The Blue Diamond

This is a menu. It's Faux Leather!

Last week, Patrick and I called up our friends, Amber and Karen, and invited them to go saskaspooning with us.

"You have to go wherever the phone sends you," we warned. "We might end up spending hundreds. We might end up at the 7-11 in the Industrial area."

"That's fine!" they said. "Bring it on!"

"We might end up at a steak house," we cautioned the vegetarian. "You might end up eating nothing but croutons."

"That's cool!" said the vegetarian. "I'm up for it!"

"I hope we end up at the hospital cafeteria!" exclaimed Amber.

So they put us on speaker phone, and Patrick shook his Galaxy S2.

"The Blue Diamond!?!" I said, with horror.

"Hooray!" came the excited voices down the phone. Both Karen and Amber started talking at once. "I haven't been there in forever!" "That was my family's fancy place when I was little!" "Oh, hooray! Hooray!" "Giggle!" "Squeal!" "Giggle!"

"So you're both fine with this?" I asked.

"100 percent!" they promised.

* * *

When I first moved to Saskatoon I knew a girl who worked as a waitress at the Blue Diamond. On Friday and Saturday nights, her boyfriend used to go and sit at a table to make sure she was okay. A few years later, she became a guard in a maximum security prison -- she claimed she'd cut her teeth on bad guys while serving in the lounge. This did not sound like the type of restaurant my family went to for special Sunday night suppers, but then, reputations change over 20 years (just ask Tom Cruise). Perhaps the Blue Diamond was no longer the fine family establishment Karen and Amber remembered from their youth? Unless they came from really sketchy families.

I was a bit nervous when Patrick and I drove up to the big glass building -- that's right, it looks like a large, blue diamond -- and when we walked in to the brightly-lit lounge a couple of guys looked up from their draft beers and said, "Looks like you two came in the wrong door." They pointed us toward the door marked "restaurant". Through the door and up the stairs we went, until we emerged into a large room filled with cozy booths, fake plants, and senior citizens who, unless they were concealing shanks in their support hose, were likely not the clientele who'd prepped Jill for her career in prison work.

Clearly there were TWO Blue Diamonds.The lounge half, filled with tough guys, and the restaurant, filled with the elderly. (What if you were a tough geriatric? Where did you fit in?)

This drink was good.

After being seated in a giant booth, Patrick and I ordered rye-and-cokes
(it only seemed appropriate) and a plate of potato skins, thinking we could share them with Amber and Karen when they arrived.  The skins appeared with more bacon than I think is permissible by law (ie: a lot) and we felt a bit badly because this mean the vegetarian would not be able to partake when she arrived. Oops. (Sorry, Karen!) I guess we should have known -- this is the Land of Meat, after all.

When Karen and Amber did arrive, they climbed into our big booth and we all perused the menu. It likely hasn't changed since 1977, when Saskatoon believed in Quantity Over Quality. With this in mind, I set out to find the meal that would get me the most "bang for my buck", so to speak.

While Karen went with the Just Say Cheese pizza, (though she added pineapple), Amber settled on soup and a salad, and Patrick asked for just a steak with salad and a piece of garlic toast, I ordered the full meal deal. This meant I was served: a small orzo soup, a starter Caesar salad, a piece of garlic toast, steamed vegetables, chicken parmagiana and a side of spaghetti with meat sauce. Oh! And a slice of orange for desert.

 Yes. This was my meal.

I ate the soup -- it was pretty good. I tried to eat the salad but the garlic nearly burnt my tongue off. The vegetables were super mushy, which upset me until I realized that the majority of their clientele likely have a hard time chewing, making these mushveggies ideal. The chicken was actually pretty tasty, but I had a hard time eating all of it -- there were two breasts. "A chicken gave both his breasts for you!" my friends implored. "Don't let his sacrifice be in vain!"

I tried, really I did. But there was also the spaghetti with meat sauce....In the end I took one and a half chicken breasts home and half of the spaghetti. I also added to my leftovers like a million of Patrick's steak-mushrooms -- seriously, they gave him 2 million garlic-fried mushrooms.

And for a guy who doesn't really like mushrooms? That's a lot of fungus to get through on your own.

In the end, we had a lot of fun. Karen was dismayed by the amount of cheese on her Just Say Cheese (and pineapple) pizza, and we were like, "look at the 2 million mushrooms. Look at the 6 pounds of chicken here. You cannot expect less than a pound of mozzarella on your pizza."

"It's the feta," she said. "There is so much of it, it is like eating a salt lick." (Which didn't sound too bad to those of us in the group who love salt).

We drank our rye and cokes and we discussed the cost of heating what was essentially a green house in one of the world's coldest cities. We debated going downstairs to get a drink in the lounge, but in the end we just packed up my leftovers and went to my house, where we toasted the evening with a cool, crisp bottle of Spumanti Bambino (only $9.99 at your local offsale!)

PS I took the leftover spaghetti with meat sauce, mushrooms, and chicken for lunch a few days later. Let's just say without the pomp and circumstance of the Blue Diamond herself, my meal was less than a delight....