Garlic??? What the Hell...

Ok, I like garlic as much as the next person. Ok, that's a lie. I pretty much hate garlic. I hate the smell, I hate the flavor. I hate it's overpoweringness in anything it's added to, in that it becomes all I can taste and it makes my stomach uber-sick. Now that we all understand that..

We went out to dinner last night as a belated Birthday dinner for yours truly, and as such I picked Mizu. It's a japanese steakhouse, rather pricey as those are, but I figured that's what I got that birthday money for, right?

[related anecdote]: So for Lem's last birthday I took him to Benihana. It's a japanese steakhouse nationwide, same as above kinda pricey but the food is wonderful. Should I say, it used to be wonderful. Now,they cook everything with garlic butter. Ev-Ry-Thing. The fried rice. The vegetables. The steak. THE FREAKIN STEAK. And they put a shitload of finely chopped onions (did I mention I hate onions too?) in the fried rice, which made it inedible for me. Basically I paid a shitload of $$ for food that I couldn't eat. I was unhappy. That is an understatement.

Back to Mizu. So we sit down, and the table across from us is already underway with their chef cooking.. and I can see the contents of his little food cart. Hmm... that huge bowl of butter has green bits in it. Butter does not normally have green bits in it in it's natural state, unless maybe you fed the cow some really good weed or something. The waitress comes over and I ask her if the butter is garlic butter. She says no, another worker overhears her and corrects her, yes it's garlic butter. I verify that they can in fact substitute plain butter. *whew*

Our chef comes out, starts taking our order. I ask to see the rice he'll use to make the fried rice. He pulls out a huge platter with a pile of cooked white rice on it, and on top they've dumped enough diced onions to depopulate an entire garden of onions. *gag* I ask him if he can switch it out for rice WITHOUT onions.. which he very nicely does. The rest of the meal proceeded and the food was quite tasty. They even put small cut-up shoots of asparagus with the shrimp appetizers. Big kudos to my family, including the in-laws, for letting me take over dinner and putting up with my pickiness. But really.. they put SO MUCH of that garlic butter in there all you can taste is garlic. I can go to the damn grocery store and buy garlic for a couple dollars, and saturate all my food at home if I want to. If I'm paying $20-$30 per PLATE at a restaurant, I want to taste the FOOD I'm paying for, not garlic with a hint of steak flavor, thank you very much. Same with the onions.

Yes, spare me the "oh but garlic is SOOOO good for you" lectures. I don't like it. I don't anticipate liking it anytime in the near future, and I don't have to eat it. So there!

Del