Ugly Greek Eager Beaver

Two posts in one day...can it be???

I tried to upload some photos that have been on my camera for a while (too long) after finishing the work I brought home--trying to keep the Dementors away, you know--only to find that plugging in the USB caused a power overload on our computer. Weird, right? Not really if you have an eager beaver in the house who gnaws and chews through everything. Yup. Cara chewed through our camera's USB cable. We knew about it, but didn't think it actually damaged the cable. Upon further inspection, it appears that our little beaver managed to break a few wires within the cable. Hey, I tried to share pictures. It's Cara's fault. You can call and complain to her at 800-Bite-Mee.

We went out for dinner. We rarely eat at home on the weekends, so it's no big event or anything. We decided to try a new restaurant. It's a mom and pop type of place that we've driven by many times since moving to our house. It looks like a diner and served Greek, Italian and American fare that is very well-priced. I ordered the moussaka, which is eggplant, potatoes and ground beef with a white bechamel sauce. It came with a salad and a side of vegetables for $9.45. Not bad, right?

Got the greek salad. Not too bad...very little feta, so it's tolerable. As I was picking through the lettuce to ensure no chunks of feta, I come across something else that was white. A white hair coated in salad dressing. Ew. I ate all of two bites before finding it. Whatever. It's a diner...we lowered our expectations the moment we walked in. BUT, a waitress bussing the table behind us (she wasn't our server) saw me make my glorious discovery, examine the specimen and push my salad away. Did she do anything? Nope. She didn't proactively take away my salad nor tell our waiter about my problem. See, regardless of the type of restaurant, I would expect that the restaurant's staff would attend to all the guests' needs, even if we weren't their table. I guess that's asking for too much. I would have tipped her in addition to our waiter if she took care of me. Oh well, her loss.

My entree came. The moussaka looked good enough. The vegetable of the day was green beans. Wow. I swear those were canned green beans tossed with some oil and bits of cooked tomatoes. I had not seen such drab looking green beans since my elementary school days. QE's grandmother's dreadful Thanksgiving green bean casserole looks fresh from the farmer's market compared to the dead beans sitting on my plate. The color is only what I imagine would be in a diaper after feeding a kid nothing but pea puree for a week.

The moussaka tasted good. I couldn't figure out what the white layer on top was. Mashed potatoes like on shepherd's pie? No, it's not. A dough crust? No...oh right! Bechamel sauce! Wait...isn't that supposed to be creamy and saucy? That's the base you use to make mac and cheese from scratch. This is soft but solid...there's no oozing or dripping here. What the heck. It's a diner owned, or at least run by, Greeks and they can't get a freakin' Greek entree right? We purposely focused on the Greek items thinking it would be the kitchen's specialties. Maybe dinner isn't their thing. We will give it one more try, either breakfast or lunch. We want to support small, local businesses, but for $25 including tax and tip, we're better off eating at Chipotle and pocketing the other $12.