Review: The Golden Nugget

Orange paper jack 'o' lanterns dangled from the ceiling. Designs of kangaroos (or some shit) were frosted onto glass partitions. And there seemed to be far too many booths that were only big enough to seat one person on each side. My roommate Megan and I had decided to eat breakfast at The Golden Nugget, a 24 hour “pancake house” on Clark near Diversey.

It kind of reminded me of Denny's, as I told Megan. Only Denny's has awesome buffalo wings. This place didn't have buffalo wings at all, which upset me.

There were plenty of appetizing choices on the menu, although everything seemed a bit overpriced. I settled on Chicken Parmigiana, while Megan went for some sausage-egg-hash brown combo.

Mine came with a salad; hers did not. I was shocked to find out, as the waitress told me, that they do not carry bleu cheese salad dressing. This is kind of my standard for restaurants—if they don't have bleu cheese, then they're too trashy for me. For God's sake, even Denny's has bleu cheese!

Well, I settled for ranch. And I must admit, the salad was delicious. It came with plenty of cucumber, and the bad parts (onions, green peppers) were on top and easy to pick off. And it didn't have any croutons! Hooray! Alas, I didn't finish it, wanting to save room for the main course. Besides, I was out of delicious ranch dressing. This was to be my downfall.

I had never had Chicken Parmigiana before, so I don't know if it's usually that gross. I regretted my choice moments into my first bites. The spaghetti noodles were too thick, and the “meat sauce” on top of it was composed mostly of chunks of tomato. Just the way I hate it. The chicken was dry, and the breading it was wrapped in was far too salty. Spread across the top of the dish were layers of melted mozzarella, as if in a last-ditch attempt to save the flavor. This actually kind of worked, but not well enough for me to finish the meal. About ¼ of the way in, I stopped, pushed the plate forward, and announced that I was done. I felt as though I had just been served a meal from a homeless shelter. I had to ask the waitress for more water, another thing that annoys me. She didn't visit the table to refill our glasses once.

Not quite satisfied, I dumped some mustard on a piece of Megan's sausage and went to town. On her sausage. Heh. It wasn't too bad, although we both agreed that it tasted a lot like ham.

We both ended up paying about fifteen bucks, which is far too much for me. I'm not sure whether we were supposed to pay in the front of the restaurant or not, but we just left the money on the table. The service wasn't nearly good enough for me to care.

All in all, I would probably eat there again, seeing as it's close to my apartment and open 'round the clock. But only if someone else suggested it first, and then I would hold it against them all night.