Thursday, June 30, 2011

Putting in a good word for ... Applebees!

I was down in SEK, visiting my family for a couple of weeks this month.  There isn't a lot to do in my hometown, and when I say that, people seem to want to compare it to far bigger cities.  (Hint:  18,000 > 120,000).  It's a college town where the university, school system, and hospital are probably the primary employers in the area. 

Notice I said "area" and not "my town."  Because unless you want to drive an hour or more (nearest "big" city is 2-3 hours by car), my hometown is ... it.  And basically we have some restaurants, theaters, bars, and a bowling alley.  Fun times.

One thing we do have is a small Applebees.  We also have a small Chili's.  That's about it, but we do have them.  I looked at the gf menu options for both and saw that Chili's was a lot of "no bread, bun, or sauce" options.  Applebees, on the other hand, had a mountain of sides and a nice handful of fairly complete meals.

Of course:   YMMV and cross contamination, etc. etc.

We asked for the allergen menu even though I'd printed the gluten page and brought it with me.  The hostess wasn't sure they had one.  We were seated, and within a few minutes a gal I presume was the manager came by with a stack of pages.   She checked that my page was up to date and seemed relieved that she didn't have to dig through the stack.

I got a NY strip, which comes with garlic mashed potatoes (yummmmm) and veggies.  Everything was good and I had no reaction.  The manager came by again to make sure everything was okay, and I took half my food home for later.

I went back a couple of times.  I had queso blanco and then sizzling chicken and cheese.  Both were tasty and didn't affect me except to make me full and happy. 

It was really nice to not play the "no gravy, no bread, no seasoning" game.  Although the list is still small, it's large compared to Chili's and full of flavor.  I've never been a fan of stripping all the flavor from food and going out only to pay $20 for flavorless steak and steamed broccoli.  So this is quite nice.  I felt like a normal person!

To bad we have no Appamublebees here.  :(

Again, ymmv.

You can find their allergen menu on their website, or just google "applebees allergen menu."

I apologize if the name is supposed to have an apostrophe.  I ... don't care enough to check.