Alameda Brew Pub (4765 NE Fremont St)

I think I'll start a blog called Adventures in Spinach Salad. I seem to have eaten a lot of them lately. Or maybe I should just start eating different food. That seems like a better option.

We had a surprise party for my friend Erin at Alameda Brew Pub a couple of weeks ago. There was probably 20 or so people there, stretched out over about 5 or 6 tables. I was at the very end with some cousins and my friend Sherri.

The harried looking waitress came around and took orders. I had the benefit of being the last one to order, so I got to hear what everyone else was ordering. Here is the argument I had in my head:

Good Self: All the girls at the table are ordering salads. You should too.
Bad Self: That is such a cliche. I hate it when girls order salads. You know they would totally order a cheeseburger if their boyfriends/husbands/single male friends weren't here.
GS: Sometimes there is a reason for cliches. Such as healthiness. All of these girls are healthy.
BS: I don't want to be like all those girls. Besides, my blog readers expect reviews of real food, not rabbit food.
GS: But you have to. It's good for you. You will feel better
BS: All those girls just ordered exactly the same thing. Diet Coke, salad, with dressing on the side. How do the men even tell them apart?
GS: There's more to life than what you eat for dinner. Your blog readers will still want to hear about a delicious salad. It's you they like, not the food that you eat.
BS: I hate you GS.
Real Self: Oh, yes - I'll have a Diet Coke and a spinach salad. [You will note here that I did not order the dressing on the side. That was a statement about my individuality.]

So anyway, I got my salad, which was dry and not full of the walnuts, mushrooms or parmesan cheese that the menu promised. And there was so little dressing on it that I had to put salt and pepper on the spinach just to make it bearable. I resented the little girl next to me who was chowing down on some kind of cheesy pasta.

She was also slurping a delicious looking root beer, that was brewed right at the Alameda Brew Pub. It smelled super sweet and the little girl's dad said that it tasted like sasparilla (I don't really know what that tastes like, but I do know that they talk about sasparilla in The Music Man, you know, Trouble in River City, when the town is going to hell over a pool table. Sasparilla must be some kind of scandalous.). But my friend Rich said that he tasted their root beer once and it was so bad that he only took one sip and then left. Maybe that has to do with the sasparilla thing.

At any rate, my stomach was growling because my dry spinach did not fill me up. I asked the waitress if she could bring me a piece of bread. She brought me several small warm pieces of crusty bread, which tasted delicious, until I saw a wadded up piece of damp napkin in between two of the slices. I am so done with this dinner.

But good news. My friend Erin (whose birthday we were celebrating) went to Hawaii a few days later and came back ENGAGED! Yay. We'll have to go out for a REAL dinner to celebrate!