So what makes Waffle Houses so great? Well, like many other Southern institutions, Waffle House overcompensates. Just as your big Southern university overcompensates for the SAT scores of its students by playing some kickass SEC football, Waffle House overcompensates for its bitter brew by serving truly delicious fountain products, including the best made-from-syrup Cherry Cokes extant in these United States, with free refills yet. It overcompensates for serving frozen, grated hash-brown potatoes by a) keeping them on the grill until they form a golden crust, thereby making them a perfect delivery system for the salt grains you can hear bouncing around on their surface when you shake the shaker, and b) serving them a dozen ways... All I know is that by the time Waffle House gets through with the variations on its frozen potatoes, it has made frozen potatoes into what Italians have made pasta, i.e., the bedrock of an entire culinary universe. And that's how Waffle House works, in general. Its menu is narrow the way the selection of notes in "The Goldberg Variations" is narrow.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
COVERED: Tom Junod's "An Ode to Waffle House":
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Nice. I am a Waffle House fan, but my one complaint is their hashbrowns. I've never found one that does "a) keeping them on the grill until they form a golden crust." Sometimes one side will have a hint of a crust that barely hides the mushy interior. Even asking for extra crispy rarely gets me what I need. But load them up with stuff and they're not bad. He is correct that the waffles are just ok.
ReplyDeleteMy default order is the Fiesta omelet, skip the peppers and top it with chili.
And you definitely need to go to one that does a Valentine's Day dinner. It's a lot of fun for a bullshit "holiday."
ps: if you're interested in other stories about the South, I recommend http://bittersoutherner.com/
ReplyDeleteTom Junod needs to meet me so he can say he knows someone who goes to Waffle House for the waffles.
ReplyDeleteI like you more and more and more.
ReplyDeleteOne of my law school buddies liked to use the expression, "tough as a waffle house steak." which always now results in me ordering a steak at the waffle house.
ReplyDeleteI think it was Saveur magazine that actually focused on the scrambled egg/omelet technique at the waffle house where they whip the eggs in a milkshake blender to get them full of air so the omelets are puffy and wonderful. I've tried to do that. I have failed. Into exile I must go.
I like you more and more and more.
ReplyDelete