Returning with Denny's free Grand Slam breakfast

Food fans, it's once again time for me to offer my apologies for leaving you dining alone for an extended time. I last served you a new post 66 days ago, leaving you to face a devilish stretch of winter with no intellectual nourishment. I am sorry.

I could offer you a large menu of excuses: Winter blahs, a job hunt siphoning my time or just general holiday business. But excuses are like The Who singing at halftime of the Superbowl -- no one wants to hear them, and they get old rapidly.

While you are, no doubt, a polite reading public willing to grant me some weeks for R&R, you needed some food critique to guide you through the long holiday months. At very least you deserved a repost of last year's Super Bowl special and the Bacon Explosion before this year's big game. And I'm sure everyone could have stood to reread my pontifications on ham while planning this year's Christmas dinner.

I promise to make it up to you. Today I'll start with a review of Denny's free Grand Slam breakfast. After you've had time to digest that we'll move on to a review of Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets. And I'm in the process of preparing the annual Spork Awards for 2009 -- better late than never, I always say. The way back into your hearts is through your stomachs, and I'm ready to start making up.

Denny's Free Grand Slam

I wasn't alone in following up on Sunday's Super Bowl ads and ordering my free breakfast at Denny's. The restaurant Tuesday was full of folks ordering the free Grand Slam breakfasts, which consist of two eggs, two sausage links, two bacon strips and two flapjacks.

Seeing identical breakfast foods on every table in the restaurant was downright creepy, similar to seeing 40 men in matching suits walking toward you. It makes you think you're headed for the funny farm.

If it was the funny farm, it wasn't the freshest farm. My sausage links and eggs had an extra-processed quality to them that screamed "impending heart attack." That's not a bad thing from a taste standpoint, but I was worried I was dumping enough extra preservatives into my digestive tract to keep my stomach around for the benefit of future generations.

The same can be said for the bacon, but I refuse to criticize bacon for having preservatives. It is, after all, bacon. What I will criticize my bacon for is its limpness. Surely Denny's could have crisped it up a bit.

By contrast my pancakes were beyond reproach, packing a good balance of fluffiness and butteriness. My only complaint is that I was given a dinky container of syrup. A few ounces was not enough to cover the broad stretch of flapjack on my plate.

I must pick one final nit. My food was served merely warm. On a related note, my service was fairly slow. It's a small complaint considering the restaurant was busy and giving me free food, but worth noting nonetheless.

So it's time to rank the free breakfast. The price was right. The food was decent. Sounds like five sporks to me.

The rating would, of course, be a little different if I had to pay for the meal. I'll try to do that at some point for the sake of future generations.