Business, Family, Food, holidays, Stories, Uncategorized

I Like What I Like

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In 2019 YA and her boyfriend discovered Roti, a Mediterranean fast food place that opened in late 2018 in Edina. It’s a lot like Chipotle, where you choose your base, then your protein, then your add-ons as you go down the line.  Since I rarely go out to eat for lunch (and when I do, I never go far), I didn’t even know it existed until YA suggested that I should include Roti on the list of possible giftcards that Santa could put in her stocking.

It turns out to be fairly close to my office so I went to help Santa with his list a bit before the holidays. In getting a giftcard for YA and one for BF, I qualified for a $5 off card for myself.  Since I had to run an errand yesterday that took me close to Southdale, I decided it would be a good time to try Roti and get a good deal in the bargain.  Since I hate to stand around trying to figure out how the menu works in a new place (with impatient folks behind me), I decided to look on line before heating over.  The menu described how the process works and all the options, including a yummy looking flat bread pizza with hummus, veggies and feta cheese.  Right up my alley.

Imagine my surprise when I got to Roti and the veggie flatbread pizza wasn’t listed on the menu board. When I asked about it, a couple of employees looked at me like I had frogs crawling out of my ears.  The manager piped up and said that it had been discontinued.  Obviously not in the hour since I had seen it online, but I had a feeling that sentiment wasn’t going to get me anywhere.  Instead I did what works best in these situations; I stood there looking up silently and forlornly at the menu board.  Eventually the manager said “but we can go ahead and make one for you anyway” and proceeded to confirm what I wanted on the flatbread.  (All of the ingredients were right there, but I figured that commenting on why they would discontinue something that they clearly could easily make would not help.)

While I was waiting, it occurred to me that I have a couple of favorites at other places that have been discontinued and I still ask for them.  Jamba Juice will still make me an Orange Appeal and Davanni’s will still do their Four Cheese Hot Hoagie for me if I ask.  I assume most people just let these things go and order off the menu, but I don’t always want to try something new.  I just want what I want.

Faced with new options are you adventuresome or do you like what you like?

67 thoughts on “I Like What I Like”

  1. I looked at the Roti online menu and it appears that the flatbread options have disappeared. Ironic, since the flatbread is the roti. Isn’t that sort of like opening a burger restaurant and then discontinuing the burgers?

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    1. It is kind of funny that if you use the app for the phone or any of the shortcuts to get to the menu the flatbreads don’t appear at all. But if you go onto their actual website and drill down to download menu all the flatbreads are still there. But I agree, considering the name, shouldn’t the flat breads be the first items on the menu?

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      1. When I looked at their website, the flatbread pizzas has the caveat “only available at specific locations.” But yes, it’s a little strange that a restaurant named Roti doesn’t feature flatbread prominently on their menu.

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        1. And I’m still wondering why, if you have all the ingredients right there, you would take the vegetarian flat bread off the menu?

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        5. FIve Easy Pieces with a very young Jack Nicholson. I think it won an Academy Award in the late 60s or early 70s. Big movie at the time.

          I did not know Jack Nicholson had children, but recently I saw a picture of his grandson who is an actor—looks like him.

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        6. The one with Jack Nicholson is “Five Easy Pieces.” Good film, worth seeing if you haven’t. The other two clips are from “When Harry met Sally.”

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  2. I got to start thinking about menus back in 69 when I turned vegetarian. I have had to eat around menus for a long time. I got stumped once in about 1970 and I swore I would never let it happen again.
    I used to order a cheeseburger hold the burger at McDonald’s and they would sell it for a dime. McDonald’s had a lesson in how to make it at McDonald’s u but few managers had seen it. Ketchup onions and cheese.
    I got mad at subway for charging me extra for more cheese if I left off the meat which was their biggest expense so now I order a cold cut sandwich with the meat on the side. 12” flatbread with cheese lettuce spinach tomato cucumber green pepper onion black olives (3x heavy) pickles banana peppers jalapeño peppers and chipotle dressing for 5.37 cut in half and wrapped separately so I can eat half now and the other half within 2 or 3 days (it gets soggy). It may be my favorite meal. And my dogs are especially fond of it

    I’ve gotten to eat at these best steak joints in the world and a do very well with a baked potato a salad a side of sautéed mushrooms and maybe some vegetable side dish.
    Appetizers are usually some of the best stuff on the menu. Artichoke dip, margherrita pizza, deep fried mozzarella, zucchini, mushrooms and onions are often there,

    Taco Bell is a gold mine but they screwed up not going with veggie meat, they backed out on the plant protein deal Burger King is raking it in with on the impossible burger. I suspect the impossible burger is a bit expensive right now, it I predict it will be priced more reasonably within 2 years. Plant protein is a new buzzword.

    Looking forward to it.

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      1. We like Taco Bell. Kelly always orders a Black Bean burrito. It’s not on the menu anymore but they’ll make one when she asks.

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  3. I eat at restaurants so rarely that I would never consider experimenting and risking disappointment. I order what I like, and I’m always happy because it isn’t another meal cooked by our community kitchen.

    I used to delight in the fact I had never once eaten a school lunch meal. God apparently decided I got away with that too long, so now that’s what I get every day.

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    1. The school lunches I remember were of varying quality—we used to fight to the death over the fried chicken and Sloppy Joe lunches. The chow Mein, not so much. How is the quality of yours?

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      2. The only institutional meals that I really remember were from the vegetarian line at Carleton. This is the early 70s and it was pretty much understood that if you were going to eat vegetarian you had to have mushrooms and you had to have curry.

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      3. “Varying quality” sums it up perfectly, Jacque. I’m amazed at how bad the cooking often is, then they’ll shock us with a really nice meal. It gives all these old folks something to talk about! The only consistent dish is broccoli. It used to be my favorite veggie, but broccoli here is boiled and boiled to the consistency of baby food, then cooked a bit longer to make sure the green color totally disappears. And then it’s served cold.

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    2. I didn’t eat school lunch all of Elementary school because you had to order the whole week and one of those days would be fish, which I never liked.
      But by Jr high and High School the menus had changed and there were options and then I ate them every day.

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  4. On the subject of unfortunate restaurant names, out near Rosedale there is a Mexican restaurant named Listo. I don’t know what that means in Spanish, but my first reaction is that it’s short for food poisoning.

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      2. “Ecole” in French is school, isn’t it? The English translation is just too close to e-coli and listo sounds like listeria. I wonder how those restaurants have done in terms of business and staying open.

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      2. La Cucaracha has been around for as long as I can remember. I’ve lived in that neighborhood twice, so I’ve been there numerous times, and I always found it enjoyable. At this point I haven’t there for twenty years, and they’re apparently doing just fine without me. Good food, pleasant atmosphere, and reasonable prices. I think most people associate the name with this:

        Restaurant names like Chichis and Hooters confound me. Guess they’re aiming to attract a different clientele than the demographics I’m in.

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    5. Down in the Fountain Hills AZ area, there was a Chinese restaurant called ‘HaHa Chinese’. It wasn’t very good.
      Well, 16 years ago it wasn’t.

      But there was an Italian place near there that had the best garlic toast we’ve ever had.

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  5. I am usually willing to be adventuresome in the moment, but if it’s something I really wanted, I will find some other place to get it. One of my favorite things to eat out is the Home Fried Potatoes at Fat Nat’s in New Hope (a TC suburb west of Robbinsdale). I finally found another restaurant (the Blue Moose) that does them as I like… in Port Townsend, WA.

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        1. We like Fat Lorenzos! We stop there when in the cities sometimes.

          Here in Rochester there is Fat Willy’s. It’s a burger joint. I’ve only been there once. No reason, it’s just on the other end of town.

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  6. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    This is one area of life in which I am erratic and unpredictable. Sometimes I want what I want, and sometimes I want to experiment, but I don’t know which preference will appear at any moment. And since my surgery, it has become worse. I lost my appetite for several months after my surgery. Who knows why? Now it is back, but I still cannot count on liking foods that I used to like. Or I will cook something or order something, then I cannot eat it.

    How a knee surgery can affect appetite is beyond me. My sister-in-law, an internal medicine Doc, said, “Yeah, sometimes it is just like that.” Which is also the opinion of the physical therapists I worked with. The welcome side of this problem is that I have now lost 14 pounds.

    Who knows what I will have for lunch.

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    2. I am having Chili and cornbread for lunch and it is going down just fine.

      Steve, years ago (30 now) after cancer surgery and treatment I developed a mild case of undiagnosed fibromyalgia, a lesser relative of RA. This surgery, which is hard on the body has kicked it up again, much more intensely. I wonder if that is the cause of appetite loss? I did not know that appetite loss was a symptom of RA.

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      1. RA didn’t reduce my appetite, Jacque. For a year and a half or so, they kept giving me mild drugs to see if they would reduce the pain and stiffness. The wimpy drugs didn’t help a bit. All that time I was in so much distress that I lived in my favorite chair night and day, moving as little as possible. Going to the kitchen for food was more distress than it was worth. When you feel that generally wretched you know food isn’t going to be pleasant. So why bother eating? I forced myself to eat a tiny bit just to avoid crashing.

        I’ll bet you feel great about losing 14. Good for you.

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        1. Thanks for separating the issues. I ate soup for the first 6 weeks. I like soup, but that was a bit much.

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  7. Like VS, if I am going to a restaurant I have not yet been to, I often look up the menu before I go. Got into the habit when Darling Daughter was small and I needed to ensure that there was something on the menu she would eat. (She’s still a very picky eater… and probably one of a very small number who will ask the fine folks at Curran’s for a side of just broccoli – not the full vegetable medley – a swap they have been doing for her for over a decade.) Husband is still sure that Good Earth has his favorite turkey wrap on the menu – it’s been gone for years – and has to find something else when we go there. I am willing to try something new if a favorite is discontinued. But I think I am the only adventuresome eater in our house. Well, maybe me and the dogs. 🙂

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    1. Dogs (at least my dogs) tend to be way too adventuresome eaters. One of ours is so food driven she will eat anything off the ground or on the street. Then she has “digestive issues.”

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      1. Anything wrapped in plastic is potentially cheese as far as our dogs are concerned. And cheese is good. So is most anything else that we might drop: Cheerios, bread crumbs, snippets of lunch meat…and whatever it is that the raccoons drag into our yard from the dumpster by the liquor store (ish da). I thought bassets were scroungers… these guys are almost as bad, and just as foul when the eat something they ought not to have.

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      2. Oh yeah. Our dogs will run off and find some dead animal all too often. And if they drag a chunk home, Humphrey, the biggest gentlest of them all, well, he’s our ‘delicate flower’ and he will also suffer from digestive issues.
        And today is his birthday. He’s 5.

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  8. Yes. And No.
    Regular restaurants around here I tend to stick to what I like. But if I’m out somewhere new then I try to be a little more daring.

    We got to Olive Garden a few times / year. My favorite drink there was the Vanilla Cream soda. They don’t offer it anymore, but if I explain what I want, usually the server will go talk to the bartender and someone will know how to make it. And they are really good! If you’re into that sort of thing.

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  9. Air travel allows me to compare and contrast the quality of mocha lattes. Caribou and Starbucks are usually too sweet. Dunn Bros. are usually pretty good.

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  10. Taking a second look at this weekend’s question, it doesn’t necessarily apply to food choices only, does it? I’m good with trying just about anything new, food wise. With other life choices, I’m a bit ambivalent.

    Take traveling, for instance. I used to love traveling, seeing different places, experiencing different cultures. Now my traveling days are numbered, and I simply can’t get excited about air travel, at all. But taking a flight of fancy, if I had a choice between visiting someplace I have never been before or revisiting some of the places where I frolicked as a young woman, what would I do?

    On one hand, there are lots of places that I’d love to see. Certain locales in Africa, South America, Australia (if it wasn’t on fire), and Asia have intrigued me my whole life. But the truth is, I also have a deep longing to revisit some of my old haunts in Europe. That longing is tempered by the very real possibility that I’d be disappointed, that things have changed too much, and they aren’t at all how I remember them. Perhaps it’s better to leave well enough alone.

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