The city council recently voted to allow chain restaurants in downtown Portland. With rumors about a Hooters franchise, people are scared — haunted by the idea of our most “athletic” young women forced to don skin-colored tights and tiny yet high-waisted orange shorts. But Hooters is an especially depraved example of what the corporate restaurant regime produces. To better anticipate the typical experience of our franchise food future I visited America’s paradigmatic casual-dining chain: Applebee’s.
Applebee’s describes itself to investors as “the largest casual dining concept in America.” They have fleshed out that concept in fascinating ways. Once, to describe some of their dishes, they coined the term “simply irresist-a-bowl” and sang it to the tune from Robert Palmer. Fun. They recently brought on celebrity chef Tyler Florence to lend some of their dishes “huge flavor.” Florence bears a resemblance to the handsome young chef who can be seen surrounded by a colorful array of powders, ambiguously “adding flavor to taste” in Healthy Choice commercials. Could Tyler’s methods be similar? I was personally intrigued by the company’s new “three course, one-price, combos.” With Bandol gone, downtown prix fixe dining has been limited to Hugo’s. Applebee’s could offer another option.
However, both options and courses are lacking in that particular section of Applebee’s laminated menu. While I could swear I remember seeing a young actress wondering which appetizer to combine with which entrée on television, in person you are stuck with the combinations that the corporation has prefabricated. Shrimp and Parmesan sirloin was paired with a spinach and artichoke dip, cheese quesadillas with fiesta lime chicken, and bruschetta with a three-cheese chicken penne.
Odder still, the first two of your three “courses” come to the table at the same time and on the same plate (as menu photographs presage). We admired Applebee’s postmodern pluck in toying with traditional concepts of order and time in this way, but was it possible, we asked, to get the first course first? Returning from the kitchen, our server looked genuinely sad to tell us no, the computer would not allow for it. In our long march toward the sort of machine-dominated dystopia depicted in the Terminator films, the despotism with which software controls food service at Applebee’s is a significant landmark.
Our combos were a little disappointing. The quesadillas were hard, not particularly cheesy, and spotted with a very chewy meat. The spinach and artichoke dip answered the eternal question: what happens when glop gets goopy? Any flavor from the vegetables was lost in the translucent soup I assume was mostly cornstarch and processed cheese.
Entrees followed the Applebee’s formula: cover meat in melted cheese. This worked better on the chicken, which was reasonably tender and really tasted of lime and agave. The steak was chewy and pretty bland except for the sharp Parmesan. One end of the sirloin was cooked well and the other medium. An orderly line of shrimp — each with a slightly mushy exterior coating a grainier middle — topped the beef like Frenchmen on the Maginot. Broccoli was expertly steamed, but the zucchini squash had become translucent. Dessert involved brownies, ice cream, and something called “maple butter” that might be very good at breakfast.
