Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
1
Lunch at the mall. If you were going to try and recreate a stereotype American diner, say for a film set, then it’d look like Ed’s. There’s all the shiny metalwork, the booths with seating covered in red leatherette, even those mini-jukeboxes fixed to the wall at several of the tables (decorative only, of course) and a 1950s playlist in the background music. But it differs in not having the quirkiness of many actual American diners. Nor does it have the range of food – this mini-chain is just a burger and hot dog place.
So, that’ll be burgers then. We both went with the “Smokey Joe”. Nicely cooked and well flavoured patty, American cheese (tasteless), streaky bacon (not enough to make any real contribution), BBQ sauce (overly sweet), onions and gherkins, all in a decent enough bun. Fries were good – well seasoned, just the right side of being too salty. Side order of onion rings was bang on - nice and crispy.
This hadnt been our first choice but the queue to get in to Mowgli was long - next time we’ll wait. So, disappointing lunch but a successful shopping trip - £150 on a new suitcase.
I had to go look when you said “stereotype American diner for a film set”. Couldn’t see any pictures until I went to Google Images where others had taken pics. Yup, quintessential American diner (removed “boxcar” because it’s definitely not a boxcar diner). Their breakfast menu doesn’t look too bad.
I have fond memories of Eds Diners in London. There’s none left now but Mrs PB & I went to one very early in our relationship and thanks to the jukeboxes on the tables, realised we had a mutual love of The Kinks. The hot dog and fries were pretty good if I recall correctly.
