Club Diner

Front door of Club Diner

Post ballroom practice munchies call for wholesome food less than five minutes away. In the only state you can do this in, Chi and I typed "diner" into the GPS and sure enough there were seven diners within a three mile range. We picked the closest one, Club Diner, located on the Black Horse Pike in Bellmawr, NJ. We were coming down West Browning Avenue, about to make a left onto Route168, and we asked at the same time, "where is this place?" We were answered quickly when, around the corner of an art store, Club Diner's red, glowing, neon lights suddenly appeared.

Chicken Escarole Soup

Before the meal we were handed a giant basket of bread that appeared to have sourdough and a sourdough-pumpernickel swirl bread. I loved the sourdough-pumpernickel myself and Club Diner does a very nice job of combining the two bold flavors. And surprise, surprise! home made, super dense, sweet banana bread was hiding at the bottom of the basket, delicious.  Also, as an appetizer I ordered the chicken escarole soup. This salty and savory soup was a great way to start the meal. It had nice big chicken meatballs full of flavor and texture as well as diced pieces of white meat.

Wanting to try something new, I originally thought I would order a roast beef sandwich to see how it compared to the roast beef deli meet sold at Wegmans, but then I saw ravioli and meatballs and my stomach ended up deciding for me. Evidently I didn't know that cheese ravioli and meatballs is weird, but everyone (my girlfriend and parents) informed me that it's strange (I mean come on, Chef Boyardee has meet ravioli with meatballs in a can, but Boyardee isn't an expert on Italian cuisine, so that's that). Regardless of how different this plate selection was (by the way, you have an option between meatballs and Italian sausage. I think I made the right choice) it had some high points even though the plating was strange. 

Ravioli and Meatballs

You know how sometimes a dish can get boring as you keep eating it because it's a lot of the same thing? Well, the Ricotta cheese filling was very creamy and even nearing the end of the plate the dish never became repetitive. The pasta sauce was unique. I can't quite place my finger on whether it's homemade or just altered sauce from a can, but it had a nice sweetness and thick, not chunky, consistency. The meatballs were sadly the low point of the meal (maybe I'll do Italian sausage if I ever try it again). My best guess is that it was an all beef meatball (onions and other spices in the blend) that was moist like a meatball should be, but it was soft and mushy and had a downright strange texture to it (they should set their beef grinder to the same setting as their chicken grinder).

Blueberry Pie with Whipped Cream

Dessert came with the meal (awesome) and after our waitress (who was wonderful) listed off all the different pies they had, I decided on blueberry almost immediately. She asked if I wanted whipped cream on mine. I said yes. The pie wasn't exactly what I expected. The crust had a similar taste to a palmier and it was thin, soft, and almost had a slight chewiness. At first it was off putting but I grew to like it as I kept eating. The blueberry filling was kind of crazy. The whole reason I ordered blueberry pie was because I wanted some tartness to go along with the sweetness. This thing was all sweet, like blue sugar. I understand how people could really love this pie, but if you have a fruit that can have different flavor levels, then the pie should reflect that.

Outside

Inside

If there are different types of diners I think it would be reasonable to say that at least aesthetically, there are two kinds: the dreary, bordering on dirty diner, and the (kind of) trashy, flashy kind of diner. I think Club Diner wants to be the second kind (see pictures) with its red neon cutting through the black of the night and its digital jumbo-tron flashing advertisements and specials.


Given this, I was amused by the simplicity of the inside and the simplicity of the man sitting next to us who was talking about “a machine that puts bubbles into drinks”. Well sir, do you mean…a soda machine?

As I eavesdropped, I surveyed the menu that I thought to be rather dinner-heavy, including a whole page full of $9.99 specials. I settled on the fried flounder after much hesitation about having fish again at a diner so soon after the Silver Coin debacle. But I decided to take a chance, especially since the Club Diner’s $9.99 special comes with:

1 entrée

1 soup du jour or 1 salad

2 vegetable sides (they also had rice pilaf as an option)

1 dessert (they have a bakery on site)

I was charmed by this deal, especially since it cost me $11.00 earlier in the day for a grilled cheese sandwich and some chips in Philadelphia. I opted for the salad (because the veggie soup option was split pea) and soon enough presented to me was The Wettest Salad Ever. It was not soggy at all, nor were the greens especially juicy. It was physically wet. It’s like they washed the iceberg and cherry tomatoes proceed to throw it on my plate without so much as waiting for it to drip excess water away or heaven-forbid put it through a colander or salad spinner.  I was literary eating water, and not in the way that lettuce is water anyways. However, having been the one to find the hidden pieces of banana bread in our (extensive) bread basket (with whipped butter) I was quickly appeased.

Broccoli and Potatoes

Fried Flounder

My fish was surprisingly well-thought out. It was fried, but not so much that it lost the fish’s natural tenderness. The filet was a good size and the fish itself was fresh tasting and flaky. My sides of baked potato and broccoli were almost on par with the fish. My baked potato would have delicious if there was some fluffing of the actual starch to make it easier to eat, particularly since it came out sans toppings and still in its foil casing. My broccoli was the biggest disappointment of the night, as it came out in HUGE stalks and was chewy. But I should point that this probably stemmed from the fact that broccoli is the veggie I eat the most and the fact that my dinner knife was incredibly dull and could barely saw through it.

I chose pumpkin pie as my desert since I make it point to go out of my way to eat pumpkin in the fall. I am OBSESSED with pumpkin spiced lattes and pumpkin muffins, by the way. The waitress had said it was her favorite, and I can see why. The pie was sweet, but still flavorful with notes of different spices. The actual filling was not too dense or goopy as pumpkin pie can start to separate after a while. With the whipped cream on top it was the perfect not-too-unhealthy finish. Overall it was a good meal at a very good $9.99.

Pumpkin Pie with Chris in the Background