Stuff White People Like - Line Dancing

I haven't been pro-active about exploring San Diego over the last few months, however, at the urging of coworkers, I joined them for an evening out and did my best to embrace the whole trying-something-new.

The evening began with dinner at Tango, an upscale restaurant in Escondido, participating in San Diego Restaurant Week. RW is where you can go to any participating restaurant for a prixe fixe 3-course meal for either $20, $30, or $40. I kept my expectations low, and was accordingly not surprised by the over-salted food and mediocre preparation for the price. I had:

Starter - Duck Confit Arugula Salad
Main - Smoked Salmon with Marscapone Risotto
Dessert - Trio of Sorbet

I didn't finish any of my food, granted it helped I wasn't particularly hungry, but I felt no compulsion to eat the super salty duck meat, risotto that reminded me of boxed Rice-a-Roni mix, and the unbalanced flavors of the sorbet (super sour lemon, soury raspberry, delicate and sweet coconut -- the last was tasty).

In some ways I think all the years I have spent watching cooking shows, Top Chef, MasterChef, Kitchen Nightmares, etc etc have spoiled my ability to enjoy "fine food." But I just get so disappointed when I'm paying a lot of money and things aren't close to perfect or even just simple and competent.

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The second half of the evening was my first time in a country bar with line dancing, called Temecula Stampede. Someone forgot to give me the memo in life, but I have no idea where one goes to learn the very specific dances that go with the very specific songs. I recognized a few of the moves from my step aerobics classes, but no way could I transition that into a smooth dance (though I gave a few half-hearted attempts in the name of putting myself out there).

The crowd who goes here clearly participates in this lifestyle all the time, and it was fun watching the coordinated movements of a crowd that seemed to consist of 20 year olds and 60 year olds.

I would say the place was enjoyable up until about 10pm, and then as the evening wore on there began an unfortunate introduction of clubby music and it turned into a gross bump and grind scene with some especially unattractive and lewd participants. By then all the adorable older couples had left, and I wish I would have been able to do the same.

All-in-all, I would give line dancing a thumbs up and would try it again in the future if there was a Line Dancing for Dummies class I could take in preparation.