Dinner At The Diner

We found ourselves back at The Camellia Grill for the most unusual reason: it was Stop Number One on Tom’s Prom Night route. Long-time listeners and readers know the story of Tom’s May 13th life-changing event.

For most of the following 50 years, I shrugged off this replay of that night, but when he was no longer able to drive I offered to take him. Going to Camellia Grill was an interesting sidebar to this drive. I hadn't been in maybe twenty years, and only once before that.

We arrived this day at what seemed to be the perfect time, 4 pm. It was right before the crowds came in for the evening. I saw a sign walking in that said “The line starts here.” Glad we missed that.

I was delighted when I walked in the door. The Camellia Grill is not a mere shadow of its former self as so many institutions become. It is exactly as I remembered it, and exactly as I suspect it always has been. Green banquettes and green stools with metal accents are well-kept. I was intrigued by the tile at my feet.

We were warmly greeted by a nice young man, who, in the course of serving us, revealed that he had been there only a week. What he lacked in experience he made up for in friendliness and enthusiasm.

This is a diner, after all, and I expected diner food. It was much better. Part of the Prom Night “rerun” includes a redo of the meal Tom had that night: a hamburger, fries, a Coke, and a slice of apple pie a la mode. This night we got a hamburger and fries with cheese, a Coke, and pie for Tom.

I ordered a sort-of club sandwich. Technically it was a turkey club, but I was curious enough to order it anyway. Anything with club in it takes me back to my obsession with the sandwich.

While I was sitting there at the counter, I saw the grill, and on it was a pan overflowing with hashbrowns, the really great frozen shredded kind that are great when done properly. These looked terrific, even though they were clearly cold. I got them anyway as the side with my sandwich.

We asked about the pie and were told that they don’t have apple, but they do have pecan. And chocolate. And that they are baked in-house. People call The Food Show occasionally to ask where there are freshly baked pies. It’s hard to find that these days.  I got really excited imagining a chocolate cream pie circa 1960.

While my mind was on pies, my eyes were on that grill. It was almost a show watching them place patty after patty on the flat-top grill. They sizzled in a neat line. I watched as the cook assembled ordinary buns, crunchy fresh still-wet iceberg lettuce, pickles, and tomato with a hot off-the-grill patty melting a slice of American cheese.

This is a great old-fashioned classic American burger. I see why it is so popular. The fries with it were ordinary frozen French fries, right from the era when diners switched to frozen fries. Tom was very happy with his nostalgic mid-century meal, complete with a Coke in a plastic Coke glass.

My club sandwich arrived. It was stuffed inside white toast. Instead of quartered, these slices were halved. The bacon popping out on the sides was very good bacon, cooked stiff the way I like it. But what impressed me most about this sandwich was the turkey, which was a generous amount of house-roasted turkey breast, sliced and piled up in this sandwich. Fresh dressings made this a really great sandwich, even without cheese and ham. Next time I may ask to upgrade it into a real club, but I loved this one too.

The hashbrowns were excellent, even cold, They had been properly crisped on the flat top grill, with who knows what as the fat? I didn’t care because they were exactly what I have always loved about these thin frozen slivers of potato. 

After we both finished our sandwiches it was time for pie. When our waiter brought two slices of pecan pie, one with ice cream and one sans ice cream, I asked about the chocolate pie. He seemed mystified by the question. It was then that I learned that I had misunderstood that there was pecan pie and pecan pie with chocolate chips. I canceled the chocolate chip one and had a bite of Tom’s regular pie. He was thrilled with it. I liked the crust and everything else about it. It seemed a little salty though, which I thought was odd. The ice cream melted all over the pie, creating almost a sauce.

We loved this meal at Camellia Grill. I left wanting to return the following day for breakfast. We didn’t but we did make it a week later, this time before the breakfast rush. Our waiter this time seemed like a lifer, and we were seated in a spot to see a lot of things being done. Behind him was a large pile of fries which made me for a moment think they were fresh cut. The waiter practically laughed out loud at the absurdity, mentioning that this was graduation weekend at Tulane, and they were trying to get ahead of the rush.

This time we ordered breakfast. Tom got a waffle and I got the American breakfast with bacon and hashbrowns. I also got a side of grits. And I got some link pork sausage.

This was a classic diner breakfast, with a rim of grease around the edge of the eggs, which were cooked exactly as I asked. The bacon wasn’t as good as it was on the club sandwich, and the white toast was buttered with a spoon of something melted from a vat on the grill. 

From the vantage point, my seat afforded me, I saw that the bacon is deep-fried, and so was the sausage. I was surprised that the deep frying didn’t seem to affect the sausage. I was still surprised to see that they did it.

Tom’s waffle wasn’t any better than The Waffle House waffle. The grits I got were basic grits that I doctored with salt pepper and butter from a little packet.

All of this was better than I expected it to be, and I’m really glad we had to go to the Camellia Grill for the Prom Night rerun. I would never have gone back, and I definitely would have missed what makes this iconic institution still popular enough to have a sign advising customers to form a line. Finally, I get it.