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My bride and I had an agreement that when I went back to work in my field, I’d take her out and buy her a nice dinner. It had to be somewhere nice.

At a recommendation from Lori Kozey, my bride and I went to Beach Club Bistro in Euclid, which happens to be a very short drive from our home.

We both started with the Spring Side Salad, a mix baby spinach, red leaf lettuce, radicchio, crumbled gorgonzola, and red grapes. The salad was about the best I ever had.

For the main course, I had the Seared Fresh Casko-Bay Monkfish Tail, which was a special this weekend; my bride ordered a 12-inch Gilchrist Club Pizza, laden with white sauce, spinach, fresh tomato, calamata olive, asiago, and provolone.

While the fish was delectable, it was monkfish, which tends to be a bit rubbery if not dissected properly. The potato side, roasted and garnished with pineapple, jicama, red onion, olive oil, cilantro (or parsley, I couldn’t tell), was outstanding.

We ate about half of the pizza; the remainder sits in our refrigerator awaiting a hungry hubby. It’ll be gone tomorrow for sure, as I will not let that bad boy sit for very long, let me tell you: it was fabulous. Lori told me at the last blogger meetup that the pizza at the Bistro was fantastic, the best she ever had, and I can see where she gets it: it’s far, far better than Players in Lakewood.

My only beef was with the service: we went without reservations, which I was unaware that we needed. We were seated right away in the lounge area, but I should have known that something was up. The acoustics in that room are terrible; I had a hard time hearing my wife speak from just a scant 30 inches away.

Beyond that, our waitress was horrible: she couldn’t recite the specials menu, confusing what sides went with what. She dumped the ashtray on the floor (it only held a straw wrapper, but what the heck?). She served from the wrong side to my bride. She failed to bring a dinner plate for the pizza. When she brought the check, she brought it to me (the male), price side up. Totally inappropriate.

I normally tip well, but tonight I just couldn’t: this gal never even came by during the meal to see how everything was; she waited until we were finished when she could offer dessert (add to the bill).

The food alone made it worth the $65 price tag; next time, however, I’ll make reservations, and I’ll try not to get this gal as our server again.

After dinner, my bride and I walked across the street to our car, and passed several closed stores on the way. If Beach Club Bistro made such great headway in that location as an upscale restaurant, and the nearby Coppertop is also doing well, why hasn’t the city of Euclid investigated creating a “Restaurant Row” on the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard between E. 218th and E. 222nd Streets? Seems to me that the idea would fly.

Plenty of available storefront there, too, like in the rest of the city.

But, then again, we’re talking about Euclid here, not the totally practical city of Perfect.

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When I mentioned above about the waitress bring the check to the male at the table, I also have to relate this side story:

About two weeks ago, I went to lunch with the three female account managers from my new job. Since I have no agency experience, they wanted to go over office flow and other issues so that I would know what to expect. We had a great lunch, and I received a lot of excellent information.

Picture this: three women, all in their early or mid-30’s, and one male in his mid-40’s, sitting in a booth in a smaller restaurant located in a renovated century building in the Warehouse District. The food? Three cheeseburgers with fries and one salad with grilled chicken.

Who had the salad? Me, the guy.

To whom did our waitress bring the check? To me. To the guy, of course.

We all noted the departure from gender stereotypes at our meal; we also all noted the stereotyping played out by our server. One has to wonder…