Me: “I dunno if I’m actually gonna want to blog this time around. I just want to relax.“

Also me: “I MUST WRITE A SCATHING REVIEW OF THE MIMI’S CAFE IN ALBUQUERQUE."

So here we go…

I grew up with a Mimi’s Cafe in my town. It was good! I remember liking it as a kid! Anyway, Mimi’s sucks now. I ate in in Albuquerque. This is my story.

I checked in to my hotel in Albuquerque and after 12 hours of driving, I was too exhausted to drive anywhere else for dinner. There were a few chain restaurants in the same shopping center as the hotel, so I could walk on over to any one of those. My choices were P.F. Chang’s, Dickie’s BBQ, Panera Bread… and Mimi’s Cafe.

I hadn’t been to Mimi’s in years and I am a damn sucker for the whimsical faux-French facade on the outside of Mimi’s Cafe restaurants.





I decided to stop in for a nostalgic throwback meal.

I was in a nostalgic mood, so I ordered some comfort food — the French pot roast. The menu described the dish as ”Slowly braised beef simmered with carrots, mushrooms, and pearl onions.”

What was presented to me was essentially a heaping portion of a Lean Cuisine™ frozen pot roast TV dinner.









First and foremost, Mimi’s Cafe has some DAMN NERVE calling this “slowly braised beef.” Let’s do an experiment. Close your eyes. Think of some noteworthy pot roasts you’ve eaten in your life that contained slowly braised beef. I bet you’re picturing something like this, right?









^ Now THAT is slowly braised beef. It’s practically falling apart from hours of soaking in flavorful gravy and herbs. When it reaches your mouth, the beef simply melts and you smile and think of family holidays from your childhood.

Mimi’s Cafe served up what should only legally be described as beef wads. Each was a miserable bite-sized gray mass of what may have once been red meat. The wads were scattered around the vegetables and sat atop a bed of bleak, soulless mashed potatoes. It was a massacre. The meat tasted like what I imagine the steak chunks they put into wet dog food taste like.









I ate about 3 or 4 meat clumps before I decided that I couldn’t do this. If I was to consume this meal, it wasn’t going to be this way.



At that point, I went into survival mode. What is the most efficient way for me to get the calories I need WITHOUT having to put anymore gray meat into my mouth? I decided to just push the beef wads aside and focus exclusively on the accoutrement around the meat – the carrots, the mushrooms, the onions, and the mashed potatoes.

Eating the vegetables and potatoes was joyless of course, but at least they weren’t actively causing me harm. That said, they were not without their issues.

First, there were the mashed potatoes. What can be said about these mashed potatoes that hasn’t already been said about the gruel served at the orphanage in Oliver Twist? I suspect nothing.

The carrots were a paradox. You would never say they were undercooked, but you would never say they were overcooked, but you would ALSO never say they were cooked properly either. It was like a bizarre Goldilocks and the Three Bears scenario, but only if there existed no porridge that was “just right.” And yet these carrots were somehow all possibilities at the same time. It’s Schrödinger’s carrot.

The mushrooms, I’m sure, at one point showed promise. When they emerged from the earth, they were spry little fungi that could have been in any dish – beef stroganoff, chicken marsala. Mushrooms have the power to steal the show in a meal. They are quiet underdogs. But not these mushrooms. These mushrooms didn’t get to grow up and be sautéed in a rich sauce that showcases the strength of their flavor. No. These mushrooms grew up to be the culinary equivalent of a sad trombone sound. They disappeared into the gravy like ghosts. Also, they kind of looked like ghosts.

Every now and then, a small pearl onion would find its way into my mouth, squeaking out the one tiny glimpse of flavor in the entire meal – a fleeting taste of sweetness that was a welcome respite in the midst of the carnage. I could practically hear their anguished cries as I savored them, screaming out, “We’re sorry! We’re doing the best we can to save this dish!” I appreciated them.

The gravy was a hate crime.

After all was said and done, I paid $18 for this meal.











