Dodgy was soon heading east again through the beautiful foothills that surround Seattle, towards Yakima. We reached the meeting spot with Holly half an hour early and decided to treat ourselves to a full Denny’s breakfast (Denny’s is one of the better chain restaurants). The menu looked inviting. We ordered one breakfast between the two of us.
- Fruit juice, a pancake stack with the butter and maple syrup, a Spanish omelet with bacon and sausages, and a pile of hash browns washed down with a bottomless cup of coffee.
Half an hour later we staggered from the restaurant full to the gills with pancakes and omelets, and carrying the half of the breakfast we could not finish in one of the ubiquitous polystyrene “boxes” that seem to be offered as part of the service. We continue to be astonished by the amount of food in each serve when eating out.
A few comments about ‘on the road’ food and diet seem warranted at this point;
· Main courses are invariably preceded by a ‘garden’ salad. It seems that most gardens here grow only lettuce, a few onions, single slices of tomato and a peculiarly tasteless type of feta cheese (or it could be a white granulated bug killer that has been rinsed off the lettuce).
· We quickly learned to choose ‘Ranch’ dressing, – any other choice ie Italian or French, is likely to be on the back shelf of the restaurant and rancid. We did try asking for ‘Paul Newman’ but from the searching looks we got we think he’s considered a little pink these days.
· American Cheese, a bright orange, chewy sliced cheddar, seems to meld its way into most main courses. It serves as a tasteless glue, holding the burger, sandwich, sliced meat or taco together. It also cools and congeals on your teeth, making conversation difficult and leading to facial contortions when you try to remove it. It is actually quite comforting to me, everyone else in the restaurant appears to have Parkinson’s disease and I don’t feel so conspicuous.
· The servings are enormous, – Jules and I often order one main course between and sometimes fail to finish it.
· The quality of foodstuffs is high, but our general impression is that the diet is overwhelmingly unhealthy. Massive amounts of fatty foods, carbohydrates and sweetened drinks are consumed. All of the supermarket food and bread seems to be sweetened. The ‘diabesity’ epidemic is underway. (I heard a report yesterday that this generation of North Americans will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, the first time in history this has occurred).
· A huge pile of French fries (large potato chips) comes with all main courses. If you request potato chips, a packet of thin packet crisps arrive. If you dare to ask not to have either form of chips, the waitress (or waiter) takes two steps backwards, cocks her head to the side, raises her eyebrows and asks quizzically, ‘No fries?’. On being reassured that that was the request, she walks away muttering to herself, shaking her head from side to side. Ten minutes later the meal arrives with a huge pile of fries on the plate.
Waiters and waitresses are friendly, helpful and polite. They are poorly paid (I spoke to one waitress who was paid $2.50 per hour) and depend on tips for their income. The custom is to add a 15-20% tip to the bill. Some mobile phones come with an inbuilt calculator for tipping. The result is that the service is generally spectacular.
· Food is cheap. Both restaurant and supermarket food is much cheaper than in Oz. Main courses in reasonable restaurants are $15 -$20.
· On the road the choice is grilled steak or fried chicken and occasionally battered fish. All come with French fries and ranch dressing.
· If you want to eat foreign its Mexican. It doesn’t matter what Mexican you order, burritos, tortillas, nachos, its generally the same pale grey sludge served up in a different wrap, and usually accompanied by heaps of lettuce, a few slices of onion and a sliver of tomato (and ranch dressing). The closer to Mexico you get, the worse it gets. Most Mexicans have moved to California. The other international cuisines we love in Oz don’t seem to get a look in once you are out of the major cities. If we are to believe the Seattle Post, the Vietnamese are out of restaurants and into cultivating Marijuana, the Greeks and Italians seem to be lying low as they look a little middle eastern and the Thai’s don’t seem to be around. The odd Chinese restaurant can be found off the main drag, but having sampled one or two meals, I suspect that they have the same supplier as the Mexican restaurants. Middle eastern food is totally out of the question, even with ranch dressing.
· There is a growing movement of young conservationist here, who, bored with hugging trees and recycling bottles and beer cans (and take away food restaurants), descend on the back alleys behind restaurants in groups and feed themselves from the garbage cans. (I’m serious; reports say the movement is spreading across the US). They claim that they are ideologically committed to recycling discarded food. I suspect that the taste of restaurant food improves after a few days in the garbage bin. It’s like the good old days when there was a Chinese restaurant on every corner.
· Ironically, the best ‘to go’ foods we have been able to find are the fresh salads offered by McDonalds. Not many people seem to be buying them, but they are healthy and delicious with an array of dressings (including ranch)!
