Squires Diner

Zero Stars

You might be wondering why Mama V and I spent a kiddie-free afternoon having lunch together at Squires Diner. And you also might be wondering, where is Squires Diner? Both are very good questions.

First, it all started a couple of months ago at Mama Margarita Night. Mama V was talking about Squares Diner in Tribeca and I thought she was referring to Squires Diner near the Seaport. It took a little longer than usual, thanks to a couple of glasses of wine, to realize we were talking about two different, but very similarly sketchy, diners in our surrounding neighborhood. As we walked home that night and passed by Squares Diner we decided that we would have lunch at both places and write a formal review a la Frank Bruni.

Second, I should be a little more up front about where Squires Diner is located since that is the first place we decided to grace with our presence, and notebook. While it is near the Seaport, it is located in the middle of a project (or "PJ" for those of you in the book club who read Lush Life recently). Actually I can't quite pinpoint if it is a project or an elderly tenement. Most residents look like they were born before the first Great American Depression.

So last Friday afternoon Mama V and I left the kiddies at home and headed to Squires.

We were pleased by two things when we walked through the door. Breakfast is served all-day and it was bustling inside. In fact, we were surprised by the mix of clientele. Sure, there were quite a few blue hairs in the crowd, but there were a few tables of office workers (from Fulton Street, not Wall Street). We sat down at a booth that we found ourselves, opened the plastic menu and swatted the fly out of our face.

We debated a lot about what we should order at both diners for comparison purposes. The original plan was to have bacon cheeseburgers, but after we mentioned the diners to Mama A and saw the horrified look on her face (as well as another mama friend who mentioned at least we wouldn't die from eating there) we started to chicken out a little bit. I should mention that I was the first to chicken out, not Mama V.

We decided that we would have a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato and a stack of blueberry pancakes along with milkshakes. We were going to split a milkshake but I'm a vanilla girl and Mama V is a chocolate girl so we each ordered our own. I thought of Mama N and Mama V when I had my milkshake because I know how much they liked to get milkshakes together last summer.

I'll start with the pleasant surprises first. The pancakes actually had real blueberries rather than blueberry syrup or compote so that was a good sign. And the grilled cheese had more tomato and bacon than cheese (and the accompanying pickles were classic and crisp). The milkshakes were pretty good given that we knew they weren't using premium ice cream made with real vanilla bean and artisanal chocolate.

Unfortunately, I think that is where the bright spots end. The pancakes were the worst. They were tough and chewy. You needed a knife to cut pieces, which required a lot of sawing back and forth. We even think the blueberries were scared of the pancake mix because they were all clustered in the middle of the pancakes as if huddling in mass would help. The maple syrup was fake, which Mama V pointed out was obvious as she watched it pour onto the pancakes. The fries that came with the grilled cheese were dry and tasteless. Even the corn-syrup ridden ketchup couldn't save them.

The most perplexing detail was the cheese used in the grilled cheese. We expected it would be American and it looked to be what they used, but once we bit into it we realized it was the exact taste of Egg McMuffin cheese. Let me make a side comment here that I have not had an Egg McMuffin in my adulthood, but for some reason that highly processed cheese taste from my childhood could not escape me. So back to the Squires grilled cheese. We are stumped for what kind of cheese it was. I have thought about it all weekend, and now I am wondering, did we actually eat Velveeta?! I've never tried it, but then again, as of Friday afternoon, maybe I have!

Our waitress was quite surprised when we asked for the check. Maybe it was the remaining stack of pancakes still sitting on the plate. We payed up front in the traditional diner routine and bid Squires a final farewell.

Mama V and I think Squares Diner is going to fare much better than Squires. Stay tuned to find out...