Yuck!

ZINGERS

 

When I am nudged, persuaded to try Zingers, I find the menu is too big, the printing too small. I have to lift my head so I can read the little words with my bi-focals. This restaurant has taken off like the proverbial bat out of hell. It opened on Pennsylvania Ave. N.E. only two weeks ago and is the talk of the town, at least my part of the town. Mary Jo had cajoled me, bribed me, until I agreed to have lunch with her there. 

 

The first thing that impressed me was we had to wait in line for 20 minutes just to get to the maitre'd and 20 more to be seated. The jabbering conversations around us, made us add to the bedlam.
Zingers is selling, serving, all natural foods, organic stuff, and I can't find a single thing that excites my taste buds. Mary Jo is a health addict and believes all the crapola about soil, and light, no chemicals to keep away insects, rats. I won't, absolutely won't, pay more for what is supposedly improved.

 

Salad greens at Zingers are grown, they say, on their grounds. Does that mean their ground is sterile, chemical free? Bull, bull. Mary Jo has a bowl of salad that is so aromatic, I smell it across our table. To me it smells something like jasmine perfume, and I am not a perfume lover on my meals. She puffs because  she doesn't even need house-made organic dressing. They use 'wild flower honey,' which makes me wonder about the wild flowers being out in the sun, the rain that is just full of dust, dirt, minuscule insects.  It is easy to see, I disturb my friend's enjoyment, so I make an effort, pretend the tart tomato bisque is divine. That makes her smile and me want to gag.  It's really bitter.

 

Another eatery used to be here where Zingers is. It was great but illicit stuff was going on and poof, marshals stormed it one midnite, police escorted the owners to the Penn. It was scandalous. Government people were having trysts with babes in the back, paying off the police so they wouldn't be shut down. It all came to a grinding halt when Ronnie took over. He did a lot of cleaning along Pennsylvania Ave., Texas, CA. I've had a few dreams recently about Ronnie galloping thru D.C., closing up restaurants, movies, brothels. Maybe I imagined it but think in one of my dreams he closed Zingers.

 

Fish is on the menu, guaranteed to be line caught, while beef is all  grass-fed. Specials (in print large enough for the world to see) offers 'a superb cut of beef for $25, perfectly seared, served on an enormous bed of chunky mashed Yukon Gold horseradish potatoes.' Organic turkey meat loaf`is a mixture of dark and light meat ground on the premises.' My stomach writhes with the descriptions, turns me off,  until I see the dessert 'apple cobbler rich-sweet and tummy-warming-comes with a huge dollop of home- made ice cream.      

 

In spite of my wondering 'whose home?', the cobbler interests me. I order it, enjoy it as I watch Mary Jo finish off every crumb of her gluten-free chocolate mousse cake.

 

I have no doubt that my friend will return, bringing others to enjoy this fantasy of over-do. I will not join them.