Tio Wally Eats America: Ethel Reds Chophouse (Take 2)

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is in Lemoore, California.

Greetings from Lemoore, California
N 35° 18.0434’ W 119° 46.067’ Elev. 233 ft.

I had the good fortune to eat breakfast at Ethel Reds again. And it was nuts! Again.

I wrote about this too-good-to-be-true find recently. On that visit I noted that Ethel’s was a somewhat inexpensive place to have a great, huge breakfast. Indeed, it takes very little green to eat at Red’s. (Sorry.)

The first time I visited I wasn’t very hungry so I had the Ham Steak and Eggs. Three eggs, actually. And country potatoes with onion and bell pepper, and toast. And coffee. It was all very, very good. Total cost? $5.38.

I was disappointed after I left. I kept thinking, “I should’ve had the T-bone.” But I’m not really a steak guy. My life’s goal is to go on an all-pork diet. Nevertheless, I vowed to go in hungry and get the T-bone Steak breakfast the next time I was dispatched to Lemoore because someone somewhere needed 43,000 lbs of frozen cheese delivered to their door.

I got the T-bone breakfast. The steak covered two-thirds of the plate. They claim it’s an eight-ouncer. Although another of my life’s goals is guessing the weights of cuts of meat at county fairs and farmers markets across the length and breadth of the Americas, especially Brazil, I don’t know what it really weighed. I’m not a steak guy. It seemed enormous. More than eight ounces. I’ll tell ya this: the meat loomed large.

The T-bone, which blanketed all three eggs and most of the country potatoes, was incredible. I was expecting it to be tough, low-budget, like you’d get with a Sirloin Special at an interstate Denny’s, cooked by “the new guy.”

The steak was seasoned with salt and pepper. I usually augment my usually bland steak experiences with, preferably, Heinz 57 sauce. This steak needed no augmentation, no help. It tasted like steak is supposed to taste. The tenderloin side of the T melted in my mouth, while the strip steak side was a lot more tender than I expected. It was perfect. And I’m not a steak guy.

That T-bone was so good it made me remember why people like steak. Simply seasoned and cooked correctly, it’s pretty damn good. It was truly a revelation relived.

And what did this truly extraordinary 8 oz. T-bone Steak, three eggs, country potatoes, toast and coffee cost? $5. Five bucks! Plus tax, of course.

What can I say? I ate the steak breakfast, slept while they loaded the yacht and made it to Ludlow, the land of the lava flows, for the night. Once the moon sets there will be a million stars in the sky. What a great day!

And so we roll.

Ethel Reds Chophouse, 850 East D St., Lemoore, California

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.