But I digress. Denny's has a new special menu for July and while I've only tried three items, they're worth mentioning.
First and foremost, if you want to try something new at Denny's this month. Even if it's the only thing new you try at Denny's this month, make it the Bourbon Chicken Skillet. Y'all, this was incredible. I'm pretty sure it comes with mushrooms but you can ask to have it made without. Unlike some restaurants (*ahem* T/A) they can do that. Honestly, it's not a complicated dish by any means and that adds to it's greatness.
Copied right from the Denny's website:
"Two grilled seasoned chicken breasts covered with a delicious sweet bourbon glaze topped with mushrooms and fire-roasted peppers and onions. Served with broccoli and seasoned red-skinned potatoes on a hot skillet."
This dish was incredible. The sauce totally makes this dish awesome. I don't know who makes it, or if it's their own recipe (must be because they don't give credit to anyone in particular) but this bourbon glaze was one of the best things I've had this year. I couldn't get enough of it! I was dragging my broccoli through it. I was dipping my potatoes in it. I was scooping it up and trying to get more of it onto the chicken I had cut up. It's like they put crack in it, I could not get enough of this sauce it was phenomenal.
Denny's started a good thing when they introduced their skillet dinners because many of them are really good and this one is no exception. Try it! Hey if you want it with mushrooms, get the mushrooms!
The next dinner I tried was the BBQ Pepper Jack Country-Fried Steak. I would have gone with the
Here, once again, from the website:
"Our dinner-sized Country-Fried Steak smothered in Pepper Jack cheese sauce, topped with fire-roasted peppers and onions and Onion Tanglers.™ Drizzled with BBQ sauce and served with your choice of two sides and dinner bread."
Well, it wasn't as good as the chicken skillet, let's just get that out of the way right now. Overall, it was..okay..but it wasn't my favorite. It didn't win me over. The onion tangler thingies on top kind of got in the way and made cutting up the country fried steak more of an interactive experience. The cheese sauce plus the BBQ sauce, I think, is another example of them trying too hard. They did this last month with the macaroni and cheese bites. Either sauce, I feel, would be just fine on it's own. Pepper jack cheese sauce on top, fine. BBQ sauce on top, fine. Put them both together on top and it seems a little too much effort to go above and beyond.
The plus side to this dish is, like most of their dinners, you can choose what two sides to have with it. I opted for broccoli and the cheddar mashed potatoes. It comes with dinner bread, too, which is a simple way of saying "cibatta bread cut in half and buttered." Yeah the same bread that buffalo chicken sandwich and the smashed meatball sub come on. That's how we save on food cost and help our profit margin, people!
The disappointment came in the form of a Lemon Icebox Pie milkshake. They have 3 new milkshake flavors this month, strawberry cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, lemon
Here's what Denny's says about it:
"Made with premium vanilla ice cream blended with lemon, cream cheese and real cheesecake with a dollop of whipped cream."
So there you go, just call it lemon cheesecake and be done with it! Like I said, I felt it was lacking. It could have been better. A little more lemon I think would have been perfect.
Speaking of lacking, let me rant about the dinner service. Well first, let me talk about lunch. Lunch is where I tried the bourbon chicken skillet. Again, phenomenal. The lunch service, also phenomenal. My server was very attentive, very nice, and she stayed on top of things...mostly. I can't blame her, it looked like they were short staffed for lunch service. I saw one cook, two servers and one manager, so this poor girl had to handle most of the dining room by herself and she did a fantastic job. Well she tried to. If there was a delay with my order, which there was, she brought it to my attention, told me they were making it and it will be just a few minutes, and apologized for the delay. I can't get mad at someone who's being upfront and honest with me about that. She knows they're backed up and trying their best with who they have available, I can see their short staffed and trying hard, so I let it slide, it was no big deal. The manager was trying his best, too, running food or helping to expedite plus running the cash register when needed, plus seating people. Luckily he asked me how my lunch was so I got to rave to him about how incredible this bourbon chicken skillet was.
Now. Let me talk about dinner service. I'm pretty sure this was at the same location but my mind is drawing a blank and of course I can't find the receipt to compare store numbers. It may have been a different location, now that I think about it. Can't tell you where, I'm trying to retrace my steps and coming up empty. No maybe it was the same location. I don't know, let's move on. So I was seated. Wait, I remember on FourSquare someone left a tip that the service was really bad here. Okay sorry, back to the story. So I was seated in a different section from lunch. They were doing an actual rotation for dinner. And I noticed it was taking a long time to even be greeted by a server. Unusual for Denny's standards. The lady finally took my drink order and asked if I need a few minutes, to which I said yes. So she came back a few minutes later to take my order and I ordered the cheese quesadilla as an appetizer (I did this a lot the last few months, it's great as an appetizer and only $2!), then the new country fried steak special. She verifies my order and leaves to put it in. About 5-10 minutes later she comes back with my appetizer, sets it down and says 'enjoy'. (there's something still missing here, have you guessed what it is yet?)
A few minutes later she comes back to check on me and to ask how everything is. By this time my inner
A short time later my dinner arrives and during the course of the meal she brings a drink refill. She seriously saved her ... rear by being very friendly and conversational with me after she brought the drinks and let me chill for a little bit. I was ready to tip her nothing before the drink arrived but since she made an effort to talk to me and have some nice conversation, I decided it was fair to give her 15% (I normally tip 20%). Sure 10% would have sent a message, but I think after knowing she screwed up and seeing that 15% I'm sure she realized that she got lucky and was fortunate I was able to forgive her.
So what have we learned from reading this today?
-Bourbon Chicken Skillet = good.
-BBQ Pepper Jack Country Fried Steak = okay
-Lemon Icebox Pie milkshake = needs improvement
-Don't forget my drink order
No comments:
Post a Comment