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| - Eh, perhaps I'm coming to my senses in regards to this chain. I gave the TGI Friday's in Robinson an honest-to-God 4 star review since I truly did like all that I had. However, my dining experience today at this South Hills location was not outstandingly good or bad.
I remember having the Sesame Jack Chicken Strips at the West-of-Pittsburgh franchise and for some reason liked them more there. Not that these were inedible at all. They had crunch for days and days and the jet-black sauce was syrupy and appropriately alcoholic, but the chicken itself merely whimpered in terms of flavor. I felt as if I was eating a batch of Chick-fil-A's Nuggets upratcheted mischievously by Alton Brown and nothing more.
A half-rack of the Jack Daniel's Ribs served as my main course, and while they pulled from the bone fairly easily, the slab itself was lacking in meatiness. The same drunken, sticky sauce that I dipped the chicken into coated the ribs but failed to elevate them above mediocre.
The side of ginger-lime slaw merely tasted like undressed shredded lettuce. Where was the dressing?
The french fries, on the other hand, were sticks of salted, hot-fat perfection.
Our very shareable dessert, the Salted Caramel Cake, was probably the peak of our late lunch. Flakes of shrapnel made of hardened caramel were embedded in a vanilla ice cream that flanked cuts of a vanilla pudding cake mortared with more crispy caramel and embellished with even more caramel in liquid form. Whew! Briny, granular, milky, and rich all at once, this is a dessert I feel could hold steady with anything offered at a more prestigious restaurant.
Micah, our waiter, did an excellent job, so no issues were had by us there.
TGI Friday's gets an unduly negative rap from the foodie crowd, but rate them more than average this time around I cannot and will not. Are my tastes becoming more refined? I really have not a clue. I just know what tastes good to me and what doesn't. Today, I found TGIF's fare to be mostly mundane. I wonder if I'll rate the next one I go to a 2 or a 1.
P.S. We came around mid-afternoon and didn't find the place at all "loud" as one drive-by reviewer put it.
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