| rev:text
| - For the last two years that I've lived in my house in Bellevue, and did my weekly shopping trip to the Strip, I have driven past this intersection before the 16th Street Bridge and saw the sign 'diner' pointing to a totally unassuming little building beyond the gravel lot to the right. I often thought that I'd like to try it 'maybe', but with my experiences with local diners, I've kind of been put off from even walking in the door, only to discover price gouging for lousy food. Most local 'diners' are either pretentious grease pits that yokels stand in line to drool over (Deluca's and Pamela's come to mind) or they've cut costs, portions, quality and raised prices and are really not much more than low-level Denny's or Ihops (Ritter's?)
But, by luck this morning, my friend and I decided...hungry...try!
Ok 'foodies', bow your heads in shame...because all I can say about this diner is...
THIS is what a diner is SUPPOSED to be!!! THIS is what this older UN-'trendy' classic guy remembers as a true DINER!
It is a very small hole in the wall, with a totally unimpressive 'atmosphere'. No kitsch, no sentimentalism for the old world diner. No phony nostalgia. It's a collection of tables and chairs, a small counter, and a kitchen window, with one TV on one wall. No frills.
Our waitress, Courtney was right there for us, and as friendly and 'diner' as could be. Pulled up a chair and sat right down with us to take our order. Coffee (which was actually pretty good. No foame-latte-latte-mocha-chino...it was black coffee in a solid white coffee mug. With a good dose of coffee in the coffee. Not water dressed in brown, but a nice smack of coffee)
The menu had a pretty decent variety of typical breakfast and lunch deals, combos, platters, eggs, pancakes, meats, etc. I chose the breakfast burger...1/2 lb ground beef patty, with bacon, egg, cheese, lettuce and tomato, and according to the menu, served on French Toast. The French Toast did not appeal to me so I asked Courtney if I could get it on a regular bun. She looked at me and frowned and shook her head sternly with a 'NO'. I gulped. Then she smiled and said 'Of course, I don't like it with the French Toast either!'
My friend ordered French Toast AS French Toast, with a side of sausage links and some hash browns. My burger was to come with chips, but I decided hash browns sounded better. Check.
The burger arrived and was actually ground beef formed into a patty, and NOT the Sysco truck frozen hockey puck patty. SCORE! They cooked it mostly to order (not as pink as I would like, but it did ooze juices when bitten into - SCORE again!) The hash browns were NOT frozen and out of a bag, but I could tell they were all real potato freshly shredded. SCORE again!
My friend's French Toast was very nice sized bread (not Texas toast, but not Wonderbread either), and were beautifully golden with a touch of brown. And when he bit into his sausage links he let out a rather orgasmic moan of goodness. He liked the hash browns, as did I, but I would ask for a little extra crispy next time.
Courtney kept our coffee topped off, was attentive without being a hounding drone, and very friendly.
So, while people are standing in lines just across one bridge for mediocrity with a bigger price tag, we both got a VERY filling and beautifully made meal, around regular folk in a very comfortable spot with a much smaller price tag. And we didn't have a Marvel comic book with flappy ear holes and a Ferdinand the bull nose ring serving up our food! SCORE again!
AND...we had no wait. BIG breakfasts for two, which we upgraded, with two very nice cups of Joe, $25.04.
So...you stand in line at Pamela's for...what exactly?
For those who like breakfast before or during your trip to the Strip, I highly recommend avoiding the hipsters and wandering zombie suburbanites, by ducking into Mullin's instead.
THIS is a diner...doing it right.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)