Four Seasons Restaurant

We had the chance to have brunch this afternoon because I didn’t have to go in to work until two, so we rolled by Four Seasons Restaurant on Shadeland Avenue, just south of 21st Street. Had there been an emphasis on pancakes, this might well have been a carbon copy of the Blueberry Hill Pancake House, which occupies a former Perkins space on East Washington Street, near I-465. The décor - pastels and formica - is the same, and the staff appeared interchangeable, right down to the ethnic-looking fellow who leaned on a counter and just seemed to be watching everything.

Amy started with lemon chicken rice soup, which came out looking thick and opaque, though she said it was pretty good. Ever the geek for Greek, she went for the gyro sandwich, which came out exactly like you expect a gyro to come out - quite a lot of roasted lamb and beef rolled in pita bread with tomatoes, onions, and tzaziki on the side. This one was so full that she had to eat it with a fork, and the meat had the rich, aromatic flavor that good gyro meat should have - though I’ll be a coal miner’s daughter if it’s actually prepared in house.

I had a ham and Swiss omelette with onions (hash browns and whole wheat toast on the side), which was perfectly adequate without being at all remarkable. The Swiss cheese, unfortunately, was the processed cheese with “Swiss flavor” - a bush league move that was pretty disappointing. Pasteurized process cheese food has no place in any resepctable restaurant; but then again, this is not the kind of place that aspires to greatness.

Places like Four Seasons and Blueberry Hill Pancake House are perfectly fine if you want something simple and if you don’t mind eating where your food is just assembled, rather than prepared. It’s one of those places that you try once to see what it’s like, and you realize about halfway through your meal that there’s just no good reason ever to come back. It’s not that it’s actively bad - it’s just that there’s nothing you can get here that you can’t better at one of a half dozen or so other places in town.