Dining in.

So what do we do when we don’t eat out?

During the week Angel and Adam eat early in the evening. Sometimes she prepares something, sometimes she doesn’t. I’ve told her this was quite okay, I’m perfectly capable and willing to fend for myself. Usually I go quick and easy, a sandwich or heated up leftovers. I enjoy cooking but don’t get many opportunities. During the work week I’m usually too tired to make anything fancy, so my better efforts are typically on Sunday.

Also, we as a family do not sit together to dine except when we go out. Angel’s dog business is hectic and regimented, tight schedules, so she eats when she can, and that’s almost always an hour or so before I get home. Usually, about 98% of the time, I eat alone, which is when I get a lot of reading done.

So our weekly outings may seem to some extravagant, even though the places we go are usually far from that, Saturdays out are about the only time the three of us sit together and share a meal. It’s okay, we’re all adults.

We didn’t go out this weekend. Too many dogs and Angel was still a bit under the weather. Saturday evening we sent the boy to KFC and lived out of that bucket for a couple of days.

Adam picked the sides, coleslaw, of course, mashed potatoes and gravy, naturally, and something new for us, mac and cheese. And the biscuits, America’s very best carry-out biscuits.

I don’t like the Colonel’s mashed potatoes, too pasty. I like a bit of texture to my smashed taters, lumps and maybe even a little skin. So I tried the mac and cheese and decided it was my new favorite hot and starchy side dish from KFC.

The only problem I have with our occasional KFC home buffets is that after three or so meals, I get a mad craving for pretty much anything else. Fortunately we also had leftover meatloaf. So on Sunday night I declared that I would be roasting potatoes, because I wanted to try roasting potatoes. I do this sometimes, try a new recipe or food, just to see if I can, and to see if it’s as good as the descriptions and pictures on the web.

It turns out that all we had were russets, which are fine general purpose potatoes, and they did roast up as advertised. The family seemed to like them and they went well with my leftover meatloaf. But I knew they would have been better if they were little red potatoes.

I’d thought about this earlier while I was at the supermarket, (Walmart) but I simply could not justify buying more potatoes when we already had nearly five pounds of russets in the pantry. I can be cheap that way.

Next time I’ll buy some red ones, I’m pretty sure that would have made all the difference.

BTW, to make roasted potatoes just wash them thoroughly, skin on, chop them evenly into sections around  ¾ inch, toss them in a bowl with 2 Tbsp of olive oil and about a tsp of garlic and or onion powder and put them skin up in a rimmed (pizza) pan. Make sure the oven is preheated to around 425-450 degrees then set your timer for fifteen minutes. When the damn thing beeps incessantly right in the middle of nearing a three-star round of Angry Birds, reset the timer, take a spatula and scrape the taters lose, flipping them so that another side is up, then put them back in the oven, checking and flipping them again after about ten minutes. Do this until they are brown and crispy on all sides.

If you happen to have leftover mashed potatoes, try this. Scoop up ¾ inch balls and put them on the pan as well. This makes cute, crispy mashed tater bites.

In other news I received an email from a lady named Ashley. She’s the previous owner of Cool Beans Java Café in Hillsboro, the place I swooned over last week.

In that review I wrote this:

“On the soffit  overhead was a quote, hand painted in script. “Dreams are necessary to life” ARL (unless I wrote that down wrong) I’m not sure about the ARL, but it’s an Anais Nin quote.”

Well, Ashley is the person that put that quote up there and she was kind enough to share the story behind it:

“The quote "Dreams are necessary to life." is one that is dear to my heart. I always want people to know why. A great friend of mine lived by that quote and he died a few years ago in a helicopter accident. The ARL stands for Adam Ronald Long. He is a huge reason I had to courage to open the coffee shop.”

Wow. Thanks Ashley, and good luck, great dreams and happiness to you!

On a personal note, I don’t hold dreams in such high regard. Most of my dreams involve giant chickens and crippled frogs. It’s a long, pathetic story; suffice it to say that these dreams tend to haunt rather than inspire me.

So tonight (Monday, President’s Day) I am planning breakfast for dinner.* Pancakes, a new (to me) recipe that my younger brother recently served up for my parents. He made some and said dad, who hasn't been eating much lately, wolfed them down as fast as the griddle could be unloaded.

Jeff's pancakes, with strawberries, scrambled eggs,
hash browns and a reasonable portion of bacon.

Jeff's Pancakes

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

1/4 cup melted butter

Mix the dry stuff, add the wet stuff. Don’t over-mix, leave a few lumps, then let it set for a few minutes. This is important, just let it set for a while to let all the chemical magic get going.

Makes a bunch

I won’t be cutting corners like I did with the potatoes, for the first time in my life I bought some buttermilk.

* The breakfast for dinner went very well. The pancakes were light, fluffy and tasted great!

IHOP

Gravois Bluffs

Fenton, Mo

Maya

So where do you go after three full days of turkey and trimmings and the leftovers? “IHOP.” Angel declared. “I want some breakfast-y food.”

This was fine with me even though unlike her, I was not tired of the leftovers.

The IHOP in Fenton was chosen due to logistics. Maya, a sweet and charismatic Bull Terrier (not a pit bull) needed to be taken home to Valley Park Saturday evening, about the same time that we normally go out. So we’d known ahead of time that we needed to pick something in that general direction. There were many other dining options of course, but Angel’s craving was pretty specific.

So we loaded up Maya, who travels well, and headed out. We delivered her to her delightfully Swedish family and headed back to Fenton.

Gravois Bluffs also played well into another craving, the craving to do at least a little shopping. Gravy Bluffs is also home to Target, and a new H.H. Gregg Electronics and Appliance store. None of us had even left the homestead since the day before Thanksgiving. We’re not ‘Black Friday’ people.

The Place:

Gravois bluff is a large shopping area perched, as the name implies, on a high bluff overlooking Highway 141. Across the highway is a smaller, but just as busy shopping area. I only go there a couple of times a year, being shopping-center-reluctant as I am. I even buy my shoes, shirts and underpants online.

IHOP is one of many restaurants, all lined up at the front edge of the vast shopping center. Red Robin and Olive Garden are literally a stone’s throw away.

The IHOP was generally busy, but not as busy as some of the other places. Inside the bright store we were greeted and seated immediately. The aroma of breakfast, coffee and syrup (blech) wafted through the air as aromas tend to do.

Brian was there immediately to hand us menus and take our drink orders. I’d pre-decided on coffee, which meant I’d pre-decided on a breakfast-type meal of some kind. The tea at IHOP is bland, at least according to memory, but their coffee is pretty good. This meant I would have trouble going to sleep on time, but I wasn’t exactly lacking sleep after three days off from work.

The menus were colorful and picturesque. Everything looked good. There was a separate menu of new offerings. One meal stood out.

The Food:

Country sausage and potatoes. Country fried potatoes with chopped country sausage, cheese and gravy, served with two eggs and two pancakes. Add two strips of bacon for a buck and my meal still only cost 7.99.

Angel decided on the country fried steak with ‘extra’ gravy. Her plate also came with hash browns, eggs and pancakes.

Adam chose the chicken strip plate with mashed potatoes and (blech) broccoli. I don’t know what it is with this kid and broccoli.

As Brian took our order and I filled up my cup with coffee I first noticed the music. ‘Take On Me’ by A-Ha. An eighties favorite of mine. The music that followed was not eighties, but a mix of upbeat songs from several periods and artists. Not bland, but not edgy either.

Country Sausage Potatoes

Adam sipped his Pepsi, Angel tasted her sweet tea, I bathed in the steamy, aromatic pleasure of better than average coffee. I excused myself to go to the restroom, something I don’t normally do. However I’d been imbibing, heavily, the holiday punch, a wicked brew of citrus juices, mixed with red Kool-Aid packets and sugar-free lemon lime soda. It’s a family blend, we made it when I was growing up. It took it’s distinctive characteristic from dad’s strict no-sugar diet. No sugar at all, but with the right blend of juices, pineapple and orange, the stuff is plenty sweet and given a tart bite with grapefruit and lemon juice. When I make it I tend to become instantly addicted to it, which also means many more than the usual trips to the restroom.

The restroom was bright white tiles with a few red ones thrown in to give it some contrast. It wasn’t the cleanest restroom but it was far from the worst I'd seen.

The food arrived soon after I returned to the table. I was famished, having only had a turkey sandwich much earlier in the day.

The pile of food in front of me looked just as advertised, heavenly. Well, there did seem to be a whole lot of cheese. The butter balls on the pancake stack weren’t melting very quickly, the butter was rock hard so first things first, I chopped up the balls and spread them around. Since I don’t ever, ever put syrup (blech) on pancakes, the butter needs to coat them evenly.

Country Fried Steak with 'extra' gravy

We dug in. I was quite pleased with everything until about halfway in, that’s when I noticed the ratio was all wrong. There were lots of sausage chunks, and lots and lots of cheese and gravy, but not so many potatoes. When I make a similar dish it’s mostly potatoes, with only a sprinkling of cheese and only a small amount, if any, of gravy. The potatoes were all but gone, there were twice as many sausage chunks, and I was pulling globs of melted cheese and making a pile on the side of the plate. What was there was all quite good, the potatoes could have been crispier, but they weren’t bad. It was the ratio that was all wrong. My last few bites were mostly gravy and sausage and cheese, very, very unnecessarily rich. A dish like this is a certain artery clogger to begin with, I was OD’ing on it. Fortunately the pancakes provided a semblance of balance. IHOP certainly knows how to make pancakes.

Angel, when I asked her about hers simply said “Yum!” I pressed her and got a little more. “The meat was too big, it didn’t even fit on the plate.” 

“Perhaps they should use bigger plates.” I offered.

“No the meat was too big.”

She continued: “The hash browns need to be crispier, sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. Crispy is better. And the syrups are all really, really sweet.”

Chicken Strips

She’d put boysenberry on her stack.

“It’s syrup” I replied. “Syrup, by definition is going to be really, really sweet.”

She dismissed my comment as she does most of them.

Adam summed his up after a lot of thought: “No complaints.” I noted that he’d cleaned his plate quickly and helped himself to his mother’s second, non-syrup’d pancake.

Summary:

I will not choose the same dish next time, too rich, too cheesy. It probably suits some people fine though.  Better to stick with the controllable classics, and mix them together myself.

Brian, our server did a bang-up job. Friendly, dutiful and mostly attentive. He did fail on a promise to refill Adam’s Pepsi, but caught the error later and offered to let him have some to-go.

The empty plates were taken away quickly and Brian twice came by just to see how we were doing. Not overbearing, just friendly.

I could have sat there another hour or so, sipping on my coffee, but we were on a schedule. To get in a run through Target and Gregg’s we needed to rush a little, there were dogs at home that would be getting anxious soon.

All in all we were quite pleased. It was cheap at thirty six dollars and change, there was plenty of food for everyone, and for the most part it was all prepared well.

IHOP is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. They have a great variety of offerings and the price is right.

IHOP

Gravois Bluffs

Fenton, Mo.
www.ihop.com

This was supposed to be a review/revisit of the Olive Garden. We went straight there, found a full parking lot and a line forming outside. We took a step into the entrance, looked at the packed crowd there, and Angel and I agreed immediately to abandon the effort.

Lucky for us there are nearly a dozen eateries in sight of this OG. It was simply too steamy hot to wait twenty to thirty minutes for Olive Garden. That’s like standing in line for a ten percent-off coupon for a can of generic peaches; it’s just not worth it. My previous reviews for the OG have been tepid at best. There's several places worth waiting for, Olive Garden simply isn't among them.

The problem with IHOP is that it extremely hard to review.  A good review includes criticism, friction, or simply lousy food or service. I’ve been to a few IHOP’s in my years, and I’ve never really found any of that.

The Place:
What can I tell you, it's an IHOP. You see them everywhere. Bigger than Waffle Houses but containing that same dreamy bacon-y, syrup-y, coffee aroma.
We were shown to our booth and waited on by a young lady that I have determined to be perhaps the best waitress in the world, ever. Youthful, upbeat, smart, dutiful, funny, Jessica. She handed us a pile of glossy, colorful menus. She took our drink orders, tea, sweet tea, and for Adam, an iced mocha. I didn't even know he liked mocha.

The Food:

If I have one complaint about IHOP, it’s the menu. They're pretty and spill-proof, but it contains too much. We sent poor Jessica away three times, replying to her that yes indeed, we still needed a few more minutes to choose.

Appetizer Sampler

She took it in stride, even refilling Adam’s mocha once before we’d made up our minds. There was too much to choose from and it all looked very good. Deciding on one thing meant forgoing the rest. The upside being that we’d more than likely not be disappointed.

I decided on a breakfast plate, coincidentally called a ‘Split Decision Combo’. Two eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausage links, two pancakes and two slices of French toast.

Angel ordered the bacon-wrapped sirloin steak and eggs,

Adam picked the hash brown-battered chicken with biscuits and two eggs.

Angel ordered the appetizer sampler, onion rings, chicken strips and mozzarella sticks.

Split Decision

I also asked for a pot of coffee. The tea was completely tasteless and breakfast was coming soon.

Jessica was quick with the thermos and a cup, happily reporting that our appetizer was on the way.

Quickly enough, it was. Knowing I had a pretty full meal ahead of me I just had an onion ring or two. Adam scooped up a stringy cheese stick, pulling the gooey cheese to arm’s length.

Bacon Wrapped Sirloin

The coffee was fresh and good, not too weak. Within a few more minutes our plates arrived.

About the food, I can only say this. It was near perfect. Properly prepared, as ordered, not too much or too little of anything.

Hash brown crusted chicken

That’s the benefit of IHOP’s menu, there’s nothing bold or complicated. No fussy sauces or fickle proteins or produce. These are basic, simple dishes, no grand recipes. About the only spices in their rack are salt and pepper. It’s not hard to make a nice breakfast plate, you only need to learn how to do it right, then repeat. Overcook the bacon or an egg? It’s instantly recognizable and easily corrected.The french toast was a bit on the sweet side having been dusted with powdered sugar, but that's just a preference some people have. I prefer mine un-sweetened, no syrup, the same as my pancakes. IHOP lives up to their name when it comes to pancakes, light, fluffy, perfectly browned.

Summary:

The only less than positive comment was from Angel, the bacon had completely infused the small, slightly overcooked  sirloins with bacon flavor, and after a bit that was a little strong.

That’s it, the only negative comment.

The bill came to a reasonable $43 and change, I tipped as much as I could with the cash in my pocket. Jessica was a pleasure as a server, friendly, bright, funny, patient and courteous. The place was clean, roomy, and comfortable. The food was, for the most part, exactly what we expected, wanted, and we left fully satisfied, with a takeout box of mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers.

Going that extra mile. Thanks Jessica!

Denny’s

6441 S Lindberg Blvd

St. Louis, MO

http://www.dennys.com/

Yeah, Denny’s.

Saturday arrived, cold, damp, windy. The kind of day where you’d just as soon nap as otherwise participate. After our routine chores and duties in the morning, Angel headed to PetSmart with Pointy (the min-pin mix). I stayed at the house and took care of the other dogs, which consisted mostly of me napping.

By the time I woke up Angel was home, Pointy wasn’t. She’d found a home at last. In her place was Checkers, another female. Checkers has lived her whole life in a kennel and thus lacks social skills. That doesn’t mean she’s aggressive, she just doesn’t know how to behave around other dogs, people and houses. Angel will fix that soon enough.

We piled into the family truckster and hit the road. Angel was in charge of driving and picking the destination. As we got there both Adam and I dropped behind Angel as we approached the door. “Why do I always have to go in first?” She asked snippily. (she’d been a bit snippy and snarky the whole trip.) “Because you say “Three” better than we do.” I answered, she looked at me quizzically. As we stepped in the door the hostess looked at her and as if on cue asked “How many please?” Adam snickered I smirked, Angel responded “Three”.

“Told you so.” I nudged Angel. Adam added “Good job mom!”

The Place:

Denny’s has been around since the 50’s. They’ve got fifteen hundred locations world-wide, including New Zealand, Qatar and Japan. This one happened to be across from the mall. Not exactly an exotic location, but it was considerably closer than the one in Auckland (8074 miles). The restaurant was clean, lightly crowded and well staffed. We were seated at a table and asked for drinks. The shiny, colorful menus were dropped in front of us by a young lady with a genuine smile.

The carpet was dark, ubiquitous, there was waist-high, light wood paneling on some of the walls. Above the paneling in the main dining area the walls were painted a comfortable hunter green. The walls sported dozens of various framed prints without an obvious underlying theme. Our table was not too near any children so it was a comfortable location.

The menu came in two pieces, the old familiar wall-to-wall one and a second card celebrating “Baconalia!” a celebration of bacon. It was impossible to not drool on this laminated menu. Bacon Meatloaf, Triple Bacon Sampler, Bacon Flapjacks, Ultimate Bacon Breakfast, a BBBLT, and to top it off, the Maple Bacon Sundae. Yeah, Ice cream with real bacon chunks and maple syrup. I was only surprised that they didn’t offer Fargginay’s ‘Bacōn’ a pricey bacon-scented cologne I'd heard about recently.

The Food:

None of us took the bait, we stuck to the regular menu. There was quite enough to choose from there. I was still in the mood for pancakes so I settled for a ‘build your own’ grand slam. Two eggs, hash browns, two slices of bacon and two buttermilk pancakes*. Adam chose the ‘Grand Slamwich’, scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausage and cheese on potato bread, with hash browns on the side. Angel had said she was very hungry after a full day of doggy duties, so she went for it full throttle, country fried steak with green beans and mashed potatoes, and “could I have some extra gravy with that?” which also came with garlic toast.

We waited, mostly discussing important stuff, like was 'Law and Order UK' going to be on later. If you haven’t seen this incarnation of the popular franchise TV show, you should try very hard to do so. It’s as tough and gritty as the original, but with thicker accents and in the courtroom the lawyers and judges wear white wigs. We remembered after a bit that the season finale had been on the week before, so we’d be relegated to reruns at best.

The food arrived, Angel got two slabs of CF steak, and a soup bowl full of more gravy. Adam’s came all on one plate, mine on two. Pancakes on one, everything else on the other.

Then the waitress, sweet and friendly as she was, offended me. Right in front of my nose she set down a ramekin filled with maple syrup. I gagged, wretched and made the customary, indecipherable choking noises. “Would you like some syrup?” She asked after she had set it down. Angel giggled in sympathy. I shook my head as if it were on fire or covered with cockroaches. The waitress looked confused and in her own ignorance even more so as I pushed the vile stuff toward her with one finger like it contained toxic waste. “You want me to take it away?” She sheepishly asked, still pretending to not understand. I nodded violently. She complied and I waited for the sickening stench to clear.**

We dug in and thoroughly enjoyed. Even the usually opinion-lacking Adam spoke highly of the hash browns. I pushed the culinary edge and smeared some strawberry jelly on my slightly dry pancakes. I chopped up the two over-easy eggs and stirred them together with the crispy hash browns, using the bacon as the spatula. Angel stuck a straw in her gravy and snorted it like cocaine off a stripper's belly…. Okay, I’m lying. She just poured the gravy over everything. If I were covered in gravy she might like me more. It's not like I haven't entertained the notion.

I took a couple of sips of the tea, or ‘swill’ as it closely resembled. During one of the waitress’ walk-bys I flagged her down for coffee, Angel made the switch as well.

Overall the food was very good. The tea was awful, and Angel didn’t care for her garlic toast. It looked like an afterthought and was covered with a significant dusting of black grill-ash. I couldn’t get all happy about the pancakes. They were not terrible, but they obviously had a dose of sugar in the recipe, something I don’t really care for. I like my pancakes to be more savory, not pastry-like. I put the jelly on them partially to mask the raw sugar taste. The bacon was okay, but just that. The best bacon I’ve found is at Kim’s Café in Desoto. (see previous review) Hers is light, fragile and crispy. Denny’s was thicker and flat and a little leathery. But even mediocre bacon is still better than most other foods.

Summary:

The bill came in at thirty two + bucks, not too bad. The place was clean, the staff was great (except for the syrup snafu, which Angel says doesn’t count since they might not have known about my chronic dislike for the stuff). The food was better than many places for what it was. Since the passage of the recent smoking ban, places like this are starting to smell different. Instead of the underside of an old ashtray this particular location was starting to smell more like bacon, and syrup. If the syrup stench eventually wins out, I may never go back.

__________________________________________

* For those of you who recall that I am ‘watching my numbers’, relax. I’d been a good boy all week, very little fatty meet, checking labels, switching my weekday lunches and evening snacks to a whole-grain oat (plain Cheerios) fruit, nut and raisin ‘trail mix’. I’ve added fruits and veggies to nearly every meal, etc. I haven’t given up the bad stuff completely, and don’t plan to. I was raised in the rural south, you may as well take the oxygen out of the air. I have though cut down, a lot. Angel even prides herself on making ‘Dennis-friendly’ meals.

** Maple Syrup

Those of you who have been long time fans of this blog are well aware of my aversion to maple syrup. Those of you who are not should check the full story here where I discuss it in full, glorious detail.