Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Stratford Springs

I ate here yesterday along with prominent lunchable members G Max, Jenn S and Heather. Personally, I've always thought this place was mediocre at best. Great atmosphere and ambience though. However, this post will be about the meal. I opted for a caesar salad, bowl of soup and half of a chicken salad sandwich. The food all came at once - no major surprise there. I was well-prepared for the tri-onslaught. What I was ill-prepared for was the horrific chicken salad sandwich. This was the most disgusting thing I'd eaten in probably 2 years. You've got to be thinking to yourself - geez Saf, it's chicken salad - How bad can it be? Surely, he's exaggerating. I assure you, I'm not. What makes it really disturbing is that it was "the sandwich of the day." Here's what they did to this abomination. They pureed the chicken until it had the consistency of liquid. Then, I think they added corn starch and mayonnaise to achieve some kind of velvety, ultra-creamy texture. The end result - it was totally disgusting. I wouldn't even serve it to the Bush administration. Well, maybe Cheney. Next time he goes in for heart surgery, I'll suggest that Stratford cater the event. They could hook up an IV directly to his stomach and send in the chicken liquid unabated.
Heather had the same sandwich and could only take one bite as well. So I'm not making this up. It was so bad it turned my stomach for the rest of the day. I was able to scarf down a cheesesteak around 8pm at PNC Park but that was it. As far as the rest of the meal goes, the salad was fair and the soup (a seafood bisque) was decent, but unfortunately, room temperature. The service was fair and our waitress was cute. The only highlight was a "knockout woman" in the same room - she smiled at me and said "Hi, Eric."