Superior was a casualty of us not taking a local's advice of where to eat.
Joe's Italian up the street they said, "Italian" whaaaa? we wanted diner food for brunch, not Italian.
Superior looked like an awesome classic Ontario diner, and if I was making excuses for it, I would guess that they haven't recovered from a deep covid slumber or maybe got long-covid and in a stunned state to this day.
The first bad sign was customers trying to check out seemingly stuck at the til when we came in, even though the place was almost empty with one poor server harried and harassed-looking although pleasant when pushed.
The decor was classic diner alright, with the solid, bolted to the floor, metal stools lined up along the counter where you would typically enjoy a milkshake back in the day.
But something wasn't right. Either the interior hadn't been steam cleaned in decades or Satan was lurking in the shadows oozing that fog of evil. There seemed to be a kind of haze that made everything look dank and depressing.
We settled in a booth, luckily, which was tight and encouraged you to sit sideways with feet stuck out into the aisle, just weird, but comfy once settled in.
Then the menu. It was the typical old-school diner food with absolutely no updating since forever. I recognized this type of menu from when I grew up out in western Canada. Basically meat and potatoes with absolutely no seasoning whatsoever. The idea is that if you add gravy to something, you're done with adding any kind of flavour, other than maybe something that the boiled water was used for previously. Bland on Bland. White on Rice.
Our order was fried chicken with roll and mashed potatoes, plus an open face turkey sandwich. The roll was bite sized, but ok. The chicken wasn't bad, and probably had enough salt and tasty enough. The open faced sandwich is basically a piece of Wonderbread with turkey on top and then smothered with gravy. The kind of meal you have before getting into your Kenworth truck.
The only sparkle from what I remember these places having was from dessert. Usually pie, or ice cream or maybe both. We got excited to see both milkshakes and a banana split on the menu! Nope, only ice cream was available, no pie or anything. The more questions, the more disappointments, reminiscent of the cheese shop scene. I could hear another table far away comment excitedly when I asked about the desserts, only to hear some moaning after that. They had the rice pudding? ok fine. See the pic of that mess, what a poor-looking excuse for a dessert. Good gawd. read more