Mangia in Round Rock
Dec. 28th, 2006 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdeb(My apologies if you think I'm writing about manga. If you accidentally read that, you know much more about manga than I do.)
Late this afternoon my dad called saying that he was working at a job in Marble Falls and would probably be done in time to meet us for dinner. Did I have any plans this evening? Yes, a hustle workshop from 7:30 to 9:45. Well, we might be able to do something.
If you know anything about my family, you know the answer to this is, "Ha!" You've got to admire the never-ending optimism, though.
I've learned probably all the hustle that my teacher would probably be able to cover in a 2.5-hour class, so we decided R. would go to that, and I would go to dinner.
Marble Falls is due west of my town, but there are no direct routes. Dad said he could arrive south, which probably has better roads, or north. I recommended the northern route because it's closer to his house, which is 200 miles north of my house. The north route brings him to northern Round Rock.
Did I mention that today is my dad's birthday? My dad's sixty-fifth birthday? A very big birthday. And based on what I know about my dad, he would not be thrilled. What I know about my dad is that I came into his bedroom the morning of his thirtieth birthday and said, "Daddy! Daddy! You're thirty today!" And he groaned, "Don't remind me."
So, anyway, he was in the mood for pizza. He likes Mangia. He also likes a Mr. Gatti buffet. We told him we'd find something up north.
Fortunately, it turns out there's a Mangia (Chicago stuffed pizza, home of the Mangiasaurus Rex) in Round Rock. You just go up to Round Rock, take a right on Highway 79, drive for a while until you see an HEB (an HEB Plus, actually, whatever that is), and look around in there.
Until today I'd been only to the Guadalupe location. This location consists of a kitchen, a counter to order at, and a couple of counters to eat at for a total of about five seats or so. Outdoor is a patio with maybe two wooden picnic tables. Next door is Amy's Ice Cream.
This place is completely different. When you walk in, it feels like a Denny's or a Bennigan's. It's huge. It has several large seating areas. It has a multi-page laminated menu. Creepy. But the food is just the same. And it is kind of nice to be able to sit indoors.
We totally went wacky with the food. Of course, this happens when you order a stuffed pizza, but we also ordered:
* fries - battered and spiced, served with "special dipping sauce." We got the waiter to ask the kitchen what's in the sauce. They do not know. It arrives premade. So it's secret special dipping sauce. One appetizer order is a gigantic basket containing many more fries than you could make from any single potato, even a gigantic one.
* Italian cream soda - the first good one I've had since I first tried one in Seattle. It's made with soda, syrup, and half-and-half, and is served with ice and whipped cream on top. I got the cherry flavor and it tasted like cherries, only sugary! Mmm.
* chocolate desert - I forget what they call it, but some kind of gooey brownie thing with ice cream and whipped cream.
I can't promise this will happen to you, but we got the kind of waiter who promised us the dessert would be free if we could clean the plate using only straws. (It all started when he'd meant to say he would bring four spoons, but he accidentally promised us four straws instead.) We tried. Actually, I didn't try, but I watched my sister and my brother-in-law try. Here's what happens: You scoop the whipped cream onto the straw. You carefully move it towards your mouth but before it even leaves the boundary of the plate, the whipped cream slides around to the underside of the straw and then falls off.
Since our waiter served this with four serving plates, which we did not use, we were able to show him clean plates, but since we had not cleaned them with our straws, we were disqualified.
My dad seems to be handling this birthday much better than his thirtieth. He says the main thing he's looking forward to is cheaper flights on Southwest Airlines. Also, someone told him he looks 56. (That is the sort of thing that feels much better on your 65th birthday than on your 30th birthday, I'm thinking.) Also he found out his (slightly younger) brother is having more health problems than he is, which is bad, but which certainly makes it feel not so bad to be older.
**
I slipped into class in time for the last 25. I'm so glad I decided to go. I was not disruptive at all--I did in fact know everything that had been covered so far, and I got to learn a new thing. And get a hint of exercise in.
Late this afternoon my dad called saying that he was working at a job in Marble Falls and would probably be done in time to meet us for dinner. Did I have any plans this evening? Yes, a hustle workshop from 7:30 to 9:45. Well, we might be able to do something.
If you know anything about my family, you know the answer to this is, "Ha!" You've got to admire the never-ending optimism, though.
I've learned probably all the hustle that my teacher would probably be able to cover in a 2.5-hour class, so we decided R. would go to that, and I would go to dinner.
Marble Falls is due west of my town, but there are no direct routes. Dad said he could arrive south, which probably has better roads, or north. I recommended the northern route because it's closer to his house, which is 200 miles north of my house. The north route brings him to northern Round Rock.
Did I mention that today is my dad's birthday? My dad's sixty-fifth birthday? A very big birthday. And based on what I know about my dad, he would not be thrilled. What I know about my dad is that I came into his bedroom the morning of his thirtieth birthday and said, "Daddy! Daddy! You're thirty today!" And he groaned, "Don't remind me."
So, anyway, he was in the mood for pizza. He likes Mangia. He also likes a Mr. Gatti buffet. We told him we'd find something up north.
Fortunately, it turns out there's a Mangia (Chicago stuffed pizza, home of the Mangiasaurus Rex) in Round Rock. You just go up to Round Rock, take a right on Highway 79, drive for a while until you see an HEB (an HEB Plus, actually, whatever that is), and look around in there.
Until today I'd been only to the Guadalupe location. This location consists of a kitchen, a counter to order at, and a couple of counters to eat at for a total of about five seats or so. Outdoor is a patio with maybe two wooden picnic tables. Next door is Amy's Ice Cream.
This place is completely different. When you walk in, it feels like a Denny's or a Bennigan's. It's huge. It has several large seating areas. It has a multi-page laminated menu. Creepy. But the food is just the same. And it is kind of nice to be able to sit indoors.
We totally went wacky with the food. Of course, this happens when you order a stuffed pizza, but we also ordered:
* fries - battered and spiced, served with "special dipping sauce." We got the waiter to ask the kitchen what's in the sauce. They do not know. It arrives premade. So it's secret special dipping sauce. One appetizer order is a gigantic basket containing many more fries than you could make from any single potato, even a gigantic one.
* Italian cream soda - the first good one I've had since I first tried one in Seattle. It's made with soda, syrup, and half-and-half, and is served with ice and whipped cream on top. I got the cherry flavor and it tasted like cherries, only sugary! Mmm.
* chocolate desert - I forget what they call it, but some kind of gooey brownie thing with ice cream and whipped cream.
I can't promise this will happen to you, but we got the kind of waiter who promised us the dessert would be free if we could clean the plate using only straws. (It all started when he'd meant to say he would bring four spoons, but he accidentally promised us four straws instead.) We tried. Actually, I didn't try, but I watched my sister and my brother-in-law try. Here's what happens: You scoop the whipped cream onto the straw. You carefully move it towards your mouth but before it even leaves the boundary of the plate, the whipped cream slides around to the underside of the straw and then falls off.
Since our waiter served this with four serving plates, which we did not use, we were able to show him clean plates, but since we had not cleaned them with our straws, we were disqualified.
My dad seems to be handling this birthday much better than his thirtieth. He says the main thing he's looking forward to is cheaper flights on Southwest Airlines. Also, someone told him he looks 56. (That is the sort of thing that feels much better on your 65th birthday than on your 30th birthday, I'm thinking.) Also he found out his (slightly younger) brother is having more health problems than he is, which is bad, but which certainly makes it feel not so bad to be older.
**
I slipped into class in time for the last 25. I'm so glad I decided to go. I was not disruptive at all--I did in fact know everything that had been covered so far, and I got to learn a new thing. And get a hint of exercise in.