Casey's Restaurant

The temperature was a cool 17°C as we headed to Casey's Restaurant on a windless Wednesday. The clouds had hung low and close all day, threatening rain off and on but with no wind the air felt much warmer than the mercury indicated.

This evening we were graced with the presence of my grandson who is turning four in three weeks. He was accompanied by his father as we took our place in the large restaurant.

It was cavernous and the noise from the diners reflected off the high ceiling carrying to all corners. I have difficulty hearing in noisy environments and this certainly was one.

The decor was sports-bar average with the ubiquitous tv sets on the walls set to an ongoing baseball game.

Our waitress was extremely pleasant and attentive, returning to our table often to see how we were doing. Even though well behaved, two children obviously need a little extra attention now and then.

There was a good assortment of choices on the menu and we had no difficulty in deciding on our meals.

After little discussion we placed our order. The meals arrived quite quickly and were all that we had expected.

Personally I ordered the Cashew Chicken stir fry which was excellent and quite large.

Except for the youngest guy, we downed most of our food indicating satisfaction with our choices.

Our meals were followed by delicious deserts ordered by two of our members and sampled by all.

The total bill was a surprising $141.78 before tip for 4 adults and two children. As I ordered I noted that the meals were reasonably priced and I had to peruse the bill later to discern where the higher costs were incurred.

After some study it seemed that the cost of the little extras added up quickly. For example, the coffee cost $2.29 and a glass of chocolate milk was $3.19. A glass of diet coke for $2.59 and a shot of bailey's a whopping $5.19 but the water was free - ha ha.

All in all a great meal with excellent service. Watch the little extras and you will have a nice time.

Burger King

We came to Burger King on a beautiful Tuesday late afternoon with the sun shining and warm weather.

Our anticipation was a little high having been to many other restaurants lately. We had trouble deciding which Burger King to attend but finally chose the one on Notre Dame because it had a play room for our youngest diner - woops - bad choice - but more on that later.

Our server was very polite but obviously quite new to the job. Seemingly a young student who had trouble taking our order and, once taken, filling that order.

I had to go through the order item by item in order to get our drink cups but we finally got it all correct. To be fair, the girl, while flustered, was very polite through the whole ordeal.

We got our food almost as ordered with only one error - one fry instead of rings, but after the previous hassle we let it ride.

Our youngest diner who recently turned 11, was quite excited at the Indiana Jones toy she got - an invisible pen. She had a lot of fun with it, showing us endless drawings and playing around with the (blacklight?) pen.

Having finished her meal she proceeded to the play room which was her ultimate goal from the beginning. She was quite disappointed since the room had been blocked off in several areas rendering the total play area to less than half its original (already small) size. Within a minute she was out of there.

Next she wanted to use the washroom but the ladies' room was "out of order". I went into the men's and, having found it empty, called her to go in there while I stood guard outside to ward off any unexpected visitors.

She came out and could not get over the fact that the men's room was so much smaller than the girls.

Our votes reflect the poor service and lack of play room facilities.

All in all, we got pretty well what we expected at a reasonable $27.60 for 3 adults and one child.

After the Burger King, we headed to the Dairy Queen for desert. this time we went to the one on Lorne Street. It is smaller than the Kingsway location and no outside seating.

Not a great night for our dining but all things considered (including an earthquake in China, Typhoon in Burma, the high gasoline prices and food prices rising everywhere else) we have a pretty nice life here in Sudbury.