contrary to the facts that i a) have a custom starbucks card that i willingly paid money to create and b) have a magnet which proclaims that starbucks is my emergency contact number on my medical files, i do realize that i cannot live on starbucks alone. this results in the ongoing conversation every night that usually comes down to “i dunno, what do you want for dinner?” which is followed by, “ehmmmmm….” and, “wellllll…” and, of course, “i dunno, what do you want?”
fortunately, there has emerged a fantastic website that helps us to solve this dilemma – woodlandsevents.com. i dunno if you’ve taken the time to peruse it as much as i have, but i’ll tell you this much, they’re giving woodlandsonline a run for their money. i mean, you can’t find anything easily on woodlandsonline. if you click on “restaurants” you get a convoluted menu that lets you radio-button only one type of cuisine, but allows you to check multiple options for filtering. and then once you make your choices, you wait ages for the results to load – which is sad, considering the woefully lackluster and limited listings.
if, instead, you go to woodlandsevents.com you can find every concievable restaurant in the area, including those that are on the way here and those that have closed (which is extremely helpful, lest you get in your car at 5:30 PM on a friday and attempt to get to the back of the woodlands via the parkway, only to end up, well, parked for ages and eventually find out that the place you were headed closed last month.)
my point, and i do have one, is that even the cook wants out of the kitchen more often than she would like to let on, and there’s finally a great resource for helping said cook find someone else to do the dishes. some of our most recent selections have included: jason’s deli (always be sure to get the dipping sauce with the strawberries!) and pei wei (which, while tasty, just doesn’t compare to chef chan’s IMHO). i have an affinity for the tacos at taco bueno (waaaaay better than taco hell). the last time we ate at black eyed pea i was torn between wanting to give the parents of the screaming children running around the dining room a black eye or, well, doing something terrible that’s spelled similarly to the vegetable on the booth to get them to finally mop the stickiness of honey off. needless to say – the manager comped the meal. oh, and the nasty drink. i’ve just about sworn off of ever going back to the chili’s on lake woodlands drive and stick with the one on woodlands parkway instead. trust me, if you want your meal delivered in under an hour, regardless of the time of day, you’ll do the same. by contrast, i’ve been pleasently suprised to find the food always tasty at guadalajara and the wait times generally exagerated by the hostess, which makes your wait time shorter than expected and therefore pleasant. for italian, i recommend both sweet bella’s and pallotta’s, but definately not the olive garden and most assuredly not new york pizzeria.
and finally, a shout-out to the guys over at pizza-slut, for living up to a several-month-old promise to make right a completely fubar order, regardless of the fact that they couldn’t find said credit in their computer for me. y’all are just too kind.
*mwah*
i dunno, what do you want for dinner?