"Lynn from Fargo Ografmorffig" > wrote in message
...
On Feb 26, 7:35 pm, "SteveB" > wrote:
> We went to The Cosmopolitan in Silver Reef, Utah, last night. It was just
> okay. The site was the actual site of a restaurant there from about 1880
> to
> about 1895. The recreation wasn't even close to the original. Although the
> restaurant calls itself a four star restaurant, I found it only passable.
> The lobster bisque was lacking a lobster taste. I had seafood risotto. The
> plate had some shrimp and langostino which were represented to be
> lobsters.
> It had some salmon, scallops, and sole, also. My wife had lobster ravioli,
> and they were skimpy on the lobster.
>
> Anyway, we looked at the menu, and it has some old pictures, and
> historical
> data on it.
>
> I was wondering what anyone here (who actually knows, that is) could offer
> about restaurants of that era. Without refrigeration, the menu had to be
> "different". I would wonder what the common fare was in restaurants at
> that
> time, and what the common fare would have been say, for a boarding house,
> and for the common household.
>
> This lovely place is in a historic ghost town. When driving there, we saw
> about thirty deer, so fresh deer probably would have been a staple. I know
> that in many restaurants, fresh game and fowl were common, as was
> commercial
> hunting without restrictions from Fish and Game Departments.
>
> Anyone care to comment?
>
> Steve
==========================

My comment, respectfully, would be that the only thing sillier than
ordering lobster in Utah in 2009 would be ordering lobster in Utah in
1889.

But don't feel too bad, Steve. Couple of years ago I got really lousy
lobster bisque in SanDiego.

Lynn in Fargo (North Dakota)
No good lobster here either.

I grew up in Las Vegas. I remember this story from an old menu, I think
from the Golden Nugget or the Showboat. A miner who had just struck it rich
went into a restaurant and asked what was the most expensive things they
had. They said oysters and eggs. He said fry up a mess of them mixed
together. The dish was called a Hangtown Fry.

Steve