No More Mr. Nice Guy

Greetings one and all, and welcome to Friday Letter #64. Our investigative reporting team has been “on the road” checking out places to eat – or not eat. Read on!

Honey Baked Ham

We’re always searching for that “new” place to have lunch or breakfast. I thought we might have found one this last week, but I was wrong.

We ordered the “special of the day” at Honey Baked Ham and Café on West 10th St. in Greeley.

We had each ordered the same and we each paid the same – but Laura got a lot more than I did. Yep. A big, fat, black hair was in hers. I didn’t get any hair that I know of.

Kind of took the glaze off the “new place to eat” discovery. Although the premises – including the restrooms ­– were immaculately clean, our server used the same rubber gloves while assembling the sandwiches as she did when taking cash.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. No second chances. I’ll take a pass on future opportunities to visit Honey Baked Ham.

The Pepper Pod

It saddens me to make the following report.

After 60 years as a customer of The Pepper Pod in Hudson, I’m going to have to give the place a breather.

In the early 1950’s Grampa and Gramma would drive over from Fort Lupton, with my brother and me in the back of the battered baby blue International half-ton.

The restaurant was in its original east-facing building at that time, and included a gas station and some other services. This was long before the Interstate Highway. Colorado Highway 52 was the main road through Hudson.

A cheeseburger and fries – or a buffalo burger for that matter – would be quite a treat for this little boy. Most likely, this would be followed with a piece of cherry pie, complete with some pits.

The bison meat served at The Pod in those days came from a herd kept right on the grounds of the restaurant. Romantic. Groovy.

So you might say I’ve been a long-time customer. But after this last Sunday, I’m going off the Pod for a while.

It all has to do with presentation.

I ordered the Sunday meatloaf special. We eagerly went to the soup and salad bar while the entrée was being prepared.

The salad bar featured fresh stuff, attractively arranged, neat and clean. The posada (hominy) soup was spiced nicely, if a little greasy. Presentable.

Here came our meals. Laura had chosen a salmon special. Nicely arranged. Good flavors. Presentable.

I was faced with two huge dinner plates. One plate featured a potato that had suffered from elephantiasis in its youth.

That’s all. A whole, large dinner plate containing about a third of a seriously deformed mammoth potato. Baked through and hot, very hot. But deformed, and alone and lonely on the huge plate.

The other plate had only meatloaf. A giant portion of meatloaf, maybe three-fourths of a pound, with a spattering of gravy, teetering on the edge of a second full-sized plate.

There wasn’t even a little spoon of peas or corn, not even an underlay of lettuce. The meat was in a shapeless lump, not even sliced like one would do at home.

There was no sign whatever that this was any different than the cafeteria at the high school.

For this meal, and the disappointment it brought me, I paid $11. Oh, there were dinner rolls too. I’ve never been served a cold dinner roll at the Pod until this last Sunday. Stone cold.

As is our custom, we lodged no complaint at the time.

The trick is, we happen to know that the current owners of the Pod had sent one of their daughters off to culinary arts school, and the young woman came home with a brain full of the nuances of fine food service.

Surely, surely they taught “presentation” at culinary arts school. Perhaps the young student was hiding behind the pantry door the day they had the lesson on a-sprig-of-endive, center the entrée, wipe the slopped gravy from the plate edge, etc.

It’s one of the chef’s responsibilities to see to it that presentation is as good as it can be. Where were you Sunday, Chef? Hiding behind the door again?

Which brings me to the next tirade on restaurants.

Cajun Boil

Seeing the list of ingredients on the menu under “Cajun Boil” at the New Plantation some years ago, we immediately placed an order for it. Yum. Shrimp. Sausage. Corn. Potatoes. Onions. Yum.

The server came from the kitchen a few minutes later and spread a sheet of butcher paper on the table.

Then she came back with our hot, steaming meal. And dumped it on the cold table. I said . . . she very unceremoniously dumped the hot delicious fare on the cold paper-covered table. Right in front of us. No plate. No excuses. Shut up and gorge yourself, fool.

Like she was slopping hogs.

I am not a hog. I am not a cast member of Saturday Night Live. Do not treat me or my food as you would a hog.

Do you get the idea it was insulting, to be served as though I was a pig? It was insulting. Here’s another example.

Fuji En

This is one of those pseudo-Japanese restaurants. At the time of this incident, there were two or three same-name franchise-holders in Denver.

Each table is actually a red-hot steel- plate grill, and each table is assigned a cook. Good idea. The diner watches his or her meal being prepared.

It gives an opportunity for diners to interact socially with the cook. Some people like visiting with the hired help. Takes the conversational pressure off me.

Except we had a rude, haughty cook. He resented the need for social contact with the people paying his salary. He was pissed off at his lot in life long before we drove across Denver to visit the restaurant where he was working.

He faked me out. I don’t like being faked out. He acted as though he was going to hand me a bowl of rice – then quickly retracted the item from my outstretched hand. When he saw my shock and dismay, he tipped his head back and laughed.

The cook laughed at the discomfort of his guest, the paying diner. I don’t like being laughed at. I don’t like being made more of a fool than I already am.

Ah so, Fuji, you have an inhospitable En. Sayonara, dude. Mucho sayonara.

But there’s good news! Read on.

Return of the Country Inn

Years ago, Greeley’s Country Inn had sunk to an unacceptable level.

You may remember. Filthy restrooms, damaged so badly you’d think guys from the Villa had been locked in there overnight.

The western half of the café’s double front doors was always kept bolt-locked, despite any effort the fire inspector might have made. So if one tried to exit that way, one got a hazardous surprise. Bonk. Dangerous. Illegal. Annoying.

The dining room ceilings were coated with cigarette smoke smudge. Crumbs and goobers were stuck in the tabletop cracks. Window coverings yielded clouds of dust at the least urging. The carpet was, well, enough detail.

We had to quit going there – it just wasn’t a happy meal anymore.

I’m happy to report, all that has changed. The hapless fellow who managed the restaurant for years has retired.

Nowadays, the carpet is clean. The restrooms are still not pretty – but are in good repair, functional, and sanitary. The air is clean and clear.

And the food? Guess what? The food is just great. I ordered a rib eye steak sandwich, medium.

It was served hot. It was tender. It was cooked precisely to “medium.” I ate it all. Delicious.

Seldom can a failing restaurant be recycled in this way. But the Country Inn has recovered and is back from the dead. I recommend it.

(Writer’s note: Like every kind of work I’ve ever done, I simply adored being in food service. I loved being a baker, a prep cook, a line cook. Experience shows me that there is never any need for bad-tasting food, or for poor presentation. That’s my rationale for being so harsh on restaurants.)

Word of the Week: Seminal. It’s from the Latin, naturally, seminalis, from semen, seminis, a seed. Something seminal contains seed or capability of reproduction, as in “seminal thought” or “seminal power.” It is germinal or originative.

Next week’s word: Pulchritude.

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