Back At The Fort...
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Okay, so last time I talked about how we were off to Fort Worth on one of our regular jaunts. We picked Fort Worth because we like the city, and it was Martha’s birthday, and there were some things there we hadn’t seen as yet...so, we were off like the proverbial herd of turtles.(1)
Anyway, we had a reasonably quick drive and arrived just about at lunch. By luck, we ended parking on the street fairly near a restaurant I had previously spotted on the web, the Istanbul Grill & Bar.(2) We’re great fan of Turkish, Greek, Middle Eastern, and other eastern Mediterranean cuisines. Give me a chicken Shawarma and you’ll be looking at a happy man. You might even say, “How I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Shawarma.”
Hey, you saw it coming. You could have ducked. (3)
Anyway, the restaurant turned out to be an great success. It was expensive, yes, but the food was excellent, and Martha was delighted with it. “I have the on-vacation feeling,” she said. Which cheered my heart no end because right then I was sort of running in the deficit category when it come to picking restaurants. Several of the ones I’d suggested recently had been...well, er, ah...the term “toxic” is probably too strong, but on the other hand...
About the photos: First, an interior shot of the Istanbul Grill. Second, my dinner at the aforesaid grill (delicious). Third, Martha at the Water Gardens ...before we knew the truth.
There was for instance that place in Austin...call it “the Bent Spoon”...which had great reviews. And then I very carefully scouted out its location, downloaded directions to it, and even managed to get a parking place near it. Then I escorted her into the place quite proudly. Quite the little gourmand I was. Oh-so-sophisticated. You betcha.
And then...oh, then...then...the food had been...perfectly...absolutely...totally...
Wretched.
I remembered that day in particular because Martha had ordered a chicken dish which sounded just ducky.(4) But it showed up on her plate covered with a weird red sauce...which sort of looked like melted plastic...and smelled vaguely like some sort of cross between sludge crossed with strawberry jam...and tasted ... how to put this? Tasted a bit like the kind of stuff that cartoon turtles get covered with just before they turn into katana-wielding terrapins eager to slice, dice, and make Julienne Fries out of the nearest costumed super-villain.
Anyway...the highlight of that particular day was my watching her using a napkin in a desperate attempt to wipe enough of the sauce off to make the chicken edible. That was fun. Yes siree. Laugh a minute.
But this time, it was a success. The food was great. My reputation was...for a while, anyway...saved.
Okay, the question was where to go afterwards. We debated this a bit. As I say, the two things we decided we wanted to see most were the Botanical Garden and the Water Gardens. After some discussion, we decided to put off the Botanical Garden until the following day. That way, we’d be rested and ready for what sounded like q pretty long walk. (And the Garden is huge, btw. They say that to really see it all, you ought to invest no less than four days in the place. We couldn’t manage that. But we hoped to see at least a few of the more interesting parts.)
So that left the Water Gardens. We decided on those. A visit to them would be a great way to spend the afternoon, we thought. A leisurely stroll among the fountains would be refreshing and delightful, we decided. It would be a perfect respite from a hot day in Texas, we knew. It would be a charming and relaxing way to recover from our long drive and sooth our jangled nerves, we said.
Ah...
Notice that sound in the distance? Kind of like the thundering hooves of rapidly approaching disaster?
Yep. That’s foreshadowing, all right. Just the thing for a literary afternoon among friends.
Stay tuned. More to come.
And some of it is just awful.
Footnotes:
1. Have you heard of turtles? Old joke. But venerable.
2. The restaurant’s webpage is here: https://www.istanbulgrillbar.com/
3. Sincere apologies to Al Jolson. And George Gershwin. And pretty much everyone else on the planet.
4. Okay, not ducky. Chickeny.
Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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