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A greasy spoon would have been a step UP.
May. 13th, 2012 10:57 pmGoodrich, Texas, population 283, has a restaurant.
Hughes' Catfish Inn ("Since 1983!") is on the northbound side of US 59 just south of the north end of the bypass. It's a small restaurant that specializes, of course, in catfish and shrimp. The family met there for the annual Mother's Day dinner for my grandmother... and there were, as ever, complications, as several family members were nearly half an hour late due to a trailer tire blowout.
Anyway. Distractions meant I hadn't much looked at the menu when the waitress came to take orders. I asked for cheese sticks as an appetizer; then, after the waitress had taken orders for those of us who were present, I asked about the "chicken Crispito." "What is it?"
"I don't know, sir, because I've never served it to anyone. But I'd recommend against it, seeing as nobody orders it."
(Thought unspoken: if nobody orders it, why the hell is it still on the menu?)
Eventually I ordered the hamburger steak with salad, fries and toast. The salad came immediately, with house "ranch" dressing. "Ranch" is in quotes because you couldn't prove it by me. For all I could tell they just aged some buttermilk until it was thick, chilled it, and then dumped it on some lettuce that had spent an awful long time in the fridge next to something stinky. I ate a third of it because I was hungry, set the rest aside, and when the waitress came I told her I was done with the salad, could she check on the cheese sticks please?
She did; turns out the kitchen had burned the first batch, so she brough a second, double-sized batch. These had just barely been cooked enough for the cheese to get soft and stringy, but not enough to get the cheese actually hot. The breading tasted and felt like someone had just poured melted butter over them rather than actually fry them. Regardless I polished off the majority of them.
Not too long later my hamburger steak arrived. Now... the "chopped steak" or "hamburger steak" dinner you encounter most places is usually cooked in or at least served with brown gravy- a way to hide the fact that the least tasty muscles of a cow are the ones that end up as hamburger. This- no. This was a big mushy spread of grease-oozing muck, three-quarters scorched, with diced onions on top and french fries beneath. (The fries had the distinct taste of potatoes aged a month or more in a deep freeze before a brief splash in a frying pan.)
And the menu price for this delicately flavored work of culinary art (I DON'T THINK)? Ten bucks. NOT including the cheese sticks. NOT including the drink. And NOT including the mandatory 15% gratuity for groups of five or more. The same entree at practially any other restaurant that serves a chopped steak dinner would be about $8.
Out of the whole meal, the only part that was actually good was the pan-fried Texas toast... which is the part of the meal I'd usually skip entirely.
And I was among the lucky ones. Despite WRITING THE ORDERS DOWN, the waitstaff and kitchen managed to screw up half the orders at our table. Two of the kids' plates had to be delivered in to-go boxes, it took so long. The main entertainment I had for the meal was watching one of my cousins' offspring using a spoon to eat bacon bits like cereal out of the baked potato condiments tray.
To be fair, it was Mother's Day, and for the first half of our stay (I got there at 1 PM) the place was loaded to full capacity. The waitstaff was quite polite, but clearly not up to the demand. The kitchen... no, I just don't have enough benefit of the doubt to stretch to them. Seriously, if you can routinely screw up WRITTEN ORDERS, provide unsatisfying food at fresh-food restaurant prices, and then make the tip mandatory, for any table larger than a double-date, you just don't need to be in business. Not even in a bump on the road like Goodrich.
Maybe they're better with the fish and shrimp dishes than the non-fish stuff, but since the fish plate servings looked like they came out of the ten-pound frozen catfish filet bags you can get at Sam's and other such places, I doubt it.
In any case, my vote is that we don't return there next year. Or ever. For any reason. There's an ex-truck-stop restaurant halfway between Goodrich and Livingston, "Lone Star Charlie's." Although I don't recommend it as anything other than a greasy spoon with a salad bar, it's MILES ahead of Hughes' Catfish. (Figuratively. In actual measurements it's four miles beyond it.) PLUS the prices are cheaper there, the salad fixings are fresh and varied, and they don't force the tip on you.
Not that anyone reading this will have occasion, much less inclination, to stop either place, but I just want to be on the record.
Hughes' Catfish Inn ("Since 1983!") is on the northbound side of US 59 just south of the north end of the bypass. It's a small restaurant that specializes, of course, in catfish and shrimp. The family met there for the annual Mother's Day dinner for my grandmother... and there were, as ever, complications, as several family members were nearly half an hour late due to a trailer tire blowout.
Anyway. Distractions meant I hadn't much looked at the menu when the waitress came to take orders. I asked for cheese sticks as an appetizer; then, after the waitress had taken orders for those of us who were present, I asked about the "chicken Crispito." "What is it?"
"I don't know, sir, because I've never served it to anyone. But I'd recommend against it, seeing as nobody orders it."
(Thought unspoken: if nobody orders it, why the hell is it still on the menu?)
Eventually I ordered the hamburger steak with salad, fries and toast. The salad came immediately, with house "ranch" dressing. "Ranch" is in quotes because you couldn't prove it by me. For all I could tell they just aged some buttermilk until it was thick, chilled it, and then dumped it on some lettuce that had spent an awful long time in the fridge next to something stinky. I ate a third of it because I was hungry, set the rest aside, and when the waitress came I told her I was done with the salad, could she check on the cheese sticks please?
She did; turns out the kitchen had burned the first batch, so she brough a second, double-sized batch. These had just barely been cooked enough for the cheese to get soft and stringy, but not enough to get the cheese actually hot. The breading tasted and felt like someone had just poured melted butter over them rather than actually fry them. Regardless I polished off the majority of them.
Not too long later my hamburger steak arrived. Now... the "chopped steak" or "hamburger steak" dinner you encounter most places is usually cooked in or at least served with brown gravy- a way to hide the fact that the least tasty muscles of a cow are the ones that end up as hamburger. This- no. This was a big mushy spread of grease-oozing muck, three-quarters scorched, with diced onions on top and french fries beneath. (The fries had the distinct taste of potatoes aged a month or more in a deep freeze before a brief splash in a frying pan.)
And the menu price for this delicately flavored work of culinary art (I DON'T THINK)? Ten bucks. NOT including the cheese sticks. NOT including the drink. And NOT including the mandatory 15% gratuity for groups of five or more. The same entree at practially any other restaurant that serves a chopped steak dinner would be about $8.
Out of the whole meal, the only part that was actually good was the pan-fried Texas toast... which is the part of the meal I'd usually skip entirely.
And I was among the lucky ones. Despite WRITING THE ORDERS DOWN, the waitstaff and kitchen managed to screw up half the orders at our table. Two of the kids' plates had to be delivered in to-go boxes, it took so long. The main entertainment I had for the meal was watching one of my cousins' offspring using a spoon to eat bacon bits like cereal out of the baked potato condiments tray.
To be fair, it was Mother's Day, and for the first half of our stay (I got there at 1 PM) the place was loaded to full capacity. The waitstaff was quite polite, but clearly not up to the demand. The kitchen... no, I just don't have enough benefit of the doubt to stretch to them. Seriously, if you can routinely screw up WRITTEN ORDERS, provide unsatisfying food at fresh-food restaurant prices, and then make the tip mandatory, for any table larger than a double-date, you just don't need to be in business. Not even in a bump on the road like Goodrich.
Maybe they're better with the fish and shrimp dishes than the non-fish stuff, but since the fish plate servings looked like they came out of the ten-pound frozen catfish filet bags you can get at Sam's and other such places, I doubt it.
In any case, my vote is that we don't return there next year. Or ever. For any reason. There's an ex-truck-stop restaurant halfway between Goodrich and Livingston, "Lone Star Charlie's." Although I don't recommend it as anything other than a greasy spoon with a salad bar, it's MILES ahead of Hughes' Catfish. (Figuratively. In actual measurements it's four miles beyond it.) PLUS the prices are cheaper there, the salad fixings are fresh and varied, and they don't force the tip on you.
Not that anyone reading this will have occasion, much less inclination, to stop either place, but I just want to be on the record.
