while to decide what we wanted, but motivated by the fact that a group had just sat down near us, we hurried up our choices.

Before I say what we decided on, I’ll say that as soon as we ordered was where the problems started. We both went for appetisers and if I say that we got exceptionally bored waiting for them to come out, you get an idea of how bad things were. I would say that we waited perhaps 35 minutes for them and, during that time, I went out and bought some stamps for postcards, posted a couple I’d already written and wrote another two at the table.


At least we had bread to keep us going...

Our server came by, thinking we’d already had our appetisers delivered to us and we had to explain that : we hadn’t. He disappeared and then we didn’t see him again for a few minutes, so we asked Cheyenne, who wasn’t our server, but who we’d got to chatting to earlier, as she’d made a joke about the fact that she’d be getting past our table on a regular basis. She went to check for us as well and told us that they’d been taken out to the wrong table. Within a few minutes, both our appetisers had arrived, but it was a painful start to our dinner and sadly it was not going to get any better....

I went for the Natural Bridge mini crabcakes, jumbo lump blue crabmeat folded with panko and herbs then oven broiled with pesto aioli. I have to say that they were excellent and I couldn’t fault them, although I’d have personally preferred them without the salad they came with.



Mark had the Bryce wings, flash fried, then tossed in spicy chipotle sauce, with blue cheese, celery and carrot sticks, although he asked for the blue cheese to be left off and went for the milder sauce, as apparently there were two versions, one milder than the other. He seemed to enjoy it and it took him a long time to eat it, as there was so much of it.



That’s where the next problem started. Because the appetisers were so late coming out, the entrees turned up about two minutes later. For me, it wasn’t such a problem, as mine was quite small, so I could easily move on to mine, but Mark was left struggling through his appetiser as his entree slowly started to go cold.

But that was nothing to what was to come next... I had opted for one of the specials they had, which I was told was sea scallops on a bed of red pepper risotto. It sounded perfect, as I love it when they use red pepper in cooking and that’s something they seem to do a lot around here.



I dug in happily and a couple of minutes later, I had a horrible feeling that I’d just tasted something that could be meat, but they hadn’t mentioned that at all when I ordered it. I inspected the contents of my dish a lot more carefully and found a few more offending items. I asked Mark for his opinion and we both came to the same conclusion – it had to be bacon!

I was horrified and I’d had enough, after the fiasco with the appetisers. I immediately got up and asked for a manager. Jimmy came over, who we later found out was the Vice President of the resort (apparently they were desperately short handed tonight and it was hands on deck for everyone!) and he apologised profusely and said that he’d get something else for me. I told him that, actually apart from the bacon, I liked the dish and I’d prefer it without the bacon, so he got on the case with sorting that out for me and Mark’s rapidly cooling dish was taken away as well.

We got a visit from Luther, the restaurant manager, shortly afterwards, and we were very nice about it, which surprised him, but I couldn’t see the point in yelling at him or anyone else. He told us that they’d all been walked through the dish earlier and no-one had mentioned bacon, so I’m guessing that chef got lynched later!

Next: this meal can’t get any worse.... can it?