Annia's Kitchen -- El Monte

Remember when I said Dinerwood would change formats? We'll call this more of a new-format review. Enjoy the pictures.

I've tried several times to write a more thoughtful and expansive review of Annia's Kitchen. I even went here twice to try to absorb more of the feel of the place. It just never happened.









The dining room is small and not very well air-conditioned. It's uncomfortably warm inside. I recommend sitting on the patio, because not only is it cooler but on the patio you get to see these...



..Airplanes! Did I mention that Annia's Kitchen is at the El Monte Airport?



Annia's has a very extensive menu. Everything is a little bit more expensive than I'd like it to be.



I liked the biscuits and gravy, although the gravy was a little flour-y.



The pancakes were good, but really heavy. Pancakes like this usually are, but these felt even more so. The sausage was over cooked, but the bacon was done quite well.



The chorizo and eggs was decent.



The pot roast breakfast was really great at the time. It came back to haunt me in the afternoon. I'm not sure if it was the gravy or the eggs that did me in. I ordered both eggs over medium and one was cooked perfectly while the other was over hard.



I really wanted to like Annia's Kitchen, I gave it two chances after all. The most positive thing I can say is that I do really like their menu, I just haven't been wowed by their execution. If the idea of eating breakfast while watching small planes take off sounds awesome, then by all mean go for it.

Food: Decent
Price: $6-13
Service: Good
Pie: Yes

Annia's Kitchen
4233 Santa Anita Avenue # 18 (El Monte Airport)
El Monte, CA 91731

Where I go to something called a "Bob Evans"

A few months ago, Dinerwife Antoinette and I went to Florida for a vacation with her family. I found one diner that was less than a 30 minute drive from our hotel. We arrived and discovered that they had just stopped serving breakfast. This was crushing since I had my mind set on something involving syrup.

We looked at the lunch menu and I honestly said "I don't want to eat here." It was a lot of pasta dishes--which made sense as the place had only recently gone from being an Italian restaurant to presumably a diner. We got up and left and drove to the place we saw right off the highway: Bob Evans.



I had never heard of it before but apparently it's a chain--like a BIG chain. It just does not have any locations on the west coast. I don't review big chains--a place with two or three other locations? Sure, but not CHAIN chains.

My stance on chains is not that the food is terrible or the experience lacking. It is that a chain is going to default to being "safe." That's the comfort of chains. You know regardless of where you are in the world, walking into a Dennys, a McDonalds or an Olive Garden (shudder), whatever you order is going to taste exactly the same as the last time you ordered that same dish at that same restaurant halfway across the world. I like surprises; I like taking that chance. I'm a food gambler at heart, baby. And by gambling, I'm helping in someones struggle to make their own way, not fill the coffers of a corporation. And with this blog I like to think I'm helping encourage others to take the same chance. That's why I don't like chains.

But here--in Florida--I was at a chain restaurant that I had no experience with.



A place with such great food pron pictures of pie can't be that bad right?

Something I noticed was that the menu and the offerings represented a very different sensibility than what I am used to. For instance, biscuits are their base bread. If you want regular toast, you'll have to be sure to say something.


They are very proud of their biscuits. They have them baking in a huge bread over at the front o the restaurant. They ever have biscuit bread bowl breakfast.

The appetizers read like a list of food you will find available at this Summer's state fair: apple fries, fried cheese bits, tater-tots!



The bed of lettuce is a nice touch.



They also bake their own bread. We ordered the Blueberry Poundcake for the table.

Did I mention that I gained like 5lbs on this vacation?

There were five of us there, so I can't really go into much detail about what each of us ordered, but below are the pictures.



Veggie Omelette with onion, spinach and diced tomatoes. It tasted very fresh.



Corn Meal Mash! You know when I saw that on the menu I had to get it. Ever since I first tried it at Stox, it is that weird thing I have to try at each place that has it. It was pretty good-- but not as good as Stox. I also got the hash browns, which were decent, and the sausage and cheese biscuits and gravy.

....what I said earlier--I take that back--it was more like 8lbs on this vacation.



The turkey bacon melt, could have been more "melty." Otherwise, it was decent.



Sausage Omelette with swiss cheese. The country sausage was good, while the swiss cheese did seem like Kraft singles swiss.



The real winner was Antoinette's Pot Roast Hash. A little salty, but pretty awesome. We were stuffed toward the end of our meal, but we kept eating as much of the pot roast as we could.

...It was 10lbs on this vacation. Definitely.

We left Bob Evans satisfied. I think this was a pretty typical experience from a chain restaurant. We had good service. Our food was overall good. I certainly appreciated their bottomless refills on just about all drinks (even the Caramel Mocha). I'm just not the person who is going to get excited about a place like this, but it was a interesting change of pace.


Food: Good.
Price: $5-$9
Service: Good.
Pie: Yes.

Bob Evans
Visit their website to find a location near you.

Richie's "Diner"- The word doesn't mean what you think it means.

This place is too shiny, and not East Coast Diner shiny, like dads with sandals and socks and daughters with low-rise jeans shiny. It's suburb shiny. Calling it Richie's Diner makes my teeth ache. There are hints there that it used to be something special, that somewhere there might be an original Richie's that doesn't grate on my sensibilities. [And apparently there is- http://www.richiesdiner.com/ two locations in northern California where the pictures seem a bit more faux-authentic. Oddly the website does not list the location I went to in Rancho Cucamonga.]


It was a busy weekend night when we strode in, might have even been the opening weekend for Richie's here. There was that kind of ridiculous energy in the air; the kind you might find at a Wal-Mart opening or a Gottschalk's sale. We put our names on the list and waited.

And we waited in the cramped lobby where they teased us with an apple cider dispenser and tiny Dixie cups, only to find no unused cups and an empty jug of cider.

Richie's also sells salt water taffy by the sack. Sure, why not. Do what you gotta Richie's.

It became quite clear after half an hour or so that we had been skipped on the list. We approached the frazzled man at the counter. When he realized that he had skipped us, he tried to say he had called our names, but the looks on our faces and his realization that we had never been more than ten feet from the counter made him quickly abandon that tactic.

Normally, with even that much time invested, I would have hit the bricks, but Ritchie's promised me something. On their crowded front counter were an assortment of unique sodas, including my old favorite, Green River Soda. Part of my childhood all the way up to high school, the Green River Soda was MY drink. I haven't had a Green River, especially from the bottle, in a long time. Too long, old friend. I had to stay.



Finally, we were taken to a table through the generic, could be a Chilis, could be a Macaroni Grill, could be the third circle of hell, dining room.



Looking over the menu, we found the traditional American favorites with only the occasional TGIFriday's influence.

One of us ordered the open faced meatloaf sandwich, substituting french fries for mashed potatoes. The other ordered the pot roast sandwich. We had been waiting so long and were so hungry, I actually forgot to take a picture until we were nearly done. Neither of these meals were impressive, or reall all that good. Plain and generic tasting. And please note; they messed up and gave us both french fries.



But oh sweet Venus, my green bottle love came to me and I did drink her up. Sugary syrup with tiny champagne bubbles. Sigh, what dreams may come.



We waited a very long time for our check, so long we decided to ask for it. What a foolhardy move that proved to be. Our waiter had forgotten to print it out. We could have walked out and there would have been no evidence except for our left over food stuffs...Yes, I did take the Green River bottle with me.

I cannot recommend Richie's Diner because I won't recommend any chain restaurant to anyone for a meal. You can call it a "diner" all you want Richie, but that don't make it right. And do not get me started on what the hell "Real American" means.

Food: Meh!
Service: Feh!
Price: Gah!
Pie: Nah!... okay they had some overpriced desserts with pie-like stuff.

Victoria Gardens
8039 Monet Ave
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739