Date: 01/01/03
Location: Johnny Rockets (Chestnut Street)
Attendees: Walter Korman, Victor Oquendo, Jennifer Diehl-Oquendo
Price: ~$35
My friends Victor and Jennifer stayed with me during the New Year, and come the first of the year we arose mid-day and went out in search of food. Woe betide the San Franciscan faced with such circumstances! Many restaurants were closed for the holiday, but the happy neon sign in front of Johnny Rockets (heretofore viewed by me as an "old staple" to be counted on in just such times, but we'll get into that more in a minute) was glowing red in the sunlight and so in we sauntered.
We queued up in a bit of a line by the front door, and I fought to maintain sanity as I watched other groups gathered in the booths and at the bar eating cheeseburgers, french fries, and milkshakes. Andale, the taqueria down the street, was closed; it seemed likely that Hahn's Hibachi was also closed; and so, the line it was, and the wait faced with we were. And so, we waited, until finally, we found seats by the bar near the window next to a bunch of kids with a father who eyed me suspiciously (I was wearing a large puffy black down jacket) as I encroached on his personal space until he left his seat but I avoided sitting there, out of courtesy, until his entire entourage was more clearly leaving.
Time passed, and the menu was scrutinized, and eventually the frazzled-looking waitress came our way. Jennifer, in a fit of prescience that even Edward Norton in The Fight Club would be proud of, ordered a grilled cheese (sans carne as per its usual preparation). Victor ordered the chicken tenders, and I ordered a cheeseburger and the chili cheese fries with onions (which I've always been partial to there), and so began the next phase of waiting.
More time passed, and eventually the food came, as these things are wont to do, and we embarked on its proper consumption. The chili cheese fries were not quite as slathered in chili and cheese as I recall them being in the past, but I was sufficiently hungry so as to immerse myself in them nonetheless. Sadly, they were rather the highlight of the meal. Jennifer's grilled cheese sandwich looked reasonable but was clearly nothing out of the ordinary. The true fiasco, imbroglio, and debacle, however, involved Victor's chicken tenders.
Alas, the potentially-tasty chicken tenders had suffered a mishap in the deep-fryer; two of the largest tenders had clearly been stuck together while frying, and so their inner region had not been properly exposed to the hot oil, such that they were both largely raw in the middle. This was only discovered after one or two other (properly-cooked) tenders had been consumed, but we of course immediately brought the issue to our waitress's attention. Now, any normal person would expect a waitress in this situation to respond in some fashion analogous to, "Oh my! How terrible! Please let me take that, I'll be right back with another order." But not our waitress! Oh no! Our haphazard waving about of the raw chicken pieces was met with a momentary pause of silence, a look of frazzledness, and a terse, "Well, I can throw them back in for you, but we're kind of busy, so it may take a while." Our options were limited, and the removal of the offending raw chicken pieces seemed worthwhile in and of itself, so we acquiesced and the chicken made its departure.
To this point, I was still hopeful that our waitress would come through in a pinch and return with the proper entire basket of fully-cooked chicken tenders to make amends. No such luck! Back she came, with two very done-looking chicken tender pieces in hand. Jennifer stepped up to the plate this time, looking her in the eye and saying, "You know, those look kind of burnt." Stony silence from the waitress, followed by, "Can I get you anything else?" before she beat a hasty retreat. Victor made an admirable attempt to consume the now ultra-crispy chicken tenders, but to my eye they looked like they might cause him to crack a tooth, and he gave up after a nibble or two, presumably because it just didn't taste too good any more (it certainly looked like they fried the bejeesus out of it in an attempt to fully implement the flavour-removal process.)
One more aside, but you really must keep this to yourself; the meat in my cheeseburger was quite pink and conjured up horrible visions of extensive agonized writhing on the bathroom tile floor, but I ate most of it anyway and things turned out okay in the end. I didn't want to frighten my two compatriots, for whom it was their first Johnny Rockets experience. Suffice it to say, I have no plans to return to Senor Rockets at any time in the near or distant future. Damn them! Damn them to hell!