MYSTERY SOLVED!

For those of you who have been wondering where this white plate originated, wonder no more…it’s time for the great reveal! The restaurant is - drumroll please - the Restaurant at Hickory Ridge Golf and Country Club.
It seems that every Wednesday evening they offer a 2 for 1 dinner special. So one Wednesday evening, we drove over to check it out. We wandered around a bit before being directed to the right place - down a hallway, past a bathroom, through a corridor and then a rather imposing door with no sign. But when we opened the door, the restaurant was revealed. At first glance it looked like a typical sports bar, but the clientele told a different story. Exclusively seniors as far as the eye could see. We were ushered to our table, given menus and told about the Wednesday special. It allows a choice of soup or salad (we chose one of each and shared as usual) and a selection of half a dozen entrees. We selected the oven baked fish with crumb topping (pictured) and the roast pork loin. Both came with mashed potatoes and corn. The pork was also accompanied by stuffing and gravy. The wait staff were friendly and efficient, the restaurant itself was quiet, clean and comfortable, and we had a nice window view. Almost immediately, the soup and salad arrived. In fact, the whole dinner was served so quickly we speculated they were quickly zapping prepared plates in the microwave. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So back to the food. The soup was beef barley, and the only reason we wondered if it hadn’t come out of a can is that it was SO salty that we couldn’t imagine it would get past quality control. I say this knowing that canned soups are generally some of the saltiest products on the planet. The salad was modest, but fresh and respectable. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by a mediocre bottled salad dressing. A small basket with two rolls appeared, and though they looked and tasted like bagged rolls from a supermarket, they were warm. Call me shallow, but a warm roll goes a long way towards making me happy. And that’s the ironic thing - salty soup, mediocre salad dressing, but we were still feeling kind of comfortable and pleased. Perhaps it was because the whole experience felt a little like we were visiting an elderly aunt’s home or grandma’s house (if grandma was not a very good cook). When we got our first glimpse of the entrees (delivered mere moments later), it was like we’d time traveled back to the 50’s – and not in a really good way. The fish was clearly a frozen filet which probably came covered with the crumb topping. It tasted fishy and rather unpleasant. The pork tasted like it was one of those pork rolls from the freezer section, artificially shaped in circular slices. It wasn’t bad tasting, just reminiscent of school cafeteria food. The potatoes were okay, but the stuffing tasted like leftover boxed stove top that had stored a bit too long, and the gravy was gluey and bland. Interestingly, the corn was clearly fresh off the cob. That was a nice surprise! The pale yellow was also the only touch of color on either of our plates.
The entire bill including tip came to 20 bucks, not much more than we’d pay for sandwiches, chips and drinks at Subway. Okay, it wasn’t gourmet…actually, it wasn’t very good at all. But the retro atmosphere was kind of soothing in a strange kind of way, the service was friendly, and we were in and out of the restaurant in 27 minutes. If you think of it as a blast from the past amusement park ride complete with snacks, maybe you’ll enjoy it too!