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| - When I was a wee little chit I really enjoyed the myth of the cowboy. Seeing how I'm a native of Arizona, there were plenty of places that satisfied my preoccupation with fried rattlesnake and buffalo burgers, ghost towns and hole in the wall saloons where I'd feel like a hot shit sitting down for a sarsaparilla.
One of my favorite places to frequent as a kid was Bill Johnson's Big Apple, where there was sawdust on the floor, the wait staff carried pistols and sported Texas-sized big hair, and the whole rustic feel piqued my excitement.
I recently returned to this place after a 15 year hiatus, once for breakfast and once for a Father's Day lunch, and I was sorely disappointed that it no longer held the same mystique. It's really not the food or the atmosphere that has changed. It's the same old place it's always been, it's just that my expectations that have risen over the years. I've had some truly superior barbeque since I was a kiddo, and Bill Johnson's no longer measures up.
Breakfast is simple, with a variety of hearty combos. The hash browns were a disappointment, soggy, oily potatoes with no other flavor. The biscuits were mediocre and extremely thick, more like fresh hard tack than a fluffy treat. Eggs, fried breakfast meat and chicken fried steak are difficult to screw up, so that all came out fine. Not exemplary, but perfectly acceptable.
At lunch my father, two sisters and I had five different barbequed meats between us and a steak, with a bunch of sides to share and sample. All of the meat aside from the steak had a smoky flavor that wasn't too vinegary or sweet, as some barbeque sauces tend to be. The pulled pork and beef brisket were delicious, but had huge chunks of fat floating around in them that repulsed my gristle-hating taste buds with their texture, so I had to be vigilant. There was nothing extraordinary about the steak or the pork sausage, and the chopped pork sandwich was a bit on the dry side.
Side dish wise, I was very disappointed. The coleslaw was terrible, swimming in mayonnaise with no hint of any other flavor. The chicken noodle soup was decent, with doughy noodles, but also was lacking in flavor and contained very little chicken. The barbequed beans tasted nothing like their exemplary meat counterpart. However, the chili was quite good, with cheddar cheese, onions, green peppers, pinto beans and plenty of meat. There was not much spiciness to it, but the flavor was great. Or I was just exceptionally hungry.
For dessert we had their deep dish apple pie, which tasted the same as it would have from the freezer at my local grocer.
I was mildly disappointed by the service each time I went. The wait staff were slow and terse, and at one point insulting. My littlest sister is adopted and the woman straight out asked, "Oh, you're just visiting these good folks, aren't you?" At which point my jaw dropped, she gave the woman a quizzical look and said, "No, I live with them." That's down right rude to me, but seeing how it was Father's Day we kept on smiling and munching on home cooking.
I'm not sure if I'd return again based on the overall experience, but I know I'll always have fond memories of it from childhood.
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