While Gunther (Count Olaf) and Esme spend the evening at the penthouse, Jerome and the Baudelaires have dinner at Café Salmonella. Though it shares its name with a food disease, it’s actually a restaurant dedicated to salmon. As in everything there contains salmon even the dessert, which is disgusting in regards to ice cream. Oh, and the waiters wear salmon fish costumes while the walls have salmon decor, by the way. Anyway, the Baudelaires don’t have much of an appetite since their nemesis has come back into their lives. But their new guardians don’t believe them. Esme flips out over them. Jerome accusing the kids of being xenophobic since Gunther is supposed to be a foreigner. Yet, the children insist they aren’t. But it’s pointless because Jerome thinks arguments are useless and unnecessary. After all, he doesn’t like salmon but an argument about it would’ve gotten him nowhere. While Klaus states that he and they’d all have a meal they’d actually liked. Of course, Jerome could’ve taken the Baudelaires to a place they liked and lie about it to his wife like she wouldn’t notice. Then again, he didn’t want to see her explode over it when Esme saw them at a different restaurant in The Daily Punctilio.

For this part, I chose Billy Joel’s “Scene’s from an Italian Restaurant” which chronicles a couple of popular kids who married right out of high school, only for their relationship to go down in a way you’d expect (i.e. a quick divorce). Yet, these two classmates reunite at this Italian restaurant which was most likely the Fontana di Trevi across New York City’s Carnegie Hall, yet there’s more than one real life counterpart. Joel has also called it the favorite song of his own. Yet, I doubt if it’s better than “Vienna,” “Honesty,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Summer, Highland Falls,” “This Night,” or others I can list. In this version, I have the Baudelaires reminiscing about the good old days and mulling over their current situation.

“Scenes from Café Salmonella”

Jerome:
A bottle of white, a bottle of red
Perhaps a bottle of rose instead
We’ll get a table near the street
At the most fashionable place
All of us face to face

A bottle of red, a bottle of white
What you mean you just have salmon wine?
They only serve salmon stuff
At the Café Salmonella

Violet:
Things are okay with us these days
Live in penthouse, got us new guardians
Got a new room, got a new life
And the family’s fine
Olaf’s at our home
Quagmires? We do not know
City ever looks so nice after
So much time

Klaus:
Do you remember those days hanging out
At the city green?
Reading our books, inventing gadgets
And biting things
Drop a dime in the box play the
Song about New Orleans
Thick books, warm lights
My sweet romantic tweenage nights

Violet:
Olaf and Esme are at
The penthouse
Talking the “In” Auction
At Veblen Hall
Sending us to this fishy place
That’s serves all salmon
We don’t look anywhere finer
I’d rather have steak at the
Parkway Diner
Not sure how Jerome feels leaving
Gunther with his wife
Surely we Baudelaire kids would
Always know how to survive

Klaus:
Jerome and Esme fostered us cause
Esme thinks orphans are all the rage
Hope that fashion continues to trend
Till Vi comes of age
Nice to be back in the city
But Esme sees orphans as accessories
Like how rich celebrities seem to treat
Their own pets
But an hour ago we waved Olaf and
Esme goodbye

Violet:
He shows at the penthouse with knee
High riders
And a monocle under his brow
He’s trying to speak like a foreign guy
With an accent
That makes foreigners cry out
Afoul
She’s hired him auctioneer
Despite our fears
But there’s no way we’re telling
Her now

Klaus:
We tried telling the Squalors
Gunther is Olaf
But it’s always the same in the end
Our pleas went ignored as a matter
Of course
We don’t know what he’s done with
Our friends
I’m not sure we need to go through
Esme’s harsh screeds
When we have to go back
There again

Violet:
Olaf has Esme at the penthouse
Already as we’re at this fish place to dine
From the high to the low to
The end of the show
He is back in our lives
We cannot rely upon
Old Jerome
Cause he’s not a man who
Wants to argue
Now he thinks we’re all xenophobes
As we voice our outcry
Somehow we need to tell
Jerome and Esme
Can’t tell you more since we
Know it already
And here we all as the fish smell
Makes me want to die

Fish Waiter:
A bottle of pink, a bottle of white
Whatever kind of mood you’re in tonight
We’ll serve you up any salmon
At the Café Salmonella