Dinner at The Plaza

This evening after watching a movie with a friend (Fracture, in which Anthony Hopkins pockets a quick paycheck by dusting off his cheerfully cold, homicidal sociopath persona from the Lecter trilogy et al.), I was looking for a quick bite to eat on the way home, and so I happened into the Plaza Diner.

I have passed this place a number of times over the past several days, and from my casual observation it appears that they typically have more of a crowd than other diners of the same type in the area, and so I had made a mental note to give it a try. Tonight seemed like a good night, and after perusing the specials and getting a recommendation from the waiter I changed plans and decided on the roast chicken weekend special. Choice of soup or salad came with the special, and I also got to choose a type of potato and vegetable from reasonable extensive list (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash, zucchini and maybe a couple of others).

I opted for the Manhattan clam chowder to start. To me clam chowder has always meant the cream-based variety, but since I am now living in Manhattan it occurs to me that I might as well get with the chowder program and try the red stuff. The version here at Plaza reminded me more of vegetable soup, with a fairly meager sprinkling of clams, but given my expectations were not high I found it satisfactory.

When the waiter brought out my entree, I was quite surprised by the size of the portions -- definitely equivalent to what I think of as the epitome of oversized portions on the west coast, Claim Jumper.

I was pretty hungry by this point, though, so I worked my way through pretty much the whole thing. Definitely blue-plate fare, but not only was it significantly cheaper than Claim Jumper ($12.95 for the special), but tasted better as well. The chicken was actually roasted quite well, and the accompanying broccoli and potato were not the limp gray and mealy fare one might expect. All said, it was a satisfying meal, and isn't that the point of a diner?