Nostalgia meets Reality

As adults, we often hold foods that we ate in our youths with high regards and increase their exponential yumminess with each year.  So it was for me with Pee Wee's Drive Inn.  As  an early teen just starting out at a new school at the young age of 12, I often went there with my new friends from school to enjoy their daily offerings of Cheeseburgers, French Fries, and a cup of Green River.  To my young uneducated palate, and the fact that I was eating with my friends not my parents, this was the best stuff ever.  To me, those meals were the equivalent of eating at any 3 Michelin star restaurant. 

A few decades have gone by since those days gone by but I frequently find myself driving by the old eatery yearning for their crinkle fries hot out of the fryer and smothered in tangy sweet ketchup.  Ahh the ultimate combo of hot/cold, sweet/salty. 

A couple of weeks ago, I convinced myself to make a stop there to check out the place that has been under new ownership but heard that some things remained the same.  Having pulled up at 8:30am, I didn't really want to eat fries but rather a nice breakfast of eggs, linguica, and rice. 

Very excited, I took my first bite of the rice.

Wait, why is this cold?

I took the food back to the counter and asked them if they usually serve their fried rice cold?  Getting the rolled eye treatment, the counter lady grabs the container from my hand and without a word proceeds to the back of the diner.  Within seconds, I hear "Ssssssssss, SSSSSSssssssssss, sssssssssssss" 

Oh my god, is she grilling my rice on the griddle? 

Sure enough, she returns with all my rice warmed up off the griddle and now with the gift of greasy off-flavors from everything that had been cooked there that morning. 

Needless to say, my nostalgic gastronomic youth was destroyed with a flick of the spatula and the sizzle of the cold inadequate rice.  I'm definitely not going to be returning here anytime soon.

Go there at your own risk.

Thanks for reading