The Phantom Restaurant

Who hasn't thought about how great it would be to be a restaurant critic? Oh, to be paid to eat out and then to be paid to give opinion.

With the wave of blogging, now I too can be a restaurant critic. But there must be thousands, millions of people (read and unread) who are busy eating, than blogging about it. So how am I to set myself apart? Hmmmm, let's see.

How about "Name that Restaurant!"

Here are your hints. This is an independent, one of a kind establishment. It's in Pierce county, not far from I-5. It's in an inconspicuous store front location where a Mexican restaurant used to be. The 'genre' is diner, greasy-spoon-esque in nature. They are closed Sundays & Mondays. And they are only open for breakfast and lunch.

The atmosphere was a bit plain. I couldn't help thinking that it was almost cool. I could imagine a few small decor changes that would help tip it over into the world of cool.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy with both kinds of potato: hash browns and home fries. Letting the server know that I was researching the local potato situation. She was a good server: friendly but not bothersome with a good sense of humor and not so pretty that I had to hate her. Whew! I never ran dry of water or coffee. And she asked which potato version I decided was my favorite.

The gravy was about as good as sausage gravy gets. But even so I always wish it were more sausage-flavored. (Alas, kind of like always wishing the chowder part of clam chowder had more clam flavor.)

The potatoes were unspecial but not terrible. They both needed salt and I am not a big salt user. So all in all the food quality was okay. Nothing bad, nothing great.

I breakfasted alone and read my book (The Red Tent) through out my meal. But the seating arrangement of the restaurant made it hard to concentrate on reading and lent itself, instead, to people-watching. No terribly interesting ones to watch, but even so.

As I was finishing up the 'way too much food' that I ordered, I noticed standing between the salt & pepper shakers, the room temperature ketchup and the paper menus on my table was a thin junior paperback. Something by Cynthia Rylant. I thought this was a nice, unusual touch. Just in case someone needed some light reading.

I looked around and noticed there was one paperback or another on each table. I liked this. Sweetness. Then I noticed on one of these other tables a small spiral style notebook standing next to the paperback. This struck me as odd. Did a customer leave this behind one day? My curiosity is piqued.

Then I notice there is a small, inconspicuous notebook on my own table. With a pen sticking out of the spiral binding. Wow, this smells of coolness.

I picked up the notebook and flipped through. There was notes of thanks to the restaurant and the servers. There were illustrations drawn by small fingers. There were notes to other customers. Notes sent out into the universe. There are notes of people marketing their various local retail establishments and such.

I didn't choose to write anything on this visit but realized that my initial impression of the place only verging on coolness was probably a pre-judgment. It's coolness may not have been instantly obvious but here it was waiting for me to notice. I knew it was a good place when I kept thinking of who I wanted to bring back with me next time. This is a pretty good sign, I've decided.

Can you guess what restaurant this is?



Happy Friday June Thirteenth!