Fine Dining Without Class

Do you have tons of extra spending money?  

Do you have so much class,

that you raise your pinky when you drink a soda?  

If you answered no to both of those questions keep reading.
We enjoy a good dinner out and this is a year of new things for us so we're trying restaurants we've never been to before.   Chicken and Bo are here to save your dinner with our continuing series: Fine Dining Without Class.

Food Adventure #1  Houlihans in Hamilton Town Center

We visited Houlihans on a Friday evening at about 5:00, which is a good time to go if you're trying to avoid the dinner-time rush.

Upon arriving we didn't like the odd use of windows, they made it very difficult to find the door, (Chicken actually tried to enter through a window. . .seriously).

Inside, they make up for the window craziness by having a modern vibe.  The lighting is dim and their isn't a bunch of stuff hung all over the walls.  Chicken liked the artwork, saying it was "quite modern";  Bo on the other hand thought the artwork was "too modern"  and "twilight zoney."

Houlihans serves coke products and has an alcohol menu that is the same size as the food options.  Speaking of the menu, both Chicken and I had problems with the organization and font size of the menu.  We ended up asking the waitress for help.

Our waitress suggested:  Spaghettini (with shrimp, scallops, & mussels)  and the Fire BBQ Salmon Salad saying they were both good flavor combinations.

After carefully taking her sincere suggestions into consideration,
Bo chose the Chicken Fajitas for $12.95
and
Chicken chose the Cheesy Royale Yum Yum Good Times Burger $9.50

We also wanted an appetizer but they were hard to find on the menu.  They ended up being on the bottom right hand corner and they are called Big Small Plates.  Right now you're probably thinking, "how can a big plate also be small?  Aren't big and small antonyms?"  And the answer is no they can't be the same and yes they are.

Long story short, we chose the Chipotle Chicken Nachos $9.00.  The plate was huge and enough for 4 or 5 people.  The nachos weren't soggy at all!  They were crispy and loaded with toppings.

Our waitress, and all of the other waiters & waitresses,  were very enthusiastic and our food was quick to come out.  The food was great!  Chicken said the fries weren't too salty.  Bo was amazed at how warm and soft the tortillas were.  After tasting the chicken fajitas, Bo said she was in heaven.

Houlihans Overall Rating:
Chicken gives it 4 and 1/2 sporks out of 5: for dim lighting, portions, and price
and
1/2 a dirty napkins for the window delimma and the difficulty in reading the menu.

Bo gives it 4 sporks out of 5: for enthusiastic servers, delicious food, and being very quick with refills
and
1 dirty napkin because she was only given one napkin and the artwork was too modern for her taste.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After our dinner at Houlihans, we stopped at Three Dogs Bakery to get our four-legged friends a treat.  We both chose the red velvet pupcakes; and Chicken also got the puppy brownie.

Don't Forget: to follow our blog so you'll be the first to hear of our latest shenanigans.

Bloggin' in a Winter Wonderland

Every adult has one, the story of the greatest snowstorm of their lives; it's almost sad to think that the recent ice storm will be ours.  Artfully named Snowpocalypse 2011, it was actually an ice storm with about 2-4 inches of snow.  We're all for the changing of the name to Icepocalypse, Ice-opoly, or The Ice-capades. 

There were many shenanigans during this week long storm that turned yards into ice skating rinks and porches into freezers; but what more could you expect to happen when people were trapped in their houses for an entire week!

A Call For Help
*The following was an actual phone conversation between Bo and Chicken. *
Chicken: Hello.
Bo: Hey Chicken I need your help.
Chicken: Sure.
Bo: You put salt on ice to melt it, right?
Chicken: . . .right?
Bo:  Well, do you think iodized salt would do the same thing?
Chicken: Iodized salt. . . w-what a minute isn't that. . .
Bo: Table salt.  It's table salt.  I don't have any salt for ice and it's to dangerous to drive anywhere; but table salt would do the same thing right?  The same thing as ice salt?  Salt is salt right?
Chicken: . . . . . . . . .
Bo: You don't think it will kill the grass do you?
Chicken: W-w-what do you mean, "kill the grass?"  Did you already use it!?!?
Bo: Yeah.  It made a lot of cracking noises but it's not made the ice any easier to break up.
Chicken: You used table salt?
Bo: Yeah.
Chicken: On the ice?
Bo: Yeah.
Chicken: . . . . . . Okay.  I'm almost afraid to ask this, but how much salt did you use?
Bo: Both the salt shakers and the new canister from the Lazy Susan.
Chicken: . . . . . . . . .
Bo: So, do you think it'll kill the grass when the ice melts?

The phone conversation just went downhill from there and it was made even worse (or better depending on how you look at it) on Saturday when the family came over for dinner and we had to explain multiple times why there wasn't a single grain of salt in the house and why Bo's dog kept licking the driveway.

Chickens On Ice
*It's important to this story to note that a religious institution was recently built to the north of Bo's house.*

Bo's chickens are all pampered, very much loved, and have names.  Aramis (aka Ara) is the flock escape artist.  During the Snowpocalypse the gate to the chicken pen was frozen open a few inches and Ara was quick to take advantage of the gap. 

One morning Bo went out to tend the chickens with her dog Rosie.  Ara was so excited she couldn't wait and escaped through the gap; heading toward Bo.  That would have been fine except for the fact that there was about 7 inches of very slick ice covering the ground; so Ara was soon sliding across it.  Rosie saw the ice skating chicken and tried to catch her; only to begin sliding herself, and Bo was soon to follow suite.

A combination of chicken noises, Rosie's honks (because unlike normal dogs she sounds like a goose), and Bo shouting, "Ara get back here!  Rosie stop it!" filled the early morning air.

After a 10 minute presentation of Chickens on Ice, Bo finally slid, fell, and caught the escaped chicken. 

*Remember the side note from earlier?  Here's where it becomes important.*

As Bo clasped the chicken and attempted to stand shouting, "Ara, what do you think you were doing?"  she realized she had an audience. 

There were three men attempting to break the ice up in the religious institution's parking lot who had frozen in mid-chop to watch the show.



Don't Eat the Yellow Snow
Chicken was inspired during the Snowpocalypse to build a snow replica of her dog Max.  She literally spent hours building a SnowMax, with small breaks every so often to prevent hypothermia and frostbite.

After the creation of her masterpiece, Chicken brought Max out to meet SnowMax!   Despite Chicken's enthusiasm Max was less than pleased. 

He knocked Snow-Max's head off and . . .well. . .we'll just let the picture speak for itself.



To Quote Frosty The Snowman: "Happy Birthday!"

It's Blog-tastic!

While Chicken and I were trying to come up with a name for our blog we spent a great deal of time laughing with our other sisters (the twins: aka Lishes & Ashley).  With the quick wit and creativity of the twins I was soon cackling like a chicken, which in turn caused Chicken to giggle, and soon the living room became a comedy club.  As time passed we became more and more creative with each title- no movie or TV show was safe from our integration of the word "blog".  (Give it a try it is blog-tastic). 

It was then, Ashley, one of the twins said, "you do realize you don't have to have the word "blog" in the title.  People know their reading a blog and using that word in the title is just a bit redundant." 

It was then we decided on the blog name- Not Lame: The Shenanigans of Bo & Chicken.  The reasoning behind this is that I am Bo and she is Chicken.  And together we do have plenty of shenanigans.  The "not lame" is because even though we can be geeky at times we're. . . Not Lame!  (Insert dramatic pose here.) 

Then a big question arose after the creation of our blog title: What would we do with the dozens of blog-tastic titles we came up with?

Well, not to worry!  We've decided that these will be the names for our blog entries.

Moral Of The Story: When life hands you lemons- write a blog.

Much Ado About Blogging

We, the creators of this blog, do so solemnly swear; that these, the accounts of our lives' shenanigans are true. . .sadly.  Life is complicated and sometimes takes you in crazy directions.  The purpose of this blog is to keep our friends and family informed of our lives.

You may not know us yet, but after reading our blogs you may wish you still didn't.

Meet the Chicken:  My real name is Stephanie but my sisters and friends call me Chicken Little or just The Chicken.  I'm a single twenty-something-er-other that works at an animal shelter and a library.  I enjoy spending time with my dogs Max and Kenji.  I live with my parents and I enjoy a good Disney movie marathon.  I'm the butt of many-a-joke by my sisters "the twins". I also enjoy playing video games, uhhhhhhh . . . what do I do.  Oh yeah, I like taking pictures and other stuff.

To summarize, I may be short in stature but I'm tall with opinion and I'm not afraid to break-out my soap box when needed.

Meet Bo Bo: My real name is Amber, but you can call me Bo.  I'm a single 27 year old with no social life and way too much free time on my hands (because of the lack of said social life).  This free time allows me to become involved with a ridiculous amount of hobbies, which include and are not limited to: playing the piano, sewing, painting, canning vegetables, caring for chickens, playing Farmville, writing, gardening, reading, and much much more.  I can be extremely absent minded at times, I sing in my car constantly, and I have absolutely no sense of direction.

To summarize, I'm 27 years old, lactose intolerant, raise chickens, and I recently used a garden shovel to clear snow and ice from my driveway; what else could a guy ask for?

With our powers combined. . .we are Bo and Chicken!  Not Lame!

*Blog Disclaimer*
Remember you read it; you can't unread it.