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| - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: I won't be going back.
Tractors, tractors, tractors, everywhere. OK, I get it, the farm-to-table concept. Enough, already. Enough!
My first visit to HHGG was WAY-back-in-the-day of its first Vegas locations' soft-opening, West Sahara, at the invitation of an acquaintance of part-owner Jim Nyberg (whom introduced himself while we were there).
The roof was leaking over our table (hey, it WAS a soft-opening, forgiven), but the portions were huge, so I left impressed.
I don't remember being run over by any tractors.
Fast forward almost a dozen years, my next visit, this evening.
The A/C was broken. I get that, things happen. So, going-in, I wrote off off the 7pm empty parking lot to that situation, rather than as a referendum on the venue itself. (The parking lot is a rule I generally use as a deciding factor going-in, but I was curious where HHGG is today).
On the other hand, the A/C is impacting revenue, so someone should be paying the premium needed to get the HVAC guy on-site after-hours. I caught a break, my booth at the far back had a portable fan running right next to it.
The special was a ten-buck chicken fried steak, veggie, mashed potatoes, biscuit. I fronted it with a $4 side salad.
The side salad was a shocker. The bowl was the size of a 4"x6" index card with sides only about 3/4" of an inch high. Yeah, that china was certainly chosen to make small look full. I just knocked back a tasty side salad (for the same price) at Village Pub the other day that clocked in at about three times the volume. And by that I mean the normal volume for a side salad.
Penny-pinching on Iceberg lettuce and Roma tomatoes -and get this - ONE cruton. A big one, but one just the same. And it was as tough & chewy as a kitchen sink sponge. Come on management, what is this place facing bankruptcy or something?
The CFS plate was huge, part of the central concept/draw of this chain. The CFS itself was a much-larger-than-average portion, but the presentation is designed to make things look even bigger, as it was draped over a huge pile of potatoes. My guess is that there is about a pound-and-a-half of food on this large oval plate.
Unfortunately, the CFS was a not-so-fun cut/quality of meat, and it clearly had to be heavily tenderized to qualify for serving. The potatoes: just potatoes with some garlic and cheese thrown in to give them some flavor. Overall, pretty bland. But a-whole-lotta bland.
The biscuit represented more cheap carbs contributing to the plate's weigh-in. Over 2 inches tall. Chewy-tasty enough, when drizzled with some butter. Jam would have been nice, I shoulda asked.
The veggie was four -- count 'em four - little string beans, or maybe they were asparagus. They were so puny & shriveled up I wasn't exactly sure. I wolfed 'em, of course, and I still don't remember any actual flavor telling me which they actually were.
After tea & tip, I was in for a twenty. For the "special." That being mostly a massive plate of bland mashed potatoes.
Bottom line: Really big, really filling, but not all that scrumptious. Maybe this is why the parking lot is light, after all.
Maybe this approach is your cup-of-tea, or a lot of folks' cup-of-tea. But it doesn't work for me. If I want to top-off-the-tank with low-octane-fuel, I can just hit the low-end casino buffets for seven smackers at lunchtime.
And there I can fill a whole plate with salad.
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