Blueberry Hill Pancake House

It’s been a good long while since we got out and tried someplace new to eat, but because of an odd schedule change I was able to have lunch with Amy and Jackson Saturday afternoon before I went to work. Amy suggested we go to the Blueberry Hill Pancake House, along the achingly depressed stretch of east Washington Street between I-465 and Post Road. It’s in the little building that used to be a Perkins and was before that a Shoney’s - and is pretty much your run of the mill country bumpkin comfort food place.

Amy and our waitress were apparently connected by the Vulcan mind meld to some sort of warp speed ordering procedure, so I half panicked and ordered the country-fried steak before I even got halfway through the menu. Amy got some kind of Mediterranean skillet creation, which had gyro meat in it. That and the fact that the gyro sandwich occupies pride of place in the middle of the sandwich section lead me to believe the place is owned by Greeks. Also, the guy who hung around the counter and clearly looked like he owned the place also looked like he was Greek. I know that’s probably not politically correct to say - but he was a stocky, swarthy fellow, with dark olive skin and hardly any neck. Either way, if he’s not a Greek restaurant owner, he should be.

But anyway, after a bit the food came out and after we corrected the waitress’ error and swapped plates, we tucked in. (Waitress also might not any longer be the preferred nomenclature, but that’s what she called herself. If you haven’t had the misfortune to sup at this place, I guess you’ll have to take my word for it - no one will ever use the words cosmopolitan or sophisticated to describe any aspect of this establishment.)

Amy pronounced her Mediterranean skillet - with hash browns, onion, green pepper, feta, gyro meat, and two eggs on top - delightful. My country fried steak came with two eggs and hash browns - and both came with either toast or pancakes. Since the word pancake is in the name of the place, I figured I would go with the pancakes. (This was not Amy’s first time, and she didn’t even hesitate before saying pancakes.) Nothing on my plate was exactly bad, but neither was it impressive. You can get the exact same meal, though it will taste infinitely better, at Cracker Barrel - and you’ll still be able to enjoy your meal surrounded by Republicans.

There’s a little bit of everything on the menu - from breakfast items to sandwiches and burgers to salads to Italian food and stir-fry...even crèpes (but that’s worrisome because one of the choices is peach and cottage cheese - and someone needs to pass a law stipulating that cottage cheese is never never never an acceptable substitution for ricotta, not in any dish, for any reason). You can even get Freedom toast. Yes...Freedom toast. Remember when the retarded hillbillies started calling French fries “Freedom fries” after the whole 9/11 thing? Well, they’ve still got ‘em at the ol’ Blueberry Hill Pancake House. The Freedom toast, of course, is just French toast renamed by retards.

Now, having said that - and laying aside the hillbilly naming conventions - the pancakes are pretty good. They’re big and thick and fluffy, with a hint of sweet vanilla flavor. You couldn’t pay me to eat stir-fry or a reuben at a place like this; and even though I normally support the indie places passionately, that faux patriotic bullshit turns my stomach. A return trip? Unlikely - even though it is a mom-and-pop and not a chain. I’m not sure how I could possibly rationalize ever spending any more of my money on the kinds of mental furballs who still use the word freedom in place of the word French.