Metro Diner – What have you done?
Friday, 2/28/2020:
Hubby loves fish and several local restaurants have been advertising Friday Fish Fry deals, so he gave me the choice of MCL Cafeteria or Metro Diner for dinner tonight. I chose Metro over MCL because I know they have the best chicken pot pie around and that sounded great to me. I knew what I wanted so, to be fair, I didn’t actually read the menu other than to make sure they still offered chicken pot pie and there was only the one size. When I ordered it, the waitress told me it had been improved by replacing the old crust with puff pastry and that the sauce was much creamier and better tasting than it used to be. I told her I would try it and hoped that they hadn’t messed it up too badly, because it was awesome the way it always had been.
Metro Diner New Menus This is the new menu, in case you are interested. Not to be confused with the Old Menu from December 29, 2019 via The Internet Archive Way Back Machine (I just love that they archive the internet!).
So the new version is shown nice and big below. The puff pastry was alright, but not nearly as good as the crust they used to have.
Chicken Pot Pie
Now here is the old version from the archived menu:
Chicken Pot Pie
I am not a huge fan of lima beans but know they come in mixed vegetables and eat them anyway. But the real deal breaker for the new version which would have been a deal breaker and kept me from ordering if I had bothered to read the menu, were the MUSHROOMS! They kept the carrots but took away their bright cheerful color by roasting them to a sickly brown. There were very few peas in the new version and to make it all fancy, they took out all traces of the corn, green bean and lima beans in favor of MUSHROOMS! Yuk! I wasn’t a fan of the new sauce either. It seemed stripped of all chicken flavor, in my opinion. I will NOT be ordering the chicken pot pie again, that is for sure. I can get tastier versions from the grocer’s frozen food section and likely feed a whole crowd for the $11.99 cost of the new fancy chicken pot pie at Metro Diner. What were they thinking? The waitress said about 50% of customers love the new version but the other 50%, like me, do not care for it.
So, hubby got his Friday fish and chips and it looked like the photo below.
Fish & Chips
Now here is the old version from the archived menu:
I may go back to Metro Diner and give them another chance, and if I do, I will try another favorite, the chicken salad sandwich.
Chicken Salad Croissant
Now here is the old version from the archived menu:
This is the location we went to, in case anyone was wondering:
Clearwater Crossing
3954 E. 82nd Street Indianapolis, IN 46240
Hours
Mon – Thu: 7:00am – 3:00pm
Fri & Sat: 7:00am – 10:00pm
Sun: 7:00am – 9:00pm
Have you ever had a favorite dining place change their menu enough to turn you away from going there? When I talked to the manager, and suggested they serve both varieties of chicken pot pie, maybe on different nights or something, he said it was a corporate decision and they had to serve the new version from now on. What a shame. The prices went up. It cost over $30 (with the tip) for hubby and I to get the two meals pictured and then Hubby had a cup of chili as well, but we both drank water which was, of course, free of charge. I just was not impressed. We have been going to Metro for years and really liked it, but I can’t say I am excited about the prospect of going back any time soon.