Hi Lo ... Quite sure that's "Hi expectations, Lo satisfaction"

Hi Lo Diner

Does it stand for 'Hi expectations, Lo satisfaction' or 'Hi prices, Lo value?'

We're not sure.   Our goal is always to illuminate...too many 'reviews' fail to describe why something is a 5 star or a 1 star or 'average'.

So, we're going to use our visit to Hi Lo Diner on Lake Street to show the factors we used in evaluating a food venue.  

The Venue: We love the concept of the Hi Lo Diner.  They moved a 60 year old dining car here from the Pennsylvania Turnpike and refurbed it into an inviting place.   Kudos for the effort. 
   
HiLo's turquoise seating with red highlights on the chairs, the great green and blue lighting in the coves, booths and bar stools---all create a throwback ambiance in a well-built, quiet dining setting.  It's a great backdrop for a meal.  Unlike the diners of our childhoods, they also offer a drink and beer menu, so you can have your Sunday 'bloody' with your breakfast.

We wish we could say glowing things about the experience after we stepped inside, but unfortunately we can't.   Let's go through it step by step.

The Service: First, the host/ess.   We have noticed that young people have spent way too much time on their electronic devices.   Verbal skills...does anyone remember them?   Our suggestion would be that the person greeting your most important visitors--the customers--should have the ability to:  greet people, form a sentence, and generally interact positively with the folks who will be paying the bills for your restaurant.  Our host/ess spoke barely audibly in partial sentences while looking at the floor.   Here, some training would be worth the relatively inexpensive investment in employee customer service skills.

The menu:  The 'signature' items on the HiLo menu are high tops---an assortment of 'fried dough' entrees.  I selected the Notorious P.I.G.--according to our server, an excellent choice.  Now, this 'genre' of items has been around for awhile---I recall my first 'donut burger' from a food truck way back in the day when I manned my booth at the SAV Farmers Market (in the olden days).   I recall that burger very well---it had a thick tasty burger on a wonderfully messy but perfectly fried glazed donut.   Rich burger, sweet soft pastry---a winning combo.

Fast forward to HiLo's version of the pulled pork on fried dough.   Night and day, day and night---a world apart from my donut burger.   Here, an oversized glazed dough ball sat in a pool of donut glaze, topped with a portion of the actual 'dish' ingredients equal to about a third of the volume of the dough ball.  This is where the 'lo value' proposition comes into play.   My immediate reaction was one of 'rip-off'---filling the plate with the giant ball of dough so that you only had to provide 1/2 cup of meat with a few shreds of other 'accompaniments' with a very badly fried egg on top.  

At this point, the meal could have gone two different ways.  It could have been a perfectly fried donut ball topped with sumptuous pork, with a  chipotle mayo that screamed layers of flavor, topped with a perfectly fried (or even poached) egg.   Unfortunately, none of that was the case.   It was, instead, a giant ball of underfried dough---this is your signature--don't screw it up; topped with a skimpy portion of average pulled pork in a chipotle mayo that was mayo with some ground chipotle in it.   And please, oh please--if you claim to be a diner, learn how to fry an egg.   The fact that I had difficulty cutting through the rock hard egg with a knife and fork indicates that the kitchen has gone way wrong in understanding 'diner' & 'egg'.

Why am I panning these folks?
First, remember that I worked every month with Jim Felger--a master baker with over 60 years of experience.  Let's just say the guy has fried a few hundred thousand donuts in his time.   A fried donut should have a nice browned exterior with an evenly cooked interior.   HiLo has gone wrong, I think, because they're serving a huge dough ball---very hard to get that thing cooked all the way through without overbrowning the edge.  Here, the far edges were browned, the flat edges were pale gold---too big a mass to pull off in an even way.  They would be better off frying it as a donut, with a hole in the center, so that they had a better chance of actually getting a fried dough. 

...and, if there had been a hole in my donut, there would have been room for the actual quantity of ingredients that would have made a balanced dish....not a dough ball topped with a garnish of pulled pork.

Let's talk chipotle mayo---the ubiquitous condiment of the current food world.   I described how we made chipotle mayo at Marianne's to a chef with more than 10 years of kitchen experience.   After I described just the making our of signature chipotle spice blend (made up of more than 10 ingredients), he stopped and said---you guys are a lot better than most kitchens---we just squirted some chipotle sauce into some mayo and called it chipotle mayo.   The problem at HiLo---it was mayo with some chipotle.  The mayo flavor was prominent, the rest was a smattering of ground chipotle.  Absolutely unremarkable.

Finally, the egg...if a diner can't fry an egg, you know they are way out of their element.

Let's go on to John's Tex-Mex burrito.  Oh boy.   Wrapping warm ingredients in a cold flour tortilla...means you're serving a cold doughy flour tortilla containing lukewarm ingredients.   A cold doughy flour tortilla is an immediate turn-off.  The tortilla was topped with a slighly spicy tomato sauce and a drizzle of the same mayo with chipotle.

So, the only way to approach it is to cut the ends off and look for warm food in the middle.   The warm food in the middle consisted of a lot of potatoes and corn chips, with a small portion of 'chorizo' and some scrambled egg.  At the end of the meal, the pile of limp tortilla filled the plate...so, once again, the portion of the Tex Mex ingredients did not add up to a reasonable quantity (it was skimpy).   A side of pico accompanied the burrito--it was flavorful enough--much better than the oversalted Chipotle version or extremely harsh Taste of Scandinavia version...but this was not enough to salvage the meal.

So, we're giving HiLo 4 stars for ambiance, 2 stars for service, 1 star for food and value.

In our 'reviews' we look for balance in what the establishment offers.  Balance of service and quality, balance of ingredients and flavors, balance of quality and price.   HiLo was way out of balance--high on price, high on expectations based on 'signature dishes' while low on delivering a flavorful, balanced product to the diner.  

A smaller donut with a larger, more balance proportion of the ingredients on top would be an improvement.   A chipotle mayo with chipotle as the forward ingredient would help.   Knowing how to fry an egg--elemental to a diner concept.   Balance in the ingredients in the burrito to the mass of the tortilla----warm the tortilla, serve the dish hot or at least warm, don't fill it with potatoes---a give-away that you're saving money on food costs.

HiLo could be great.  Our visit today was not.  We've tried to use this experience to show you how we approach a restaurant 'review'.   There are a lot of elements in the dining experience.   HiLo has it on ambiance...they just need to deliver the goods on their food options and their staff presentation.   These are some of the factors we utilize in evaluating our food experiences.