This past weekend being Father's Day, Saundra and I naturally planned to take Neilbert out for dinner on Sunday. Neilbert, on the other hand, decided very early in the week that he would prefer to be taken out Saturday and not Sunday. He did not, however, manage to pick out a restaurant until 2:33 on Saturday afternoon; his eventual selection was Gene's Last Chance in the Strip.

Gene's Last Chance

Gene's is a casual bar and restaurant. When we arrived that afternoon, there were a few people in the bar, but none in the restaurant dining room. The restaurant part was unusually nice for a sports bar type place with a fireplace and leather booths that were utterly duct-tape-free! In fact, you might have mistaken it for a pretty swanky place if not for the upright paper towel dispensers on each table. Most of the menu is bar food and sandwiches, though they do have a good selection of entrées offered at pretty swanky prices—most dinners were $17.99. Fear not, however, there is a very sparkly silver lining; each entrée comes with two, count'em two sides and when you buy two dinners (i.e. one for you and one for your friend, date, dad, etc.) you get $10 off the second one. We had a Entertainment Book coupon entitling us to $14 off one entrée, so we scored a slightly better deal, but good to know for future reference, huh? For side dish #1, I ordered the coleslaw and each of my parents ordered the salad. The coleslaw was fresh and generally good, though I wanted more of a kick, some slap in the face of yumminess, but instead found it a little bland. I was glad, however, I didn't opt for the salad because the iceberg lettuce was plentiful—I did enjoy the pumpernickel croutons I stole from Saundra's salad, though.

The dining room at Gene's Last Chance

For the main course, I got the amaretto almond chicken with a side of sweet potato fries. The fries were fresh and tasty, coming with a brown sugar dipping sauce that was also good, but I preferred them with just salt, and even a little parmesan cheese. The chicken, to my surprise, came with a cream sauce where I had expected a glaze. The cream sauce was a bit like a standard restaurant alfredo, but the almonds and amaretto added an intriguing enough zip. Saundra got the chicken parm, which she enjoyed, and Neilbert opted for grilled pork chops with honey pepper glaze. He liked it so much, he made the express decision to take one pork chop home for lunch the next day, leaving him hungry enough to eat up the remainder of my fries and Saundra's mixed veggies when we got too full to finish. Neilbert was especially fond of the mixed veggies, which included red peppers and squash.

Klavon's Ice Cream Shoppe

From there, at Neilbert's behest, we moved up the street to Klavon's ice cream parlour, for which we also had an Entertainment Book coupon. Klavon's is an old-fashioned style ice-cream and soda shoppe that many years hence were a ye olde apothecary shoppe... I mean, it was originally a pharmacy and soda fountain in the Strip many years ago. In addition to an authentic soda shoppe feel—including a penny (now nickel, dime and quarter) candy counter—Klavon's also offers authentic old time treats. Neilbert, however, did not take advantage of these, ordering instead a single dip butter pecan in a cake cone. Saundra and I, not following his example, had a truly olde thyme soda shoppe experience. At first, Saundra felt somewhat out-of-place looking for something low-carb on a menu of ice cream—that is, until the counter lady suggested a phosphate with sugar-free syrup. A phosphate, as it turns out, is the grand-daddy of soda-pop, basically plain soda with the flavor syrup of your choice. Saundra got sugar-free chocolate syrup, making for what tasted basically like a diet soda, except chocolate, a delight so yummy we could only wonder why on earth none of the major beverage companies has bothered to develop and market a chocolate soda. Who needs cola when you have chocolate? My not-so-low-carb selection also took advantage of the soda-syrup possibilities; I ordered an ice cream soda, with coffee ice cream and English toffee flavored soda, a confection which I immediately dubbed a Coffee Toffee.

Neilbert at Klavon's

It was delicious and generously loaded with ice cream. So generously, in fact, that even after much stirring I could not completely homogenize the ice cream with the soda and I eventually drank down to a sludgy remainder that would not go up my straw. Already full from dinner, I couldn't bring myself to dredge the ice cream out of the bottom, so I offered it to Neilbert. Still hungry from saving his pork chop, Neilbert happily obliged. He took one bite, nodded, swallowed and said, "Good." Took another bite, nodded, "Good." A third bite, "Good." While savoring the fourth spoonful, Saundra and I shared a chuckle at the prospect that Neilbert might repeat his sentiment yet a fourth time, but upon swallowing his fourth bite Neilbert foiled our expectations by declaring it, "Tasty."

Star Trek: TNG Season 6

From there it was back to the House of Parents, for the opening of gifts and an episode of Star Trek. It is pertinent at this time to explain mine and Neilbert's weekly ritual—one evening every week we get together to eat dinner and watch an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, sometimes simultaneously. After my trip to New York City, we got thrown off our usual Star Trek schedule and so elected for a make-up session after Father's Day dinner. In order to sustain this weekly event, I buy Neilbert a season of TNG every Christmas and Father's Day. On the one hand, this is a good gift-buying strategy because Neilbert, like 99% of dads, is impossible to buy gifts for; on the other hand, it has become somewhat predictable. In effort to throw Neilbert off the scent, and toss the element of surprise back into his gift-opening, I devised the clever—at least I thought it was clever—scheme of packing Star Trek into a Lenox Tuscany Classics Petit Pinot Grigio box. After all, I buy everyone else Tuscany, why should Neilbert think himself exempt?

Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker

But alas, upon tearing the paper away, it gave Neilbert only a moment's pause. To quote: "I don't drink Pinot Grigio. When I saw it wasn't the pilsner glasses, I knew it had to be Star Trek." More surprising for Neilbert was Saundra's gift of a Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker, which we picked out instead of the Hamilton Beach because the former was on sale that week and the latter was not. As far as I know, Neilbert has yet to give it a test run, but I can't imagine it's of abysmal quality, being Mr. Coffee and all. Either way, the gift was a hit, because as we know from previous installments Neilbert loves iced tea. I however, was so full after dinner and Coffee Toffee, that I fell asleep during Star Trek.