Dining out

A couple of good recent meals out:

My wife and I ate tonight at the Golden Saddle Barbecue and Steakhouse, on Admiral east of Sheridan. My wife had the filet, I had a three-meat BBQ plate -- pork ribs, pork loin, and pulled pork. It was all very good, but the pulled pork was especially good. You can tell good barbecue when it's tender and flavorful enough to eat without sauce. Good coleslaw and tabouli, too. The owner and the waitstaff were very attentive and very concerned to make sure we enjoyed our meal. The prices were very good for the quantity and quality of the food, and the restaurant was clean and bright. We'll visit again.

For lunch, I tried a little Indian restaurant just south of the Taco Bueno at 61st and Garnett. They had a small but tasty buffet for $5.99 for lunch, but the best part of lunch was watching part of a Bollywood comedy/melodrama/tragedy/musical called "Ishq", in Hindi with English subtitles. Rich boy loves poor girl, poor boy loves rich girl, wealthy dads try to interfere. Way too many musical "stings" to add drama. The actors playing the dads were both good at eye-popping, vein-bulging rage. No one said "Curses! Foiled again!" but it wouldn't have been amiss. A musical number featuring the four young lovers includes an attack by a bumbling assassin; the song and dance continues without missing a beat. Another killer for hire looks quite menacing, but when he speaks, the subtitles have him saying, "You will bling a vely high plice," followed by the young people repeating the phrase and mocking the thug's accent. (Reminds me of the translation of Lysistrata which had the Spartans speaking like the Joads, to correspond to the less-sophisticated manner of speaking ascribed to the Spartans in the original Greek.) It was all wonderfully and unintentionally over the top, at least for American sensibilities.