Our Best Restaurant

How hard is it to make real mashed potatoes?

For some, I imagine it's not easy. But, I don't want to lump (pun intended) a person's inability in a kitchen to restaurants that should not make them out of the box.

They are. I asked one time and the server said that they were instant but you will not be able to tell the difference.. right. I mean come on...How hard is it to make real mashed potatoes?

I don't have the most discerning of palates, but real potatoes versus rehydrated? Come on. Out of a box is bad enough, but out of a box from a place that is trying to sell itself as serving down-home, old-fashioned home cooking???? I don't think so.

I've been visiting Our Best for several years, and originally they DID serve homemade mashed potatoes. In fact, I judge all "home cooking" restaurants by the quality of this one dish.

I can't quite pinpoint when they changed to instant, but even after they moved here to the Creek, I quit going as often. The instant potatoes in combination with their insistence that the fried cornbread had to go UNDER "wet" dishes just rubbed me the wrong way.

Interestingly enough, the last time I was there, I overheard a server tell someone at the next table that the cornbread was now being served on separate plates due to "customer complaints." I was one of those complainers, although they never responded to my email. Go figure.

I'm also sufficiently old school to believe that any establishment that promotes "home cooking" should serve breakfast all day. Cracker Barrel wins in Fern Creek for that one reason.

And speaking of mashed potatoes, I'm going to start a thread of my own on this topic.

I visited the Fern Creek location this past Spring with my brother and his family. I'll never go back. It was the worst restaurant experience I can remember. The restaurant floor was dirty with food and paper products. The wait for the food was long. The service was slow. When the food finally came out, several of our orders were wrong. Lots of yelling in the kitchen, which made for a uneasy feeling about eating what came out. Lots of mad customers, many of which were demanding to see the manager who was stuck in the kitchen trying to help get food out. It was a horrible experience.

I have been to the one in Fern Creek a few times. Close to my house. Service has always been pretty good. Food, average at best, but not bad.

All of the locations except the original in Smithfield are franchised. Sounds like Robins "bean counters" have taken over.

I have been to the one in Fern Creek a few times. Close to my house. Service has always been pretty good. Food, average at best, but not bad.

All of the locations except the original in Smithfield are franchised. Sounds like Robins "bean counters" have taken over.

No all of the others are owned and ran by the owners and operators of the Smithfield one, I worked there through Easter this year and it is a horrible place to work. The mashed potatoes are the dreaded "Potato Pearls", just add hot water and stir. All of their sides are bland because you can't cook greens or green beans for 30 minutes and get any flavor out of that hamhock. The cornbread was always burnt, if we didn't burn it we couldn'y hold it in a hot well for hours on end. Boy the stories I could tell there.

*sigh*

I'll pass on this dog pile. Maybe the next one.

I'll save the dog pile. Just sayin our motto there was "We ain't Cracker Barrel but we do OUR BEST!!!"

*** LANGUAGE ALERT ***

My wife & I along with 2 of our friends & their son attempted to eat at Our Best Restaurant in Hillview last weekend. We walked in & at the front desk on the right there were 2 teenage workers talking to each-other. They didn't greet us so I greeted them instead. We asked for a table for 5 & stated that one of us was a baby that would require a high chair. One of the teenagers, a female, stated that their printer was down & that there would be a wait. I told her that this was OK. She turned around & went back to her desk without saying anything. No one came to escort us to a table or anything so we just assumed that this meant we were supposed to have a seat in their waiting area. We waited for 20 minutes. During this wait we all got a front-row seat to this young lady telling the other teenage guy, who I assume was in charge, that she'll "straight-up slap that bitch if that bitch comes up here & starts running her mouth". Now, I'm all in favor of the 1st amendment & all but I found that to be rather inappropriate considering the theme that the restaurant is trying to convey & that we had a small child with us. We eventually just got up & walked out. The young lady glared at us rudely on our way out as if we had offended her in some way. One of our friends politely said to the young lady on the way out that "we're tired of fucking waiting" & we simply went elsewhere. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed & probably won't be going back. I did get a look at the food that was being served & it looked like something out of a can or a TV dinner. I obviously didn't get the opportunity to taste anything & while I normally wouldn't judge a book by its cover (or I wouldn't have gone there in the first place) but I'm fairly confident that Cracker Barrel is about 10x better (food & definitely service).