Rice Pudding and Spit Up

“There was also a meal that involved rice pudding, 5 lbs of meat and spitting up at the table. That will come shortly.”

I guess I blacked out when I wrote that, because I totally forgot to write about the most memorable eating experience in Paris.

When we first got to the restaurant, Chez L'ami Jean, we all were a little sketched out. They sat 5 of us at a table that was meant for 4 anorectics, and then handed us sticky binders written only in French, that I guess were the menus. Well, since fromage, champagne, and baguette are the only words in my French vocabulary, I got flustered. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of dining with me, let me explain a little something to you: I get menu anxiety, and I get it bad. If a menu has more than 2 pages, chances are I cry a little bit when I get up to go to the restroom. Basically, it’s all the symptoms of your average panic attack, but completely obese and unjustified. So, imagine me with the equivalent of the Cheesecake Factory’s menu, but not a single English word. I started to sweat, which made me nervous, which made my sister Mary anxious, which then cause Lauren to get worried. What the F were we going to eat? As I began contemplating culinary suicide in this small French bistro, a gentleman who looked like Massimo (Alex Karev) from The Wedding Planner, came to our rescue. He began reading the menu in French and then translated everything into English. I became lost in his translation, and as I was contemplating taking him as my lover, I heard him say something along the lines of “4 kilograms of rare prime rib/rib eye/something steak.” I would pay five million dollars to have a picture of us five fatties staring back at him in amazement. Fat moment number 1. This man was now not only my lover, but also my sisters and mothers as well. Is that awkward? Anyways, so my four chunky comrades ordered that, and I decided to be slim and trim and order the pork chop with mashed potatoes. Mom ordered chicken liver pate, and they brought it to my place setting instead of hers. The only way to ruin a baguette: top it with raw chicken parts…VOMIT. Anyways, Mary and Lauren got calamari, which sounded like a solid choice. Wrong-O, turns out, their version of calamari looks like influenza on a plate.

On to the main part: the meat. For you guys who are metric-system challenged, 4 kilograms of meat is about 8.8 POUNDS of pure steak. They brought out a shallow cauldron of meat and veggies, and I watched four ladies turn in to sumo-wrestlers at a buffet.

It. Was. Awesome.

My pork chop was good, but it took all of about 5 minutes for me to give in to the feeding frenzy. It’s not so much that it was delicious, it was, but the fact that 5 pretty well mannered women (girls) went to town on 10 lbs of meat that night. Fat moment number 2.

Sadly, the meal did not end there. We were all almost unconscious, and then our waiter forced us to get dessert. (By forced us, I mean he said, would you like dessert, and none of us said no). So, this restaurant was known for their rice pudding, and since I’m not a huge fan of rice or pudding, this sounded like a definite miss. Rice pudding just sounds like something that Fat Bastard would have really enjoyed. So, when they brought out a giant bowl of creamy chunky pudding, I was not interested. So I grabbed a pistachio macaroon and sat on my fat ass while I watched the werewolves devour the pudding. When they went on and on and on about how good it was, I felt left out, so I gave it a whirl. Turns out, rice pudding is delicious. You top it with crunchies and brown sugar and you might just have the official snack of the Overweight Olympics. Fat moment number 3. DELICIOUS. So, while we were still eating I said something funny, most likely about food or macaroons, and made my mom laugh. I should probably tell y’all that my mom has sort of a problem when it comes to eating/choking/functioning during meals. Most of the time we just let her choke because we are used to it and she can handle it. Well, this time she laughed and choked all while taking a sip of wine, and then spit up the wine at the table. My sisters, well, one sister, freaked out and punched me at the table for not getting up to help mom (it’s okay, Mar, I know it was just roid-rage from all the steak), and it hurt. The meal was basically over at that point, and we paid, took pictures of mom’s mis-hap, and rolled ourselves into a cab.

Just a little red wine in her rice puddin bowl...