Dear The Crown & Goose

Dear The Crown & Goose,

I am writing you today to share with you a complaint about my last visit to your fine dining establishment. You may recall that I previously wrote you a letter about the best pork chop I had ever eaten. As much as I hate to say it, this letter is about the worst ham and cheese sandwich that I couldn't even bring myself to sample.

This past weekend, I found myself back in Tennessee for a short visit. Typically, I'm a fan of finding somewhere new to eat during trips like this as variety is the spice of life, but your venue popped into my head. My girlfriend and I decided to stop in and give your lunch menu a whirl.

The both of us ordered a salad/sandwich combo, which took a good half hour to get out our way. There's a lot to be said about the poor performance of your server on this day... neither of us caught his name, but he had a very difficult time managing what few tables he was working with.

My sandwich, the Croque-Monsieur, sounded amazingly delicious... but as soon as I cut into it, uncooked egg white leaked out in clear globs all over the plate. And I'm not talking about just a little bit, but it was as if someone cracked the egg directly into the sandwich and then sent it out that way. I'm not a chef, but I'm pretty sure that's not how a Croque-Monsieur is prepared.

So, I ate my salad. It was nothing spectacular, but I had already decided that I wasn't going to bother with trying to get the sandwich done correctly... I was going to tell the server about it and ask for it to be removed from the bill. These things happen. And so, the two of us finished up lunch, and we waited. And waited. After about 20 minutes of not seeing our server as both of us were finished eating, my lady friend got fed up with waiting and had to track him down.

I complained. I showed him the sandwich, and he agreed that the egg was indeed uncooked. When I asked that it be removed from the bill, he told us to not worry about the bill because we had to wait for so long, so that was one redeeming thing... but still. C'mon, Crown & Goose... C'mon. How can I have a completely 180 degree experience at a place that prepares food as fine as your whiskey and coffee brined pork chop? I'm torn on if I want to go back now... these two separate and extremely unequal experiences kind of fuse together to make your restaurant mediocre in my mind. Meh.

I do hope that if I return, I can find another menu item that is as good as the pork chops, but I'm not sure if that'll happen at this point. Anyhow, thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Daniel