Waffle House

Ever since Beer Boor wrote about Waffle House, I admit I’ve been dying to try one.  I’ve mentioned before my affinity towards chain restaurants – I am not a food snob, I hope to heaven that I am never accused of being one.  I can appreciate the need for chain restaurants, and there are some I like a lot, some I really detest (because the food is bad), and some I will visit over and over and over again whenever I pass by (Cracker Barrel, Denny’s – though I passed many, many of these on my drive down and did not visit a single one!).  In any case, I had my eyes open wide when my friends suggested visiting Waffle House on my last day in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, and I was pretty excited. 

Something about its Scrabble-esque logo really makes me happy.  I don’t know.  Anyway, the coffee was OK… I’ve heard varying opinions on it.  I’m not a coffee expert. 

I thought mine was a bit extra-bitter, maybe burnt? but I happily noted that they grind their own beans, which is a step above what most diners do, right? 

When all our food arrived, it was rather scary how much was on the table.  This might be because I like to overorder… or because they put everything on individual plates.  My sausage patties didn’t have to have their own plate (which is why I quickly dumped them onto my plate and stacked it with another plate before taking this photo).  But whatever!  Look at my fooooood!!! 

Waffle, which I left for the end, and no real butter.  Boo for the no real butter, but the waffle was perfectly satisfactory.  I only ate like half because I ate everything else… urp. 

Two sunny side up eggs – one of my yolks was already popped, wah – buttery white toast, grits, two sausage patties.  Yum!!! 

But the real deal, what I could get alone and make a meal just of that: hash browns!  I had mine with tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, onions, topped with country gravy.  It wasn’t the best country gravy ever but holy wow it totally binds the whole thing.  I scarfed this down first, and next time? – yeah there’s gonna be a next time! – I will totally get just this, but a larger size.  And maybe a side of sausage to cut up into it, hahaha. 

Yvo says: This is definitely going into my chain restaurant rotation, though I don’t know if it’ll overtake either of my other favorites.  Cracker Barrel remains at the top because there are so many different things I can and do get there, and Waffle House may just be the place for my hash brown fix.  And that’s perfectly fine by me.  Yum!  Cheap, fatty, filling food on road trips south – check!
recommended: it is what it is, which is cheap road food that does its job!