My husband is a foodie. But he's not the kind of foodie that only likes fancy food artfully arranged on the plate. He's more a greasy spoon kind of guy. He loves the restaurants that the rest of us shy away from--the scary ones where maybe you saw one too many rats, or the waitress's fingers in the food, or questionable hand-washing by the cooks in the bathroom. These are his dives. I don't want to sound like a food-prude, though. I've had some great meals in some of these scary places. Unfortunately, however, I've also had some truly repulsive food.
Andy's Diner in south Seattle is truly a landmark. It's several railroad cars joined together to create a bizzare maze-like atmosphere. The husband had been wanting to check it out for quite some time, so when he got a raise, I took him there as a surprise. When we arrived, everything looked about how we expected--a little grimy, but not disgusting. We were seated in one of the fancier cars with curtains on the windows and old photographs on the wall. The menu was typical diner grub--sandwiches, salads, dinners with your choice of potato. The husband ordered the prime rib (turned out to be not so prime, if you know what I mean), and I of course, ordered the fried chicken. Both of us wondered after I ordered whether it would be that orangish fried chicken that you get in diners sometimes, and we speculated about what causes that color. As far as I know, orange only occurs in nature in fruit form, and definitely should not be associated with poultry.
Of course it was orange...and salty. I started with the drumstick, as is my habit, and it was passable, but probably ranked in the bottom quarter of all the fried chicken I've ever had. Then I started on the breast. After eating the skin off it, I cut into it and encountered something not quite bone-hard, but definitely not flesh-soft. Turns out, it was raw and still frozen in the middle. Yes, that's right, still frozen. Now, I never expected Andy's Diner to have fresh chicken that was prepared lovingly every morning, but I did expect that they would know how to adequately cook frozen food, particularly since that's what makes up the bulk of their menu. So, we waited a while for the waitress to come by and ask if everything is ok. Here's how that conversation went:
Waitress: How's everything?
Me: Well, my chicken is raw and still frozen in the middle.
Waitress: Huh.
Me: Could I possibly get another piece?
Waitress: Yeah, I'll talk to the cook.
About 5 minutes later, she returned with something that resembled shoe leather and set it in front of me before quickly walking away. Turns out, the cook re-fried THE SAME PIECE OF CHICKEN! I'm no gourmet or anything, but I've been to a lot of restaurants in my day and have never been presented with something so inedible. If you saw it lying on the sidewalk and had to guess what it was, chicken would probably be your 87th or so guess.
So eventually waitress returned to take our plates away, mine still burdened with leather-bird. She asked how everything was, and here's how that conversation went:
Waitress: How was everthing?
Me: Well, I'm a little surprised you brought me the same piece of chicken. I thought I would be getting a new piece. This one is pretty inedible.
Waitress (looking stumped): Well, what do you want? Do you want me to compromise your meal?
Me (with barely-maintained straight face): That would be great.
She left to remove the offending chicken dinner from the bill, and husband and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. Then we went to Krispy Kreme. At least the compromised meal ended on a happy food note.
