Carol's Corner Cafe — Restaurant in Washington

Talk about an American Cultural Epicenter! Smack in the middle of a barren food wasteland (with the exception of the great tamale place across the street) yet accessible from almost everywhere we pass Carol's Corner on the way to almost everything. Their paring lot is huge, yet when I pull in, the place is obviously packed! I park way in the back thinking there's no way the owners of all these cars can fit fit into this one place. But when I get to the main entrance, it's like the Tardis, much bigger inside than outside. The place is jumping, yet I am seated and served promptly and with friendly efficiency.

The menu is huge and the choices are America on steroids! After a brief scan I settled on the Chicken Fried Steak with a cup of soup, a choice that exemplifies the delicious bad choices of my life.

So, let us talk about that cup of Beef and Barley soup... Just thinking about it, tears of joy and longing well up in my eyes like a morning mist rising out of the lowlands. Seriously, it was perfect. Next time, I get a bowl of that and call it a day.

When the Chicken Fried Steak arrives I am intimidated. It's bigger than my head. A veritable mountain of country Gravy hiding mashed potatoes and a plank of crusted meat like layers of the earth's core. OK... I'm going to say that the Chicken Fried Steak itself was nothing to write home about. Mostly tasting of salt, but the Country Gravy itself made up for it and I loved the mashed potatoes.

I hit that plate like a marathon runner hitting the road with determination, patience, and fortitude. When I arrived at the empty plate I felt like doing a victory crawl around the restaurant. They should give out awards. When I looked up from my Herculean task, the place was as empty of customers as a sea coast town after a tsunami warning... Just the wreckage of the lunch hour and the poor overworked staff wandering around trying to clean up. I asked the waiter if it was something I said, or if I smelled bad, but no, it was just the time of day. When I went outside, the parking lot looked like a ghost town in the Mojave desert.

All in all, it was a great lunch. Come hungry, the servings are epic. Surrender yourself to the down home American experience. It would be nice if they seasoned their chicken fried steak a little more creatively, but the gravy and the soup and taters made up for it. Next time, I go for the BLT with soup and I expect it will rank in the top five in the county.

This is the American Diner standard. Good solid food with skilled hard working staff and a feeling of welcome and abundance. I mean, I love the ethnic cuisines. I really do. I live for exotic and interesting. I crave spice and mystery, but coming home to the good old fashioned diner of my youth is like taking a pilgrimage into the...

If you're HUNGRY, then this is the place to eat breakfast. I ordered a HALF omelet this morning, and what I got was an absolutely ABSURD amount of food piled onto one plate. Considering what they charge per portion, I'm not sure how this place actually makes any money. I also can't remember the last time I walked out of the place without a to-go box in my hands because I was simply incapable of finishing the food that they put in front of me, and I can eat like a starving Rottweiler. Eating here is actually kind of exhausting because of how much food they put on the plate. To be honest, there are only two improvements that I can think of that they might want to work on.

1. They don't exactly have the best coffee I've ever tasted, and the cup I had today tasted like it had been brewed in a tank that either hadn't been cleaned out in a long, long time, or someone had allowed it to boil dry/scorch without being cleaned out before the next batch was brewed. I don't think I've ever had coffee that actually GAVE me a headache before.
2. They need to talk to the cook about taking a moment to drain the grease out of the omelet ingredients that come off the grill BEFORE putting those ingredients into the omelet. The contents of my omelet were delicious, but they were also just SWIMMING in grill grease, which made the whole thing kind of a mess and took a fair amount of the appeal and deliciousness away from the omelet, which is a cryin' shame, because whoever it is that's making the omelets absolutely has the magic touch for cooking the most beautifully delicate eggs I've ever seen. They're just PERFECT. But... Man... You've gotta DRAIN some of the grease off of the omelet ingredients! Too greasy is just... Gross. Otherwise, an awesome place to get breakfast, especially if you're HUNGRY. If you walk away hungry, then you did...

Carol's knows all the secrets to running a great home-cookin' diner: simplicity, ENORMOUS portions of unpretentious food at reasonable prices, and a staff whose genuine personalities are not smothered and plasticized by some sterile corporate culture's awful ideas about professionalism.

No, it isn't a terribly fancy place; the building, furnishings, and decor do have a certain well-worn charm, though. . . and you'll feel entirely at home there in your work clothes or your laundry day outfit. It's just a comfortable place run by easygoing folks serving massive helpings of delicious comfort food.

Legend says that an entire Sudanese village once survived a harsh winter on a single Carol's omelette; they contain SIX eggs each, unless you ask for the three-egg version favored by the less ambitious among us.

They don't have their from-scratch corned beef hash every day, because they make it like your great-grandma did: once a week, for practical reasons. It's outstanding. Corned beef hash is the signature dish by which I tend to judge any diner-like breakfastish place, and the hash at Carol's is top-notch terrific, both served hot, and eaten as leftovers (and There Will Be Leftovers; this is Carol's Corner). On days when the from-scratch hash isn't available -- or if you're just some kind of raving lunatic who doesn't want it made from scratch -- they'll serve you the canned version if you insist.

5/5 stars for value, good solid home cooking, and sheer...