TGI Friday’s® – attached to the side of Eastland Mall, as they have been for a decade now, with all their crazy Star-Wars-masks-on-surfboards décor, their jittery red-and-white-striped tablecloths, and their mismatched low-hanging lights – TGI Friday’s® over at the mall is making really awesome food!
They’re not making shabby drinks, either. Since it’s almost summer cocktail season (ozone alert, anyone?), I sampled a Friday’s® fruity June Bug. Banana-flavored liqueur with Malibu rum, banana and pineapple juices. Over ice, perfectly blended. Garnished with a pineapple slice as big as your iPhone. You’ll need one sooner than you realize! A simple summery concoction, not too sweet, fresh and effective … why, I didn’t even know how good the June Bug made me feel until I discovered I was casually chatting up strangers at the next table! We hadn’t even gotten appetizers yet!
And …Oh. My. The appetizers. Now, I submit, nothing bad can possibly come from any Jack Daniel’s®-sauce saturated foodstuffs! And the Jack Daniel’s® Sampler appetizer platter at TGI Fridays only supported this experiential theory with irrefutable yummy. Uniting a saucy slab of baby back ribs with salty Cajun-spiced shrimp and nearly caramelized Sesame Jack® Chicken Strips, the Jack Daniel’s® Sampler has superb light, thin crusts of spiced batter (no dense, greasy Midwest breading here) and unanticipated flavors combined in creative ways. It was clear at the Sampler that this chain, for one, is no culinary wallflower!
Did I even mention the Crispy Green Bean Fries? A heaping mess of fried green beans with Cucumber-Wasabi Ranch dip? Wasabi warmth cooled by the cucumber’s clarity, and each green bean a delicate salty, crispy wonder. I write haiku to its goodness. I crave, I crave.
And that, as they say, was only the beginning!
The Husband and I were welcomed one fine evening by longtime Friday’s® manager Jim Rudko and ably and efficiently attended by Mitch, a server with the local Friday’s® team for four years, both of whom took obvious pride and interest in the food they serve. Seated near one of the large windows that face Green River Road, we enjoyed premium mall parking lot people watching – a notable perk of the location!
Like the mall itself, TGI Friday’s® attracts people of all kinds: We shared the dining space with a number of young couples, families with children, serious shoppers in for refueling, and two tables clearly discussing serious business over serious cocktails. You might not feel that efforts toward “universal appeal” could translate into “something for everyone,” but I assure you, TGI Friday’s® gives it an admirable go.
Turns out, the Friday’s® menu is a living document, as it were, with new items and entrées added regularly. And despite assumptions about a chain’s modus operandi, Friday’s® uses more fresh than frozen ingredients and requires its chefs to engage in real preparation and, you know, actual cooking. This not-insignificant detail was obvious, and we were impressed.
I mean, just try not to be impressed by a Black Angus strip-style sirloin bathed in maison butter, served with a skewer of jumbo, butterflied shrimp, each one dissolving in deliciousness on the tongue. This was the 10 oz. Sirloin & Grilled Shrimp Scampi entrée, and it was my favorite of the spread. The maison butter adds a subtle richness to an already flavorful sirloin, and this was certainly not the garlic-laden slop I’ve resigned myself to when I see the word ‘scampi.’ Instead, a generous taste of lime smartens up the charbroiled shrimp, along with a subtle hint of red pepper, making this a scampi I will happily return to request.
We also tried the Cajun Shrimp & Chicken Pasta, which Server Mitch admitted he’d lived off of for a few years early in his employment at Friday’s®. TGI Friday’s® own description of this dish belies its appeal:
“… creamy, Alfredo sauce bathes al dente fettuccine pasta ribbons. All topped off with juicy chicken and shrimp–sautéed with red bell peppers in our special Cajun butter–finished with Parmesan shavings.”
Sure, that sounds… okay. Well, let me tell you, the combination of such simple ingredients is more than okay. The Husband had only praise to sing, with his mouth full, about the pasta itself and the holy trinity of Cajun sauce in which it, indeed, bathes. For me, it’s a tad heavy for warm-weather dining, but don’t let that discourage you! Enjoy!
Our next two entrées, sadly, brought us nearer to franchise reality.
The Sizzling Parmesan-Crusted Chicken is a recent addition to the Friday’s® menu, and its appeal lies entirely in the sassy, tangy slathering of lemony Caesar dressing beneath the chipper crusted topping. So sassy it made me say, “Oh, my!” However, the chicken itself seemed spring-formed, nearly rubbery. So I picked off the parmesan crust and ate it with the very fresh Roma-tomato, basil and garlic marinara and angel-hair pasta side.
The Sizzling Chicken & Shrimp struck both The Husband and I as too much: garlicky chicken and shrimp in a pool of melted American and Mexican cheeses, peppers and bruschetta marinara, with mashed potatoes. The mouth said “Uh….what?” and I had no explanation for these many things plated up together so. It’s standard nationless chain cuisine, no doubt appealing to many by committing to none. It’s not bad, but Friday’s® has much better to offer elsewhere on its menu.
Now, if you’re curious what else this establishment might offer you aside from, well, yummy food – let me be perhaps the first to share that every Thursday at Friday’s® (got all that?) is Industry Night, with drink specials on domestic and imported beers, well drinks, and margaritas. DJ Raj comes out at 7pm, and as midnight approaches, Thrilla the Gorilla (primate suit + a really good sport on the waitstaff) is unleashed on the crowd. Bring your dollar bills, folks, because Thrilla may perform for tips!
Then, at midnight, our Friday’s® offers a champagne toast to the arrival of its namesake weekday (an old company-wide tradition resurrected). Both Rudko and Mitch attest Industry Night has become a raucous celebration in the short time they’ve been hosting.
I asked Rudko – who himself has been with the company for a decade – why he thought Evansville’s TGI Friday’s® endures in both popularity and patronage after 10 years, despite Evansville diners’ relentless push eastward to Burkhardt. “It’s the people,” he said. “We’ve got people here who believe in the place, the food, the team. Without them, we’d be just another chain restaurant.” And that, comrades, this TGI Friday's® is not.
