Restaurant food gauntlet

As part of their All You Can Eat theme this week, NPR's Fresh Air broadcast a routine by Patton Oswalt, where he talks about the food at the Black Angus Steak house.  Hilarious.  I love "and what the heck, four cheeseburgers" . . .

Black Angus used to be a very friendly restaurant where I'd come in and have a steak and a baked potato. It'll be a good time. And you go, that sounds fine.


And then over the past few years, the commercials have turned into this, like, gauntlet of threatening food, where it doesn't even look pleasant anymore. It sounds like an initiation rite now:

"At Black Angus, well start you off with an appetizer platter, featuring five jumbo, deep-fried Gulf shrimp served with a side of our butter and cheese cream soup and 15 of our potato bacon bombs and a big bowl of pork cracklins."

And you're like, "You know, we're each going to split that."

"No, you'll each get your own. And we'll take you to our mile-long soup and salad bar with our He-Man five head of iceberg lettuce salad, served in a canoe with 18 pounds of ranch dressing and, what the heck, four cheese burgers."

It's like, "Oh, man, you know what? I just, how about I'll just get a little mixed green salad?"

"Hey, I'll put on a dress and curtsy before I bring you a mixed green, buddy."

"Why are you yelling at me?"

And it just, it just never ends.

[It's a lot more fun to listen to him saying it!]