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P.J. Whelihans, Lehighton

2/10/2012

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Travelling on freeways in the US suffers from exactly the same problems as motorways in the UK. The scattered service stations tend to revolve round fast food outlets and there is little information about the food available at the exits (with the exception of fast food outlets). With regular trips on I-476, the former Pennsylvania turnpike, we’re slowly exploring the food options available.

P.J. Whelihans in Lehighton is one of a chain of 14 restaurants in Pennsylvaina and New Jersey. According to their menu, they’re yet another restaurant "known" for their famous wings. The rest of the menu is the standard mixture of salads, sandwiches, burgers and steaks. The decor is generic American bar with old knick-knacks, road signs, movie memorabilia, adverts etc. etc. Even at lunchtime the lighting was very muted.

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The famous wings could be ordered with a choice of 7 different sauces, ranging from traditional Buffalo to chipotle, Chinese-style and Guinness infused BBQ sauce. We decided to try the boneless wings with the Shanghai sesame sauce, billed as being hot, sweet and tangy. The wings came with PJ’s spicy fries and blue cheese dressing. The overwhelming problem was the sauce. It had a spicy tang to it but the taste was peculiar to extent of being antiseptically unpleasant. Between three of us we could not figure out what the underlying taste was. The fries were supposed to be dusted with a spicy seasoning blend. It might just as well have been fairy dust for the amount of flavour it added to them.

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I actually went for what I thought was a safe option for my main course. The King Club sandwich was billed as an UNBELIEVABLE double decker club with grilled chicken piled high with bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo and Swiss cheese. What was unbelievable was that this was awful too. It came piled high with fries so it looked fairly dire. With the fries put to one side, the sandwich turned out to be utterly tasteless, with one exception. The use of processed Swiss cheese gave the sandwich an unpleasant edge not least as it had a habit of coating your mouth.
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Overall verdict.
Unfortunately, a place that we’d hoped might be reasonable turned out to be really poor on the food front. Service was pretty indifferent too, but that was probably the least of the problems.

Would I revisit P.J. Whelihans?
Not a chance. 


Overall Rating - 0/5
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