We went out tonight to see a movie. The Time Machine was playing at the cheap theatre, and we had half wanted to see it for a while.

I'm not going to go into a full review of it here. Suffice it to say that A) It had nothing to do with the book, B) It was kind of fun, and C) I'll forget it ever existed in a week.

Anyway. We're driving home and we're kind of hungry. We didn't have time to eat dinner before rushing out the door to the movie, and popcorn, while filling, doesn't make for the best supper.

We're stopped at a light, and I glance off to the right. I see a restaurant called, 'The Famous Cheesetoast Restaurant'. Cheese toast, I think. That sounds good.

"Hey see that place?" I ask Lisa.

"Yeah. I wonder if their cheese toast is any good."

"Should be. It's famous."

"Apparently so."

So what the hell. We turn the corner and go on in. The place is mostly empty, which should've been a sign - an empty restaurant on a Saturday night?

A waiter comes over, and says, "Table with a view of the lake?"

Okay, heh, funny. "Sounds good," I say.

He leads us to a table beside the window. He points out at a mud puddle in the parking lot. "Nice, eh? It used to be a lot bigger, with the drought and all."

Okay, still funny. So we sit down and he disappears. We open the menus and take a look.

"You know," I say. "There seems to be something missing in this menu."

"Yeah," Lisa says. "Cheese toast."

No, seriously. No cheese toast. The 'small portions' list has grilled cheese listed, but no cheese toast anywhere. Caesar salad, steaks, pasta, Alaskan King crab, everything. No cheese toast.

You know, it is clever to give your establishment a name showing off your main 'thing'. The Cheesecake Café. Burger King. Stuff like that. But this was like walking into The Pet Store and having the clerk say, "No, I'm sorry. We only sell ceramic tile here."

Anyway. This line of discussion gave us a great deal of amusement as we waited for our host to return. I was figuring out the best way to ask the question foremost on our mind. "So, do you actually serve cheese toast?" or "Does cheese toast come free with every meal then?" or something else witty. We wondered if 'cheese toast' simply referred to the color of the yellow wall paneling, stuff like that.

Then we realized that ten minutes had gone by and we hadn't seen our waiter. He hadn't even taken our drink orders or brought us water or anything.

So we left. I felt so big and tough. Me, the guy who has trouble sending back a bad meal, just picking up and walking out of the restaurant. I saw the cook and a lady who might have been a manager, and gave them both a good hard glare too.

I get the impression that the place is new, and you know, that sort of thing is death to a new restaurant. Word on bad service gets around fast. The waiter sat us quickly, and was funny and all, but then he vanished. Probably in the back eating all the cheese toast or something.

We figure we'll go back there in a month or so. After it's gone out of business and become a Chinese place.

Mom Rating: 2.5 out of 5. Hard to say. I think Mom likes cheese toast, and I'm pretty sure she hates bad service. But it's good that we didn't end up spending money we couldn't really spare anyway.

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Take me home, big fella