Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: DAY 7 Virgil’s Continued

A little while after the biscuits were handled our meals came out.  The only critique of the biscuits we had was that they weren’t hot.  Other than that we loved em! Especially with the maple butter.  After thinking for several minutes I decided to try the Chicken Fried Steak, with Country Gravy, Potato Salad, Cheese Grits, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, a piece of corn bread, and one Rib from my friend’s plate.  Sounds like a lot but portion size wise trust me it wasn’t.

The biggest complaint I have with today’s meal was the same for my friend who joined me.  The food simply arrived at our table and was not hot.  It appeared as though it sat for a while before being brought to us and by that time the food had begun to go cold.  It did look good though.  Corn bread had real pieces of corn in it but I’ve tasted better cornbread.

That mash sure could use some gravy.  Speaking of which…

The Cheese Grits were OK nothing that knocked my socks off.  I even added a shake of salt n pepper to them after my first tasting of it.

Ah, now for the Potato Salad.  In my opinion this redskin potato mustard potato salad would have been awesome if they used a little less mayonnaise.  Otherwise I really liked it.  It was the only thing outside of the beets and beer that should have been cold.

I sampled a rib and some beets after the first fork fulls of my Chicken Fried Steak.

This was my friend’s plate.  Memphis Style Ribs, Cornbread, Collard Greens w/Bacon, and Beets.  You can clearly see the ribs are done well with a pink smoke ring.  However, they didn’t make it to the table with a temp above  (and I’m being generous here) Luke warm.

Even at the conclusion of the meal when we were given what were supposed to be hot wet hand towels to clean our hands.  The hand towels came bordering on cool.  This prompted my friend to say somebody must have been burned here or something for everything to come out cold.  I thought to myself either that or someone didn’t pay the heating bill.

The ribs were tender but as I said Luke warm which drops the score on a scale of 1 to 10 to a 6.  The same for my Chicken Fried Steak which probably would have gotten an 8 from me if it had come hot.  While the combo crusting of the steak consisted of potato chips and cornmeal the chips added a bit too much salt to the crust for me.  The steak was tender and melted easily when I chewed it though.

For me, the biscuits and the Potato Salad along with the Mashed Potatoes and Gravy saved my meal from being a total disappointment all the way round.  As I said temperature played the biggest role in the lower scores.  The experience this time around suffered and underwhelmed us.  We didn’t want to even bother our sever to ask if they could heat our plates up we just ate and noted our opinions for later.

Our server was nice but appeared a bit over being there by the time we had been served our food.  Understandable if it was the end of the shift but still not what I would think the owner would like his customers to notice from the staff regardless of the time of the day.

When I take into account that the bill for the 2 of us came to $11 more than what it cost to feed 6 of my family members (myself included) at Freda’s, Virgil’s gets an overall review score of a 6.5 out of 10.

My friend’s take on Virgil’s: Normally, Virgil’s is pretty good.  Today for some reason the food just wasn’t hot.  The Collard Greens were good with the Bacon in it.  The Beets and the Ribs were OK.  I give Virgil’s a 6 I think that’s fair.

So there you have it.   My review score a 6.5 and my friend’s a 6.  So Virgil gets an average score of a 6.25 out of 10.  I’m not saying I won’t be back because I’m sure I will it at some point.  It just won’t be any time soon.

If you’ve ever been to or eaten at Virgil’s we’d like to hear your comments on the service and food experienced.

Till next Food Adventure this has been Virgil’s Food Review 2013 by THEJNSREPORT.