Has anyone else noted that onions, and specifically red onions, seem to be creeping into every facet of the restaurant and fast food business? I can’t seem to get anything today without some bit of stingy, crunchy onion turning up inside it.
The worst offender so far has been Frankie and Benny’s Restaurant chain. It’s a shame because I love going to Frankie and Benny’s to take in the faux Italian-American décor, good food and generally friendly service.
OK that’s mostly bullshit.
The main reason I love going to Frankie and Benny’s specifically because I adore their roasted potato skins with cheese and bacon bits. I could eat them all day long and never get bored. They were simple, straightforward and no doubt fattening as f**k, but they’re tasty so that doesn’t matter. Every visit I made to F&B’s would begin with some potato skins despite El Kat’s prompting that maybe I should try something different. I say, NO! As long as we’re in Frankie and Benny’s I’ll be whacking back the potato skins, or so I thought.
Frankie and Benny’s had other ideas it seems, and suddenly one day I cheerfully demanded Loaded Potato skins from the friendly waiter only for him to apologise profusely that they no longer served them. So it was with a heavy heart that munched down some chicken things and refused to return to F&B’s until my favourite starter was restored to its rightful place on the menu.
El Kat, who is ever tolerant of my foible and idiosyncratic ways, shrugged and said OK have it your way you six foot pest. Of course she said this in full knowledge that my daft taboo did not apply to her if I was there, and while out with some of her family at F&B’s she spotted the return of potato skins to the menu.
Naturally upon hearing this news I demanded that we go straight there this weekend, and I fired in trying to order potato skins even before we were properly seated. The friendly waiter duly obliged and a familiar plate of three potato skins appeared in front of me. They looked better than ever with each one looked stuffed to the gunwales and coated with mighty layers of cheese. I grabbed the first and took a giant enthusiastic bite, and that’s when I got what we in Ayrshire refer to as “a gunk”.
A crunching, mashing, distinctly organic texture assailed my senses. I sensed a great disturbance in the force. There was more to those loaded potato skins than just cheese, bacon and potato. Truth be told the taste of the entire thing was overwhelmed by the presence of GOD DAMNED RED ONION. I put them down in disgust. I couldn’t bring myself to eat another bite. This wasn’t what I signed on for! I wanted potato, bacon and cheese, not some damn miniature salad mixture sneaking about disguised as my sacred starter.
My sadness and disappointment were almost palpable, and El Kat reassured me that the mean proprietors of Frankie and Benny’s would be punished when the revolution came. I nodded in sage agreement and we departed from that place of culinary betrayal determined to fight on against the ever encroaching forces of the onion invaders.
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