My desire to write about diners
has been a real bust: an entire weekend in Pennsylvania without even one visit to a
diner, what a bummer. I started to feel
that maybe I should abandon the project and just continue to fill my Blog pages
with my current bitches. I decided to
continue my quest this past weekend after having breakfast twice at the “Blue
Plate Diner” in Middletown,
RI. Middletown is
right outside of Newport
where most of our family (seventeen, missing three) was helping Marge and I
celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. Seventeen people walking into a restaurant
without prior notice would send most places into a tailspin, but not a Greek
diner. Service was prompt, smooth,
accurate, and the food wasn’t bad either.
Typical of the way diners handle things.
This diner could not be called classic, not built like a locomotive car
but still loaded with chrome everywhere.
The diner appears to have been built on the spot, not transported from
the factory or moved from another location.
Helping to make the diner a real diner was the usual 7 to 9 page
menu. Don’t you wonder how they can keep
that many menu items on hand and still serve a meal that tastes fresh? I can’t
remember ever having anything at a diner that I considered bad, but based on
diner reviews I’ve read I guess I’m just lucky to have ordered the right
meals. Then again, it might be that I
don’t have a very discriminating pallet.
Speaking of reviews, I read quite
a few on the Athenian Diner in Middletown Connecticut where happened upon on our way from Newport. The Athenian is in area I rarely travel in
and was quite surprised to see it. We
decided to finish up our trip by having dinner there…wow, two diners. This diner is one of three Athenians in the
state. It certainly was typical, large,
lots of chrome, very clean and again about nine pages to read. Quickly I might add because invariably after
sitting and just opening the large batch of plastic covered pages, a waitress
will appear with the dreaded question, are you ready to order? I would need about thirty minutes of reading
to make a decision that satisfied me since it’s not likely that there would be
anything on the nine pages that I wouldn’t eat.
I settled for pastrami Rueben which was quite good. Too big, but if that’s my only complaint, I guess
I shouldn’t. The rest of our party
seemed to also be satisfied, with the only complaint being too large a portion.
On a one to ten scale I think the reviews would have placed it at no better
than a six. Hopefully, some day I’ll be
able to give it another shot.
