An Update

Josephine Street
400 East Josephine Street

(at 281)

When I reviewed this place five years ago, I said it was basically good enough food, with reasonable prices, excellent ambience, and very good service. Not so much anymore: while the effervescence of dining room -- complete with old-fashioned bar, juke box in the corner, and a real tree near the front -- makes for an enjoyable atmosphere at any meal; and while the prices are competitive for the sort of down-home Texas style cookin' you get, the food varied from disappointing to just barely okay. Nothing haute about the cuisine here, and that'd be just fine. Ordinarily.

But this last time, a few days ago, the service was pretty miserable. It took a long time to get menus, and then to get our orders placed. Then it took a long, long time to get the food. On the way to the table with our two plates, the waitress spilled watery sauce from my green chili chicken all over the floor and the table, and seemed unconcerned that both plates had, at some point, lain upon someone's chicken fried steak. They left cream gravy all over the table when she had to take them back to the kitchen because they'd gotten things completely wrong. And then a long time to get them back. By then, the food had cooled beyond the point of acceptability, but we were both hungry enough to eat it without further complaint (except, of course, to each other).

Green chili chicken is not a dish I'll ever order again. The tomatillo sauce is uninteresting. And I'll never get the fries again, either; they were limp and chewy, probably even when they were hot. My friend's Tony's chicken was a pounded and grilled chicken breast inundated with cheddar cheese and a few chives. Like I said, just okay. The Toll House Pie (a splurge for my friend's birthday) would have been pretty good if it weren't for the oddly jarring flavour imparted by the toasted walnuts.

THE CURMUDGEON'S RATINGS:

FOOD: 2 chili peppers (out of 5)

SERVICE: 1 chili pepper

AMBIENCE: 3 1/2 chili peppers

VALUE: 2 1/2 chili peppers