September 29, 2003

Of course finding a place that was still serving breakfast was the hard part. We first tried a Marie Callendar's, but the sign on the door said they only served breakfast until 11, and it was past noon.  Also, we had pretty well lost out appetites on the way from the parking lot to the front door, since the outdoor seating at the coffee shop next door was mostly taken up by five men in brightly-colored spandex biking outfits. That's fine; the problem was one of them was about 35, and looked like he was smuggling a watermelon under his shirt.  I'm talking fifth trimester, and it was so well displayed in his canary yellow spandex shorts and top.  Spandex tops on men are almost never a good idea, but when you have a gut like a pregnant walrus, have a little consideration for the non-blind general public, eh?

He might have done us a service anyway, since we saw two old women coming out of Marie Calendar's, one of them bent over on a wheeled walker like she was facing Mecca on a prayer rug, and the other walking not much better.  The funny part was that they had two Styrofoam boxes of left over food balanced in the corners of the walker.

They were leaving; going in was another party of the over 60 crowd.  And as you've probably noticed from going out to eat anywhere your grandparents want to go; the quality of food in a restaurant is inversely-proportional to the number of really old people there eating it.  They're old, they want to eat something simple and easy and unhealthy, and they don't really give a shit if it's any good or not. They didn't storm the beach at Normandy and build this great nation to spend their 70's finding new restaurants or eating anything they haven't had at least once a week every week since 1952.

With our fate thus determined, Malaya and I got back into the car and headed for an IHOP. The only problem was that we'd come to the Marie Callendar's by knowing the address that Malaya had looked up in the phone book, and it was in a part of Concord we'd never been before. We had no idea where the IHOP was, and didn't even know the address for sure.  Ten minutes later we got the address from a phone book outside of a Long's Drugstore, five minutes later we found the street and realized were were going the wrong way on it, and ten minutes later we at last found the IHOP.

The waffles?  Mediocre and overpriced.  I don't feel like $6.50 for a plain waffle with a few crumbles of pecans and a dollop of whipped cream is much of a deal, not when it's just glorified pancake batter in a specially-shaped cooking apparatus that most people got for their wedding and have never since removed from the cabinet beneath the stove. Malaya's came with about 1/2 a scrambled egg on top, and we got a side order of hashbrowns that were edible, if undercooked in the middle.

It wasn't a bad breakfast, but it mostly made me realize how easily we could make far better than that, for much less money, at home.  The only thing we couldn't effortlessly reproduce?  The five-flavor array of syrups.  But since the blueberry, butter pecan, and strawberry were crap, and only the boysenberry and classic maple good enough to eat once the novelty wore off, we could even reproduce that part pretty easily.

A waffle iron can't be more than $20 at Target, can it? Since no, while it's tempting, we're not getting married just yet, not even for the gift-wrapped minor appliances.

I haven't been in a Denny's in about a decade, but from what I remember of their glorified McDonald's menu, my advance impression of Marie Callender's was about accurate. They had the sort of stuff my (few remaining living) Midwestern relatives consider quality cooking, though it lacked in variety.  Lots of chicken breasts, chicken fried steak, burgers, tuna melts, pot pies, soups, pasta dishes, and so on.  The prices were higher than I expected by a few bucks; most of the entrees were in the $10-$12 range, but that's probably mostly due to the location of the store we went to, in a yuppie area of Northern California.  The same crap is probably $4 less in Iowa.

Malaya ordered fish and chips, and I got a turkey pot pie, since I've been having cravings for a ridiculously calorie-heavy pot pie for some weeks. I used to eat them all the time, sometimes even getting the Marie Callender's frozen ones at Price Club, but haven't had one in a couple of years.  I've tried to interest Malaya in getting some at Price Club, but she checks the calories and sees that it's like 450 for one small-ass pie and that's that.  They must put a ton of butter into the flaky crust, and cream and such into the thick sauce, since the meat and veggies aren't real calorie rich.  Pastry stuff is death on calories; we both love biscuits but refuse to buy those rolls of 6 or 8 or 10 Pillsbury ones when they're like 180 calories a pop, and that's not even counting the raspberry preserves or honey or whatever we'd put on them.

The MC's entrees were a bit steep for the quality, but we felt better about it when the side dishes started coming. We both got a good-sized dinner salad as part of our order.  Mostly lettuce, but edible if very unimaginative. We were still working on those when the food came, and it was pretty generous.  Malaya got 3 long strips of fish over a thick bed of French fries, with a cute little shaped tortilla cup of cole slaw and another of tarter sauce.  My turkey pot pie was at least 50% larger than the ones you get frozen, and came with a slice of cantaloupe and orange, for no apparent reason. We both got a huge hunk of cornbread as well, which was sort of ironic, since we made a big pan full of Marie Callender's cornbread (from a 5lbs bag we got at Price Club) with the fish soups, and still had a ton of it in the fridge.

As for the food's taste, it was okay.  My pot pie was as I wanted it to be, but the sauce in there is so rich and creamy that it gets overpowering about 75% of the way through it.  I soldiered on, nevertheless.  Malaya liked her fish and the fries were pretty good, but her coleslaw was lame; flavorless.  Needed more vinegar and maybe mayo.

We had every intention of eating some pie there, but the entrees were pretty large and we were both wiped out as we finished everything but some of the cornbread.  So we figured we'd get a slice to go, but once we got to the front of the restaurant where they sell the pie, I remembered that I don't like pie.

I like cake, since it's dry and fluffy and I like the texture, providing they've gone easy on the icing.  And if they haven't, it's easy enough to scrape it off.  As for pie... well, I like pecan, sometimes, cold especially when the sugary-guts are nicely-coagulated. Other pies leave me pretty grossed out, since the guts are all runny and gooey and tooth-achingly sugary. I know that most people like apple or cherry or whatever, and I can eat them to save my life, but since situations where it's pie consumption vs. painful death seldom emerge in my country, I don't often do so.

I don't know what type of pie Malaya likes, since my disinterest in eating half of a slice along with her turned her off of eating it, and we ended up heading home, pie-less. The guilt I feel at denying my sweetie pie is nigh-onto crushing, but somehow I find the will to continue drawing breath.