I'm Done with Dining on McKinney

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  I must be slightly mad then, because I keep falling for hipster dbag hotspots on McKinney Avenue promoting themselves on Open Table as gastropubs and making reservation there, only to discover we are twice as old as anyone else in the restaurant, there are disco balls everywhere and loud electronica background music, and the place smells like somebody had one too many Fireballs the night before and the restrooms haven't been swabbed out yet.

A year or so ago I had the misfortune of trying to digest an unrecognizable piece of fatty meat at Delfrisco's Grill on McKinney.  Even looking at the picture now makes my innards churn.  Yet all the pretty young things and handsome dogs of Dallas were clamoring for a table, while those from less fortunate zip codes or gene pools were milling around outside, their faces pitifully scrunched up against the glass in an effort to see what all the cool kids were up to.  As a Good Samaritan, I hurled my mystery meat at them merely as a warning sign, and was really surprised when I was unceremoniously asked to leave the premises pronto.  See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

A couple of months ago, I fell for the ruse again, and made a reservation for Clutch on McKinney, even though I was trepidatious about dining in a place named after a purse.  It was dinner time and there were about 12 people in the vast room, about 1/4 the number of the giant tv monitors showing all manner of sporting events except figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics. I asked our waitron unit where everyone was and she sort of rolled her eyes and said nobody showed up until 11:00 PM. at the earliest.  Where were we, Barcelona?  Mediocre is the kindest word I can think of to describe the food and the bartender heard "olive" when I said "lemon twist."  Twice.  Bye, Felicia.

So last Friday was a Whoops! I Did It Again, (That, my friends, is my first and hopefully last time to quote Britney Spears.)  I saw a newish entry on Open Table called Next Door and it was described as food-centric and made from scratch.  I should have looked at the website which has a completely different message "A Bar that Likes to Party."  We walked into the once again empty dining room and were seated at a corner table facing two young women sucking down wine and both talking at once in loud Valley Girl-ese.  The only other table was a group of about 15 or 20 people who were celebrating someone's birthday with copious cocktails and several rounds of shots.  Did I mention they were even louder than the magpies nearby?

I did like the huge wall of knockers that adorned the wall by the stairwell that presumably partiers ascend to sway against each other in time with whatever is blaring from their vintage speaker wall.  But the most eye-popping part of the place was the uniforms of the skanktresses female servers that almost covered their backsides, with black suspenders, and skin tight white knit shirts revealing they had all apparently had gone to the same balloon-smuggling plastic surgeon.

We had Cobb Salad Bites (fell apart when cut for sharing) and Pecan Crusted Chicken Tenders (fell apart when cut for sharing) and Steak Sliders (so tough they were hard to cut apart for sharing.)

And it was like deja vu all over again when I got an olive instead of a twist.