(SNN) - I’m not big on fine dining.  My idea of a gustatory adventure is driving to the cross town Denny’s or ordering the “Ptomaine, or not Ptomaine?” special at the Shakespeare Sucks Roadhouse. So a trip to a place featuring “Authentic Southwest Cuisine” was a new and challenging experience.

For starters, it begs the question, what the hell does “Authentic Southwest Cuisine” offer that Taco Bell does not? 

The (Redacted)* Restaurantissimo del Southwestoboasted nice enough décor if you favor sand on the floor and serapes hung on the wall. The menu included mostly foodstuffs found in the desert by hallucinating prospectors. 

Most items were served flash-burned over mesquite and enjoyed best when washed down with Tequila, beer, or a dry glass of Ethanol. But the food and drink was only the beginning. The real culinary artistry lay in the highly descriptive menu writing, which could make survivalist fare sound like haute cuisine.

For instance, who could resist this enticement: "Flash-fried hearts of Urdu smothered in partially hydrogenated Sidewinder sweat and presented on a bed of free range tumbleweed and crab-lettuce, with broiled New Mexico armadillo kidneys and a side of prickless butter cactus."

Yummy. First things first, however. I asked my waitperson for a microbrew. Any recommendations?   

"You look like a Fat Tire man,” he said. I told him his Mama sleeps with rodeo clowns, but he explained that Fat Tire is a beer, not an insult. I opted instead for a local effort, Turgid Gringo, brewed down the street at a converted bicycle shop. Good yeasty taste, excellent finish, with a hint of dried hops and derailleur grease.

My wife ordered an appetizer called Plato Supremo, which means “Supreme Plate” in Yiddish. It consists of what was either “citrus shrimp" or "circus shrimp"—my menu was smudged—served on a bed of old mattress parts. Turned out it was “Circus Shrimp, and I watched my spouse try to corral the little crustaceans as they cannon-balled into a pool of cocktail sauce. 

My wife’s entrée was Chicken Mole, which is not, as I thought, a blind, burrowing yard fowl. The term means chocolate-covered chicken, which sounds like a dish created during a Colonel Sanders aneurysm. I had a taste of what was not unlike like broiled Roadrunner with a frisson of melted Chunky Bars.   

I decided to order the day’s special, Grilled Gila Monster Steak w/Sandbutton Mushrooms awash in Fetid Dialysis Reduction and Baby Spit-Lizard Knuckles. Sounded scrumptious, but unfortunately, the Gila Monster had escaped, taking the chef’s Marmoset with him.

So I opted for something called “Lamb Chops.” Once I scraped off the “Encrusted Bouquet of Desert Effluvia in Aged Schoolhouse Paste,” the chops were more than decent.

I know lamb chops don't possess the gustatory daring and charm that Chicken a la Goodbar does, but I'll take a decent chop over a burrowing yard fowl any day.

For dessert, we decided to split the Brocade of Sand Yak Chocolate defiladed with Cinnamon Drizzlecorn, and inculcated in pan-sautéed Refrozen Popsicle Shavings.” I found it surprisingly tart, as was the dessert waitress. As this was my last meal out before my mega-diet began, my wife and I made a quick stop for a Taco Grande on the way home.

*That’s not the name of the restaurant. “Redacted” means edited out, censored or stifled. This info provided by the NSA guy who reads my emails. 

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