Massive Saturday Splurge

As I arrived at the extravagant Lotte Shopping Avenue to visit the well-stocked pharmacy there to pick up necessary supplies, I noticed a Ruth's Chris Steak House in the adjacent Raffles Hotel Complex. Ruth's Chris is an uber high end eatery chain. It is amazing how many high end outlets operate in Jakarta, establishments you wouldn't find within hundreds of miles of Spokane.

Then again, Spokane isn't a high end place, fortress of Middle American tastes that it is--a city whose residents think the Olive Garden represents the pinnacle of authentic Italian cuisine. Spokane bumpkin that I am, I had only visited a Ruth's Chris once before, in Seattle, about 25 years ago, guest of someone else, of course.

After picking up my Vitamin D, Aspirin, and foot lotion, I decided to go big, treat myself to a massive Saturday Splurge and invade the Ruth's Chris, Mr. Spokane Barbarian, dressed in my olive green t-shirt and tan jeans, hoping it would pass for formal wear.

Nowadays, as long you have the proper plastic card they'll let you in almost anywhere no matter how disheveled and unstylish you might be. 

My lunch. The most lucious, tender filet seared on a grill at 1800 degrees F and served smothered in butter, on a sizzling plate so hot that if you touched it you would need to immediately be hauled off to the nearest hospital to have skin grafts attached to your scorched fingertips. The au gratin potatoes and grilled asparagus served with perfect hollandaise were pretty damn tasty too. 

It was such an indulgent meal that I will need to eat only raw vegetables and unsweetened granola for the next week to compensate, but sometimes the warm glow of unencumbered bliss flowing over your taste buds and through your body is so delightful that a week of stern asceticism in reply to such indulgence will seem to carry no pain at all.