Monday, September 10, 2007

Eating Flagstaff: The Village Inn

Somehow, after nearly two days of travel, I had yet to have an actual meal. No, I do not consider truck stop chimichangas a real meal. So next to my hotel in Flagstaff was a Villiage Inn. On first impression it appeared to be like Tippons was when it existed. That is, a standard chainish style Denny's/IHOP knockoff, but that specialized in pies.

Well, things didn't start out well. I scanned the menu and saw very little that tempted me. And please remember, I hadn't eaten anything but Clifbars, Larabars and the above mentioned chimichangas in two days. I settled for the turkey dinner. The turkey wasn't bad for obviously coming from a roll. And the corn was clearly from a can. But that's ok. It's a chain diner. You expect that.

What I didn't expect were the mashed potatoes and "fluffy" biscuit. These potatoes might as well have had Elmer's emblazoned on them. They were flavorless and thin. This is a comfort food restaurant and the cornerstone of comfort food is mashed potatoes. Nobody's mom made mashed potatoes out of a box. Well nobody's who really loved them.

But the most felonious of felonies perpetrated by this so-called restaurant was its biscuits. Yes they were indeed fluffy. But that's about all I can say about them. They had a crisp outer crust that tasted like pretzels. While that fluffy inside tasted of, well, nothing. Look, biscuits are easy – flour, shortening, buttermilk, a little salt, a little butter, a little baking powder, a little baking soda, mix roll, cut bake. The only trick is the buttermilk. You have to have it. Without it, no flavor.

Ok, Steve, this is a pie place. Tell us about that. Ok, I will. It wasn't much better. I got a coconut cream pie. It was average at best. The custard had only a slight coconut flavor and the crust was bland as well. Christ, the fucking Sodexho cafeteria at Nortel had better coconut cream pie. And, while a place like Tippons or the great House of Pies in Houston had/have dozens of different types of pies. This place had about one dozen types. So, it's not exactly a pie place either. It's just a place that sucks.

F

Multiple locations around Arizona.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How dare you insult Village Inn? The Jester used to hawk their pies to raise money for band trips!

swcook said...

You would have sold tastier pies if you got them from the grocery store. And I think we all could use a tasty pie. christ I'm so 12.

jtingermany said...

if you say "punch and pie", more people will come!

swcook said...

That made me guffaw. Nice work.

jtingermany said...

thanks! i'll put it in my annual review, since it was posted on the clock. that's shareholder value.

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