Mitzel's Meals Range From Bland To Worse

Restaurant review

X Mitzel's American Kitchens, multiple locations. ($) Breakfast, lunch, dinner ($5 to $14) 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; until midnight Friday and Saturday. Beer, wine. Major credit cards. No smoking. Reservations for large groups only. -------------------------------------------------------------------

Family dining on the not-so-open roads.

Maybe it was the scheduled recreations of this unsummery summer, or the sputtering afterburn of the long Fourth of July weekend, but Mitzel's American Kitchens seemed to be the appropriate destinations for this vacation season.

Mitzel's, a genuine Puget Sound homegrown phenomenon, started in Mount Vernon eight years ago. Since that time, it has spread throughout this corner of the state faster than milfoil on a boat trailer.

There are now an even dozen of the modest-priced, family-style restaurants. They will be a baker's dozen by midsummer, with the expected opening of a 13th in Monroe.

The places are carefully sited near freeways and major highway interchanges. As one South End hostess said: "We get a lot of trade from travelers."

The good Samaritan in me hopes they fared better than we did.

One excursion for good old American apple pie on the morning of the Fourth of July was an embarrassment. I dropped into the Canyon Park restaurant. The place was packed. The parking lot was full. There was a line up at the cash register for the exiting

breakfast-lunch trade.

I ordered one piece each of apple, blackberry and peach pies (Mitzel's features their pies).

The peach was OK, if somewhat bland. The berry was tart and pleasant, although overwhelmed by too much crust - a problem of disproportion many of Mitzel's pies share.

The slice of apple pie was moldy.

Fine webs of faint-green, speckled grey mold had invaded one sliced side of the wedge, and had set up microbiological housekeeping. I took it back.

"Yes, it's mold," confirmed a waitress who spotted me wandering in front of the pie display case, specimen in hand. "It can happen pretty quickly."

How quickly? I asked.

Um, three days, she said.

"Get him another slice," suggested the young woman behind the register, "There's some `fresh' back there."

I wondered why, if a `fresh' apple pie was waiting in the wings, I was handed an old one in the first place.

"A mistake in rotating the stock," an assistant manager said. Oh.

A couple of nights earlier, three of us tried the same place for dinner (following an excursion to the Fife location, the prior week).

Dinners are relatively inexpensive ($7.25 to $9) for most items.

Mitzel's specializes in roast turkey. A large bird in a rotisserie oven is on display in each restaurant's entry. The turkey-noodle soup made therefrom, by the way, is filling, loaded with meat and quite good.

The Roast Turkey Dinner ($8.95) that we encountered, however, was another matter. Slices of white meat, were thin and dry. The gravy had a viscous, glutinous quality. The dressing was dense and sticky, although well-seasoned.

The mashed potatoes alongside may have been housemade - they had certifiable lumps in them - but tasted processed. I was told later that they are made from "reconstituted" potato nuggets.

Green beans with toasted almonds didn't have the taste or texture of fresh. "Glazed" carrots were carrots - but unglazed.

The corn bread is cake-like and microwave-warmed, but pleasant, and served with what tasted like a honey-augmented butter.

The Western-cut Porterhouse Steak ($13.95 for a 16-ounce cut) was ordered medium rare but arrived well-done. The waitress apologized, removed it to the kitchen and a replacement was delivered soon after.

Turkey Crepes ($7.25) were more successful, even if the texture of the crepes was more like pancakes than crepes. Chunks of turkey, combined with spoonfuls of stuffings, were rolled together and topped with copious ladlings of gravy - all of it served on a huge oval platter with a side of cranberry sauce.

Service varied from competent and enthusiastic (proud, even, at the Fife location) to rushed and amateurish. It was always, however, courteous. The waitresses appear especially adept at handling children and retirees.

A meatloaf sandwich at the South Everett location was fine; ditto the French dip, albeit somewhat over-cooked for roast beef.

I applaud the idea of moderate-cost dinner houses; we need them. I salute the increased attention being paid to traditional American cooking. But for a more laudable approach to the culinary genre, I'll nourish my loyalties to the Yankee Diner.

(Copyright, 1993, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.) John Hinterberger, who writes the weekly restaurant review in Tempo, makes visits to restaurants anonymously and unannounced. He pays in full for all food, wines and services. When he interviews members of the restaurants' management and staff, he does so only after the meals and the services have been appraised. He does not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.