El Dorado Diner

LOCATION: 460 South Broadway Tarrytown, NY
TYPE OF FOOD: American/Diner
REVIEW: The "New York style diner" (or any restaurant, really) can be a friend... or a fiend. One little thing could annoy one little reviewer from a state that screwed up eight months ago by voting for someone who would wreck everything that the president, who the reviewer didn't vote for, was trying to do, and that one little thing would annoy that one little reviewer to the point that he would knock off one little point out of cinco. Pequenos. Puntos. And I didn't realize that until I left El Dorado Diner (doesn't that always seem to happen?).

Looking at the menu, I realized that there are more options here than gallons of butter in France (note GALLONS). So what should I have? Should I have a garden omelette (broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and carrots. For every Ingrid Newkirk in your household!) with an ice cream sundae? Or should I have a grilled salmon club with corned beef hash? Or maybe the "Chicken Princess (stuffed chicken breast with crabmeat and broccoli covered with melted mozzarella.... I just gagged)? Finally, after a few minutes, I decided on the chicken kabob with Greek salad. I ordered that, along with iced tea. After a couple of minutes, the iced tea came.

The iced tea had less flavor than inches on Verne Troyer. It clearly was a mix, and I really only drank it because I was thirsty. A few minutes after that, the Greek salad came. The Greek salad was average, and came with a dressing that must been store bought, then mixed with Feta cheese (it was orange!). I hardly ate much of it, just the lettuce and the few cubes of Feta on top. A little after that came the "kabob". There was no kabob, just a plate with food. In fact, there was no chicken. Well, there was chicken, but for some bizarre reason (I bet the Corn Refiner Association did it... "high fructose corn syrup is good for you". Bunch of liars.) it tasted like shrimp. BP ruined, high in cholesterol, shrimp. And despite the bad experiences, I decided to order the fruit salad. Basically, it was more sour than John McEnroe, because they decided they needed to add acid, so they put grapefruit juice on top. Fed up (pun intended), I got up and left the place. And, that was that.

SERVICE: The service was fine. They were always busy, always moving, and (of course) nice and friendly. There really was nothing special at all (so is Family Guy!). Punctuation mark used at the end of a statement that is often drawn as a circle. Period.

ATMOSPHERE: The atmosphere is what you expect at a classic diner. There were jukeboxes at every table, loaded with songs from the Rolling Stones (from their eleventh European tour!) to Now That's What I Call Music (now that's what I call music's diarrhea!)! The floors had a few straw wrappers here and there, but besides that, the floors were clean. Hopefully Howie Mandel will agree with me....

PRICE: Two people will cost you forty-five dollars. It is a lot of food for a low price, but would you rather pay ninety dollars for food made by Daniel Boulud, or pay forty-five dollars for food made by Sarah Palin (hello, I have some baked Alaska, because I'm a maverick...... and look, there's Russia!)? Yeah, I knew you'd make that choice.

RATING: El Dorado has been known as "the city of gold". At the El Dorado Diner in Tarrytown, New York, there is no gold to be found within a five mile radius of the establishment. And sure, it may have a good atmosphere and a fine service, but those two are crushed like American Airlines by the FAA under bland food. The El Dorado Diner gets a one out of five.