Too Good For Applebee's

It used to be that going to a place like Applebee's or TGIFriday's or Max & Erma's was a treat.  I could order whatever I was in the mood for, and even get a soda or lemonade to go with it.  That was one of my favorite things to do with friends in both high school and college.

But over time, I just stopped wanting to go to restaurants like that. At a certain point, John started joking about it: "when did we get too good for Applebee's?"  At the time I was just a graduate student with school loans and credit card debt, so it definitely wasn't because I had outgrown Applebee's financially.  But we just stopped going.  We'd either go to little hole-in-the-wall local places we'd found, or we'd go to a nicer restaurant if we had a reason to celebrate -- and we can always find one!

This weekend, we drove over to the Jacksonville Zoo, and on our way home we needed to stop for dinner.  Our choices were limited since we didn't know the area and are still, sadly, without smart phones.  We knew we didn't want a fast food joint, but it needed to be somewhere you could take a one- and three-year old and be able to make it through the meal.  Applebee's it was.

Their menu actually looks quite impressive.  There are all kinds of choices for different price ranges, health considerations, flavor preferences, etc.  I ordered some grilled seasoned shrimp, skewered and served on a bed of tropical rice pilaf, with broccoli on the side.  The picture looked appetizing, and it was only $11.

When our (super nice and helpful) server brought out the food and I saw what their version of grilled shrimp on rice pilaf looked like, it suddenly hit me that I knew the answer to our question: "when did we get too good for Applebee's?"  It was when I started cooking.  It was when I went there and ate a pasta dish that just didn't measure up to what I would make for myself on a weeknight.  It was when I started unconsciously thinking of it as fast food -- food I didn't have to cook -- only a little more expensive and not as fast.  Cooked by college students instead of high schoolers, perhaps.

I don't mean to sound all snobby about Applebee's.  To be honest, these days I'm skeptical of most food that isn't cooked by me or someone I know.  And that isn't because I'm the world's greatest cook, obviously.  It's because when I cook, I cook it just how I want it, and I have a good idea of where everything comes from (although not good enough).  Taking those two things away for the convenience of not having to cook is, frankly, usually not worth it to me.