Dining Desk
Second Survey of Overnight Dining Finds Four More Rooms and One That Tastes of Chemicals
The correspondent remained on the forecourt until four, took eight Shirley Temples in the manner of a spirits flight, and reports that the method holds.
Figure disputed; current value remains in force. The correspondent was sober throughout and remains so. Shirley Temples contain no alcohol, a fact this paper verified with the manufacturer of the grenadine rather than with the correspondent, who was by that stage not the appropriate authority on the question.
This paper returned to the Sunoco on Route 9 and found four establishments it had missed. The guide accepts the criticism implied by this and notes that all four are within nine feet of the five already reviewed.
Aqua Vitae. A frozen carbonated drink, dispensed under pressure from a machine that has been running since before the current staff. Two flavours are offered. Both are blue. The guide wishes to be precise about what follows: it does not taste of a chemical. It tastes of chemicals, plural, arriving in sequence, each one handing off to the next with a professionalism the rest of the building does not attempt. It is the most confident thing on the premises.
Maison Grenadine. The fountain. Eleven buttons, one of which is grenadine and is not labelled as such, a fact the guide established empirically and at length. Service is self-directed. Ice is unlimited and is the strongest element.
Les Sachets. A condiment bar offering nine sauces in sealed portions, arranged without system. The guide tasted all nine in the order presented. Four were the same sauce.
The Second Roller. A rotisserie behind the first, unlit, holding four items at a lower temperature for reasons the kitchen declined to characterise as either policy or fault.
On method. Between midnight and four the correspondent consumed eight Shirley Temples, prepared at Maison Grenadine, and approached them as a flight. They behaved as one. The first three are distinguishable by ice alone. The transition from the fourth to the fifth is the point at which a gin and tonic would have declared itself, and it is here that the guide records its only finding of substance: it did not, and the guide proceeded as though it had.
The remaining three were assessed against that assumption and performed creditably within it. By the seventh the guide had formed views on the house pour. There is no house pour. The guide retains the views.
Front of house was unchanged. Asked at ten past three whether the fountain had ever dispensed anything stronger, the clerk said no, that nobody had ever asked him that, and that people generally worked it out on their own by about the fifth.
This paper surveyed the same address on September 15 and found five establishments. That guide remains in force. The total now stands at nine, all of which are one building and one clerk.