Eating Out

On Sunday, the local newspaper put out the results of their Readers Restaurant Poll.

Several weeks ago, you could send in your picks for the 'Best' in the following catagories. Overall, Newcomer, Fine Dining, Diner, For Kids, Happy Hour, Coffee, International, Quick Lunch, Sandwich, Takeout and Sunday Brunch.

To my utter horror, in 6 of them, chain restaurants took the top spot.

In an area where there are several nice, locally owned restaurants, guess who took the top spot in Best Overall Dining. Come on, guess.

Red Lobster.

Thats right. Red Friggin' Lobster.

Give me an all American break! Overpriced, assembly line seafood?!! Really?! People of Central Pennsylvania, you've lost your collective minds. Good Gawd. There are so many other great places to eat in the area that YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAND IN LINE to get a table. Drinks are drinks and don't come in some ginchy glassware with frilly wha hoo baby names. Oh I could go on and on.

Don't get me wrong, RL has a plus. Cheese biscuits. But, I found a recipe that IS RL cheese biscuits, so if I want them, I make them myself.

Now I realize that out of the 10 people that read this blog on a semi-regular basis, someone is bound to be a huge fan of Red Slobster. Fine. Thats cool. But I implore you. Try the local places. Try a place that is NOT a chain. You could be pleasantly surprised, and walk out with a little extra cash in your wallet too.

What is the attraction with Applebees and Outback anyway? I've been to both, and frankly if they ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn't miss them. They'd get filed in the back of my mind. Stowed away with Arthur Treachers and Red Barns.

The only groups that boasted no chain restaurants were Diners and Sunday Brunch. I love diners. I'm a diner kinda gal. Love them. I'll pick a diner every time over a chain. McDonalds, Wendys, BK all fall by the wayside when I see a greasy old diner. Bonus points for the cool old chrome ones (manufactured by Silk City Diners, back in the golden age of diners) Diners are cool for a number of reasons: they give you lots of good, inexpensive food. The waitresses are either older women who call you 'Hun' or young girls who are actually working for a living. (As opposed to chain restaurant servers, the majority of which appear to be biding their time until the next American Idol tryouts....) At diners, there are characters. Always someone is there who comes in daily, and everyone knows him. Coffee and iced teas get refilled without charge, and if you're real lucky, they have a big glass case in the front with pies of epic proportions. Breakfasts are cheap, and the specials are usually pretty reasonable.

Now Sunday brunch is something I know little about. I've been to Sunday brunches in restaurants before. Daddy-o used to own a restaurant and they did an awesome brunch. Of course, that was during the era of my friends and I being huge derelicts. So Sunday brunch always started with two doobies en route, and a couple pitchers of Bloody Marys there. Needless to say, my brunch memories are hazy.

When I take my road trip vacation in June, I plan on visiting diners along the way. Stay tuned. I might just do a diner blog entry one day.

Meanwhile, humor me, and try some local restaurants. Please. You'll be happily surprised.