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Skate That Wasn't

Funny things tend to happen to me at restaurants. I've had a waitress try to shove food in my mouth, friends of mine object to what I order, and someone decide that my order was no good. I always laugh it off when it happens, because, well, it's funny. C'mon now, when's the last time someone tried to stick food in your mouth without your consent?

And now, I have another story to add to the list.

It all started with a Korean restaurant that the Mild Ex and I decided to try. As we were perusing the menu, I noticed a few interesting items that caught my attention. For example, there was this skate (it's like the sting ray's cousin) dish that sounded intriguing. We negotiated a bit on what we wanted to eat, and ultimately, we included that skate dish in our selection. The waitress took our order, and everything was looking good.

I don't quite remember why, but the Mild Ex then had to excuse herself from the table for a few minutes. It was no big deal, so I didn't think twice about it. However, that also meant that when the waitress came back to our table, I was seated there alone. As it turns out, the dish we ordered was raw skate, and she wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Now, I personally have no problem with raw fish, but I knew that the Mild Ex wasn't particularly big on it. So, I told the waitress that I'd double check and then let her know. And sure enough, the Mild Ex wanted to try something else. The meal ended up tasting just fine, so it all worked out pretty well.

However, we were randomly talking a couple of months later, and we decided to go back to the Korean restaurant to try that skate dish. As before, we ordered the food, and then waited for our food. This time, though, the Mild Ex was seated at the table when someone came to question our order. This time, we knew it was raw, so we were prepared to say that yes, we did in fact want to try raw skate.

Undeterred, this person asked if we'd ever had it before. Well, no. That was kind of the point, after all. We wanted to try something we hadn't had before. Apparently, though, this second waitress insisted that the flavor was quite strong, and that it wasn't for everyone. She suggested that instead of getting that dish, we could try the steamed skate instead. Seeing as how the waitress was being so insistent, the Mild Ex agreed to swap out our order for the other dish.

At this point, though, several questions were going through my head: why even have it on the menu if you're to question someone ordering it every time? Or were we only getting questioned because we weren't Korean? I started to suspect that an ajumma wouldn't have gotten grilled the same way. Still, I couldn't help but chuckle about being denied food ... again.

Better yet, I was telling a Korean friend of mine about this story, and she immediately shot down any notion that I wouldn't have been able to handle the food. Suddenly, I started to suspect that the problem wasn't related to me, but that the restaurant workers were just trying to avoid making the dish. Maybe it has a really strong smell and they didn't want the kitchen/restaurant to smell that way. Or maybe it's a particularly difficult dish to make. Either way, I suspect that we'd been had.

I have now vowed to go back to that place and get that skate. It might take a couple more trips before they'll consent to making this for me, but I'm on a mission. I'm going to eat that skate, dammit.

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