The Steak Buffet
Ben always loved what he called “the fancy dinners” in the city, especially when he would think back to his childhood. His family wasn’t poor, but they didn’t have that much, either, and the town they lived in didn’t have what most would consider upscale dining.
The great restaurants near Ben were about a 40 minute drive away. He would think how, when he was growing up, that 40-minute drive seemed like an eternity, but nowadays, the same amount of time feels like a short trip.
For Ben when he was growing up, “fancy dinner” meant The Steak Buffet, and going there happened maybe once a year. Ben could recollect the trips, one town over, just past his Aunt’s house. He remembered the restaurant, a collection of booths and tables, and a western motif with decorations that looked like they came from a second-hand store in Arizona.
He recalled that it wasn’t fancy dining as there wasn’t a host or hostess to seat you at a table, but rather you would enter through the swinging doors painted to look like they were from an old-time saloon and follow the hallway to a buffet line. He could see his small hands taking a red, plastic tray from a stack of them at the front of the buffet and sliding it down the metal rails. Barely able to see over the rails, he could just see the trays of various food as he would peer through the glass.
The line always started with rolls and butter, with his mom helping him by grabbing the tongs and putting a roll on his plate. As he walked down the line, Ben had his gaze trained on the very end, where the steak was resting in metal serving trays. Along the way were all of the food groups Ben didn’t like, soggy green beans, mashed potatoes, and carrots that looked to be soaked in a vat of butter and water.
He would see his dad get served the mashed potatoes, and then confidently say to the server stationed behind the counter, “I’ll have some mashed potatoes, please,” trying to be like his dad. Ben didn’t really want them, but he was eating like a “grown-up.” As the server handed Ben a bowl of mashed potatoes, he always wondered why they never had tiny potato chunks in them, like his mom would make.
Finally came the main dishes. There was generally a hodgepodge of entrees, usually a mix of trays that would contain questionable fish sitting in puddles of butter, fried chicken that looked as if it had been under heat lamps for hours, and there, at the end of the line, the T-bone steak. Before the steak, however, was always meatloaf, smothered in catsup, with the top of the catsup looking crusty as the heat lamps sucked any moisture out of the one thing that would make the meatloaf palatable.
As Ben would walk down the line, he would see his dad say, “I’ll have one of those T-bones, and make sure it’s dead!”
Ben didn’t know what that meant at the time, but over the years he came to learn it meant well-done.
Ben, though, didn’t care about how the steak was cooked; he just wanted to eat like his dad.
As he would slide his tray with anticipation, just as he was about to pass the meatloaf, every time from behind him his mom would say, “Benny will have a piece of meatloaf,” pointing to the server behind the counter who would dish a slab of meatloaf, that by this time looked a little like a dried hockey puck slathered with dehydrated catsup, onto Ben’s plate.
“But, Mom, I wanted a steak like dad got!” Ben would complain.
“When you get a job you can have a steak. Today you get meatloaf,” his mom would respond.
Ben’s dad looked back at him, as if to say, “If it were up to me, I’d let you have a steak,” but then would agree with Ben’s mom, “Someday, son, you’ll get a steak. Today, enjoy the great meatloaf.”
Finally past the buffet line and to their table, Ben would try to enjoy his meatloaf, but mostly kept looking at his dad enjoying the gray T-bone. A smile would come to his face as his dad would always cut off a few little pieces and slip them on Ben’s plate. Stabbing a piece with his fork like he needed to kill it, Ben would put it in his mouth wondering why it tasted like leather.
“Ben, here, have some of this steak sauce,” his dad would mention as he noticed the look on Ben’s face. “Just smother it on there.”
Ben wondered, if the steak were so delicious, why did it need sauce? Instead of questioning the tastiness of the steak, however, he would smother steak sauce on the remaining pieces and pretend to enjoy them.
From those days forward Ben always dreamed of having a great steak, from a real steakhouse, without steak sauce.