Programs: AA EXP/3MM, UA 2P, Hyatt DIA, SPG PLT, 2.5 time FT Fantasy Football champ and FT general member.
Posts: 10,709
I (as a general rule) am snobby about places like this. But were in the middle of nowhere yesterday and it was Bob Evans or Applebees or starve. We stopped at Bob Evans and their pot roast stroganoff was surprisingly good. Maybe it was the plastic bits and clear coating that did it.
I should be checked for mad cow because next thing you know I'm going to start talking crazy stuff about how Darden (Olive Garden/Red Lobster) has the most amazing bread products or some other nonsense.
Seriously though... I want to try that stroganoff again to see if it was a fluke. But I know that the realistic likelihood of me ending up at Bob Evans anytime soon is not high.
I could eat Bob Evans biscuits and gravy every day. The rest of their breakfast fare is good too - real good. I've never even thought to eat lunch/dinner there though.
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Not until you're closer to 70
My wife's boss swears by Bob Evans - goes frequently out of his way to eat there. He's at least 65, so if you're going to die from Bob Evans it likely won't cause serious damage until you are older than that.
I (as a general rule) am snobby about places like this. But were in the middle of nowhere yesterday and it was Bob Evans or Applebees or starve. We stopped at Bob Evans and their pot roast stroganoff was surprisingly good. Maybe it was the plastic bits and clear coating that did it.
I should be checked for mad cow because next thing you know I'm going to start talking crazy stuff about how Darden (Olive Garden/Red Lobster) has the most amazing bread products or some other nonsense.
Seriously though... I want to try that stroganoff again to see if it was a fluke. But I know that the realistic likelihood of me ending up at Bob Evans anytime soon is not high.
I swear Olive Garden was chinese up until a couple days ago. I think thats why I never liked that place. Now the menu all makes sense to me.
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I ate at one once in Daytona Beach, FL about three years ago. The breakfast was enjoyable enough and I told people I enjoyed the experience. I have yet to venture back but I would if given the opportunity.
To the OP, if you get to Heaven tomorrow...tell them Bob Evans sent ya
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I, no fan of "eating chains" (over many years, including a chunk as the weekly restaurant critic for a newspaper of modest circulation), have learned to largely disregard the harsh criticism of US "chain" restaurants levied upon /leveled at them in FT. Before granting any of the critics credibility, I'd want to eat food from their own kitchens.
Amusingly, over time it's my experience that the harshest critics of the chains are folks themselves condemned to eat some of the worst home cooking imaginable. On the other hand, were they to accuse their spouse cook housemates in the fashion they reserve for criticism of "OlAple Friday GarBarrels" et al, the spouses would likely answer them with meat cleavers.
The chains (adjusted for a bit of profit) prepare and serve food designed and priced to appeal to their particular niche (hopefully swelling) in the vast market of restaurant patrons. Success is easy to measure for outside observers....the joint remains open with a steady crowd of cars in the parking lot or drive-thru. Just maybe, your discriminating palate eliminates you from the mass of diners they are attempting to entice.
But then, given some of the home cooking forced upon me from the kitchens of some of the harsh critics I've known, it's more likely that they have no palates at all, only the pretentiously elitist view that the slicker the publication in which they read about a place, the more celebrated the name of the chef above the door (but unlikely to be in the kitchen), the more foreign language terms on its menu, and the elevation to canonical status of it prices, the better it is.
Old enough to have scraped beans from an older C-Ration can, I reserve to right to be frankly critical of chains, but to findi some things, among them the old lettuce wraps - now gone? - at "Chilis" palatable when the alternative was some cafe, it's windows painted to advertise "Grub, 6 bits a plate. Tums free!." or one of those con-jobs, some celebrity's name emblazoned in neon over the door, where prices higher than a helium balloon a'loose in Colorado were matched by steaks that tasted of having been dropped amongst the "patties" littering the ground when the cowboys gather at the chuckwagon after a hard day rounding up the dogies.
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El Pelon Sinverguenza "Pour discourager les huitres"
There are also some chains where the food varies - enormously.
In the UK the Little Chef chain has been notorious for its ubiquity and 'interesting' food. It has traditionally served fried breakfasts all day and other things that it could fry, whether appropriate or not. Some things that could have been fried have been microwaved, such as omelettes which are put through a rubberiser in their kitchens.
They have recently been working with Heston Blumenthal, of the Fat Duck in Bray, to develop a new menu (reality TV show attached, of course) and he's juggled their suppliers and menus as well as them redesigning the restaurants interiors.
There are now 3 or 4 of these 'New' little chefs amongst the hundreds of old style ones. I went, out of curiosity I admit, into one on the A14 outside Kettering in the East of England last week and was seriously impressed. It was an entirely different experience.
If I, or you, see a 'New' sign then stop otherwise accelerate.
I, no fan of "eating chains" (over many years, including a chunk as the weekly restaurant critic for a newspaper of modest circulation), have learned to largely disregard the harsh criticism of US "chain" restaurants levied upon /leveled at them in FT. Before granting any of the critics credibility, I'd want to eat food from their own kitchens.
Amusingly, over time it's my experience that the harshest critics of the chains are folks themselves condemned to eat some of the worst home cooking imaginable. On the other hand, were they to accuse their spouse cook housemates in the fashion they reserve for criticism of "OlAple Friday GarBarrels" et al, the spouses would likely answer them with meat cleavers.
The chains (adjusted for a bit of profit) prepare and serve food designed and priced to appeal to their particular niche (hopefully swelling) in the vast market of restaurant patrons. Success is easy to measure for outside observers....the joint remains open with a steady crowd of cars in the parking lot or drive-thru. Just maybe, your discriminating palate eliminates you from the mass of diners they are attempting to entice.
But then, given some of the home cooking forced upon me from the kitchens of some of the harsh critics I've known, it's more likely that they have no palates at all, only the pretentiously elitist view that the slicker the publication in which they read about a place, the more celebrated the name of the chef above the door (but unlikely to be in the kitchen), the more foreign language terms on its menu, and the elevation to canonical status of it prices, the better it is.
Old enough to have scraped beans from an older C-Ration can, I reserve to right to be frankly critical of chains, but to findi some things, among them the old lettuce wraps - now gone? - at "Chilis" palatable when the alternative was some cafe, it's windows painted to advertise "Grub, 6 bits a plate. Tums free!." or one of those con-jobs, some celebrity's name emblazoned in neon over the door, where prices higher than a helium balloon a'loose in Colorado were matched by steaks that tasted of having been dropped amongst the "patties" littering the ground when the cowboys gather at the chuckwagon after a hard day rounding up the dogies.
Overreact much?
The subject here is Bob Evans, not all chains. In my experience BE serves some of the greasiest, intestine-twisting food of any chain.
Oh, and I don't cook at home. I'm there so rarely that the content of my refrigerator ususally consists of 4 to 8 beers and some old take out containers. So I'm not a chain restaurant snob, have actaully been to most of them at one time or another. In any event, in the US anyway, chains are sometimes the only game in town, and as you point out, are often preferable to the local greasy spoon.
