Dinner On The North Fork To Die From ... Not For ... FROM ... O'Mally's ... Just Say "No".

Okay ... So this was a few weeks ago. A very close friend and I decided to try this place: O'Mally's, in Southold, NY out on the North Fork of Long Island. She was living with me at my house out on Nassau Point for about a month, and dinner out just sounded like fun. Our hopes were high due to the rave reviews I'd been hearing about the place for several years.

Sooooo ... We piled into the Jaguars and drove the few miles from my place to their place; mouths watering and bellies eagerly awaiting something along the lines of a juicy Porterhouse or perhaps a nice New York Strip. When we pulled into the parking lot, there were only two other cars there. "What luck!" we said. "They're not even crowded!" we smiled ... Unfortunately ... There was a really BAD reason for that.

The elderly gentleman who greeted us at the door was VERY friendly, albeit a bit shabby in appearance. The interior was somewhat dated but passable. The table we were seated at was TINY. Considering there were only two other occupied tables in the place, there were plenty of larger, more comfortable places they could have put us, but we went along with the plan. Perhaps they had reservations for the rest of the tables ... ?

THEN, our waiterS came over ... Yes waiters with an "S". Not one, but TWO waiters ... Young men in their very early 20's, dressed in shabby blue jeans, faded, less than clean tee shirts and aprons that brought to mind something a butcher might wear. Now ..... My dinner companion is VERY easy on the eyes if you catch my drift ... The waiterS certainly noticed ... Although I'm not so sure they noticed me ... You know ... The guy who was about to shell out $100 + on dinner. They didn't glance in appreciation at my companion ... They GAWKED, STARED, DROOLED, PANTED ... They pretty much did everything short of whipping out their respective Johnsons and masturbating while they took our order. They were back at the table ... no shit ... every 3 friggen minutes for the rest of our dining experience until I'd finally had enough and told them "Stop hovering. If we need anything else, I'll wave or something" ... at which point they repaired to the kitchen entrance with the rest of the male staff to stare unabashedly from some 30 feet away. MUCH better.

Now ... I paint this picture of the staff to illustrate what we both considered the MOST TOLERABLE part of our dining experience. The menu SUCKED. There was only one kind of steak ... Sirloin ... You know. The crap they grind up at the grocery store to make Hamburger. The baked potato each of us got was about the size of half a hot dog bun and poorly over-cooked. The so-called salad was sub-par to say the least. The steaks were improperly cooked and eating them was like unto self-flagellation for something I didn't even do. At one point, Tricia (my dinner companion and dear friend) said "I'm just going to ask for a doggy bag and bring the rest of this home for Bear" (Bear is my dog's name) to which I replied "I thought you LIKED my dog" ... Laughter ensued. As a matter of fact, laughter was the only thing that kept the evening from being a complete bust. The food and service were SO terribly, it was literally laughable. Every single thing was ridiculous in its inadequacy.

After paying the offensive tab and finishing our minuscule glasses of sub-standard wine ($12 a glass ... and the glass was the size of half an orange ... half of a small orange ... and only half full) we rose and headed for the door. As we passed the Mat re De's podium, we came upon a wicker basket, filled with rather high-end after dinner mints in pretty gold wrappers. I snatched a HUGE handful while announcing, in a voice loud enough for EVERYONE in the place to hear, "We are by GOD getting out of hear with SOMETHING that tastes good!"

She laughed. I laughed. We giggled as we ran to the Jag and sped off, literally into the sunset.

Footnote: On April 10th, the day after Tricia and I had dinner there, O'Mally's went up for sale.