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.