The other night I went out for a post-rehearsal bite to eat with some of my fellow Footloose cast members.* We stopped at City Diner, which seemed like a pretty decent place for the most part. It’s on the I-10 Service Road by Causeway, next to the LaQuinta, where Denny’s used to be. And given the location, it’s only natural that it serves up lots of the diner fare, albeit with a lot of New Orleans twists. One of my friends had shrimp remoulade(!) and liked a lot. Another had some onion rings; I tried one and it was quite good. I myself had pancakes, and they were fine. (Not as good as IHOP’s, I suppose, but not bad.) But that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the chocolate milk. When I first sat down I ordered a water, uncertain as to whether I’d be getting dinner or breakfast. When I ordered pancakes, I asked for chocolate milk. When it came, I took a sip, hoping that my mouth would be flooded with the creamy, luxurious goodness that is chocolate milk. Instead, I got the Hershey’s syrup kind. Which isn’t terrible, and is far from inedible, but is it worth $1.99 plus tax? Hell no. I have no philosophical or aesthetic objection to fake chocolate milk; in fact, I pretty much grew up on the stuff. I’ve probably consumed a billion pounds of Nesquik powder. Truth be told, the Hershey’s syrup milk is probably far superior to the Nesquik milk, but I’m guessing it’s more expensive. And I’m so used to the taste of Nesquik with dinner it just seems right. But obviously, neither of those two compares to real chocolate milk. Sure, it has something like 30% of your recommended daily intake of saturated fat, but it’s totally worth it. It just tastes and feels so wonderful. I love it. I want to go drink some right now. And thinking that I was about to get real chocolate milk and then getting fake stuff was a brutal surprise. I probably should’ve sent it back, but when you’re with a group of twenty people and you figure the waiters probably hate you anyway you don’t feel like pissing them off. Hopefully we tipped them well; I know I did. And fortunately the restaurant wasn’t too crowded, so we weren’t pissing off too many other customers with our raucous ruckus.
Just thinking about this makes me want to go buy some chocolate milk right now. Or maybe tomorrow I’ll stop by Cafe du Monde and have some chocolate milk with my beignets.
Also, while I’m on the subject, I’m not crazy about the 1% fat chocolate milk either—I think it’s pretty cheap at Sam’s so we get it sometimes. It doesn’t have the same rich creaminess that the whole chocolate milk has. (FWIW, when it comes to white milk I’m a 2% guy all the way. 1% is okay, skim and whole are dreadful.) Granted, chocolate milk is hellishly expensive compared to the white stuff, but it’s worth every penny.
The moral of this story is not to order chocolate milk in a restaurant unless you ask first if it’s real chocolate milk. I won’t make that mistake again.
* Not-so-subtle self-promotion. I may try to sneak mentions of my show into every single post I make in the next two-and-a-half weeks.
Kevin,
Sorry about the Milk, The reason for using a syrup isn’t price. It’s due to the fact that not many people drink choc milk while dinning out. We serve close to 400 people daily and sell if were lucky three choc milks per day. When we first opened I served brown’s dairy chocolate milk and threw more away then we sold.
Jason White
Owner
City Diner
I appreciate the response, Jason, and it’s nice to have an actual explanation as opposed to my guesswork. In any case, I’ve been back since then and had a great breakfast, and your willingness to hunt down mentions of your restaurant on the Internet and respond speaks well of your dedication to your work.