Lunching Ladies (AKA T-Room: Check!)

Our final day in my hometown Bunny and I had a mission to accomplish. We needed to check another item off the fun-do list, and this is a gastronomic delight that I believe you must be raised on or at least consume regularly before adulthood to tolerate it… as if you must be inoculated by a certain age or face consequences.

The Texas Inn, AKA Tea Room AKA T-Room. I could go on and on about the colorful patrons with which you share your meal at the dinged up stainless steel counter… and this day was no exception. My favorite was the lady of undeterminable yet advanced age wearing the kind of headwear you’d see Laura and Mary Ingalls wear to bed. Seriously, it was a blue bonnet with elastic all around creating a ruffle of eyelet lace. Still, she eyed me suspiciously. Rock on, Toots. Rock on.

Though I am not a full octane soda gal, usually, when at the T Room you must get a small Coke. I think it is a rule because I never went with one soul who did not drink that with their meal. I suspect the sugar helps bolster the stomach to help survive what comes next. I always heard the reason these increasingly hard to find small cokes are so good is that the same amount of syrup is used in a small one as a regular sized bottle. Whatever the reason, they’re awesome and worth every calorie.

Behold the Cheese Western, plain, cooked to order. It was even better than I remember, paired with ‘a bowl,’ otherwise known as a bowl of chili beans.

The girl gave the Cheesy two thumbs up and asked me to order her her own ‘bowl,’ since I added Texas Pete to mine to give it a kick she did not desire. Atta girl.

All told, we sucked down 2 Cheese Westerns, 2 Bowls, 3 small Cokes, and a Chili Cheese Dog, then I gave Bun a quarter for a handful of Chicklets out of the machine in the corner, which probably has had the same Chicklets in them since the 80s.

Everyone with an interesting hometown has a dive or three they simply must return to in spite of good judgment or doctor’s orders. To me, when in the Burg, the mother ship is this joint right here. Yum, yum, yum. Pass the Tums. (Kidding – my stomach was happy during and well after the meal.)

P.S. The tab was only $15 for all that. What a steal.

P.P.S. A ‘funny’ is a chili cheese dog minus the hot dog. So, basically chili and cheese on a bun. When you’re starving and have about $2 to your name it helps to have a $0.62 cent menu option, haha. I think they have jacked the price up about 10 cents in the past 20 years, the money grubbers. ;)