I follow former Top Chef finalist (I refuse to call anyone on that show a “cheftestant” unless I am saying it in a mocking tone, which this is not) Richard Blais on Twitter, and this morning he published a link to a recent posting of his over on Creative Loafing.

In a nutshell, he talks about his for-naught efforts at one Atlanta eatery on New Year’s Eve to transform it from Amateur Night to, well, Not Amateur Night. Suffice it to say his efforts failed as no one appreciated his inventive menu, his progressive service attitude, or anything else.  People wanted to watch the game.  No one wanted to eat caviar. Why?  Because folks who go out to dinner on holidays such as Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, etc. are amateurs. They don’t “get it”.

Amateur night could be any Friday or Saturday night, when people who don’t usually dine out head out on the town to blow a paycheck. But the serious amateur nights are New Year’s Eve, Valentines Day, and Mother’s Day brunch. These are reserved for that special brand of customer, many of whom haven’t ventured into a restaurant since the previous holiday. It’s a night that shiesty restaurateurs gouge prices. A night when guests ask for ketchup with their aged rib eye. And also a night when burned out chefs retreat into ubiquitous schlock, and overly ambitious young chefs mistakenly puff their chests out…

At this point, you’re probably thinking I’m about to start in on a rant about how I most certainly am not an amateur and how dare that Richard Blais and his third-place finish judge me! Quite the contrary. I agree with the guy.

One of the most horrific meals Capt. UberHusband and I ever had was on Mother’s Day at Chamberlain’s Steak and Chop House in Dallas.  We were there with my mom and it had to have been…probably 2001. It was before she moved away from Dallas.  The term douchebag wasn’t in vogue at that time, but our server was one. He was detached, displaced, pissed off, and wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else other than that restaurant. Not surprisingly, his mood shifted when he presented the check to Capt. UberHusband and he was all help and smiles. Not surprisingly, we didn’t leave the schmuck a tip.  We went back for one more punishing Valentine’s Day dinner before forever also swearing off dining in restaurants on February 14

More recently…like, last week…we went to Roy’s for New Year’s Eve. This was our third NYE at Roy’s.  Previously we’d been to Chamberlain’s (clearly we never learn) which was passable, but while CU was in Iraq I’d developed a rapport with a specific server (Tye! Where are you?) at Roy’s and he became our go-to guy.  This past year though, he unceremoniously left the restaurant.  A fellow server told us he’d gone to Loft 610 but when we called to make reservations and requested him, we were told he wasn’t there anymore, either.

That’s fine…going forward at Roy’s we went with our #2 choice…Viktor. We had one meal with him a few months ago, and it was delightful. Viktor, like Tye, had been at Roy’s forever and we liked his serving style…we’d seen him in action many times.  At the beginning of December I called Roy’s to make reservations for New Year’s Eve. The guy I talked to told me they hadn’t released the menu yet, and he didn’t know if he could make reservations. I told him I’d gotten an email with the menu…so he probably could take my reservation. Sigh.  I specifically requested Viktor be our server, and also mentioned this was our third New Year’s Eve at Roy’s.  No problem, no problem, can’t wait to see you on New Year’s Eve, blah blah blah.

When we arrived for our reservation, the hostess told us that Viktor’s section was full and did we have another server we liked?  Well yes, we had Tye…but ya’ll did something to run him off. We don’t have a third-stringer…like the University of  Texas, we didn’t expect we’d need one.

The hostess giggled and said Viktor was just soooooo popular that they had to assign tables in order of who made reservations first.  Hmm. I kind of got the impression I was one of the first to reserve, based on my clunky conversation earlier in the month. Was I pissy?  Yeah, I kind of was. I was annoyed. We were told Jordan would take care of us, and that “Jordan was very good”. Well, swell…?

We got someone named David instead and…the crux of this post (I know, short story long…) is we did feel as though we were treated like Amateurs. David wasn’t a very experienced server (or if he was, he just wasn’t very good), and he hovered. He wasn’t blatantly obtrusive, but every time I looked up he was walking past and scanning our table. In David’s defense, we were flanked on either side by Amateurs: to our left was a couple who asked for the “house Merlot” and a woman at the six-top to our right rather loudly commandeered one of the back-waiters to take her…wait for it…expresso order.

Have I gotten to the food yet?  Roy’s does a great job with appetizers. On NYE I had a wonderful poke (similar to, but different than the standard Roy’s poketini) with plantain chips, and CU had mussels in an Asian lemongrass broth. Our soup and salad course was also very good, as was the dessert.

But Roy’s entrees…oy, the entrees. We aren’t big fans of them. They’re usually under-salted and honestly, rather boring. What nearly ruined our meal was the fact that the blender must have been the only working appliance in the kitchen that night.  I ordered the scallops, which were supposed to come with “smoked bacon jalapeno grits and a roasted yellow tomato cream sauce”.  Sweet, I’m thinking, sexy “shrimp ‘n grits”! No. The grits were completely pureed to the consistency of baby food.

I hate to go all foodie, but the mouthfeel left quite a bit to be desired. An actual “grits” texture would have been the perfect complement/offset to the silkiness of the scallops.  At least the bacon wasn’t pureed. Oh no, there were nice big, imposing chunks of that on my gritless baby food. At least CU’s entree actually used the word “puree” after “butternut squash” in the description. No confusion there.

I do remember at one point during the meal when we were complaining about the pacing of the dishes, the fact that I was advised my entree “plate was hot” (BIG no-no), and the inability of the chef to come up with a few knock-em-dead dishes instead of the same ten standard entree selections, we wondered aloud if the restaurant wasn’t dumbing itself down for the New Year’s crowd.

Richard Blais’s article got me thinking about that again.  Are we automatically Amateurs if we like to get dressed up and go out on New Year’s Eve? We don’t have friends who have parties, and frankly we like to get out of the house and be around others. Or, are we just varying degrees of Amateur based on the average per-person price for the meal?  Michelin isn’t throwing any stars in Roy’s direction, but it wasn’t a cheap meal. We expected more. In retrospect, I’m not sure why. Maybe wistful memories of yesteryear are clouding our judgment.

It’s now apparent to us that what kept (keeps? the correct tense is sort of undecided right now) us going to Roy’s wasn’t the food, but the service. To everything turn, turn, turn…I guess.

We did decide…no more going out to restaurants on New Year’s Eve. I may not be Gael Green, but I’m also not some bumpkin from the backwoods. At the risk of sounding like one of those unbearably annoying TripAdvisor reviews, we’ve been to some damn fine restaurants in the last ten years.  Hell, we have reservations at Le Bernardin for our anniversary in two weeks.

Fine dining does not frighten me. Shitty dining does.