Fremont Diner
2698 Fremont Drive (Hwy 12), Sonoma, CA
http://thefremontdiner.com/menus.html
Review date: May 2014

Opened in 2009 by owner Chad Harris, this low-key little diner revels in its down-home country roots, complete with Waylon Jennings' twangy songs on the radio providing background Muzak. It was a lovely drive from Oakland on a pleasant early summer day, so we sat outside at the picnic tables, with a large umbrella thoughtfully shading each one.

The breakfast menu was more intriguing than the lunch menu, but we were late leaving so had to settle for lunch. We began with iced tea, which comes in the now common "we're all just plain folks here" Mason jar mugs, and an order of the Bohemian Czech sausage to start. 

We have no idea what Bohemian Czechs eat. But if they eat what tastes exactly like a super-hot beef chorizo, then maybe they're eating rice and beans, too. It was two modest sausages with a small heap of sharp pickled pink onion shreds. The sausage had that lovely tender-but-resilient bite of genuine hog casing, not the synthetic casing that is much cheaper. It was a little oily – I wouldn't call it actually greasy – so the pickled onions helped cut through the fat and strong cumin/chile/paprika spices.

Things slid down a full level with the rest of the food, though. My "apricot frisée salad" lacked the promised fennel, but dried cranberries were added to the chopped almonds and small crumbles of Pt. Reyes blue. The tasty apricots were candied and cut into fat shreds, but the frisée was old and there was way too much of it. This salad could easily have fed three people, as the greens were packed tightly into a shallow soup bowl. The vinaigrette was a touch too sharp; there wasn't enough blue cheese or almonds to offset it.

We were both intrigued by the chili, which promised Five Dot Ranch beef as well as crumbled chorizo sausage. Alas, the chile had beans, a demerit in Carlos' eyes; and the beans were slightly crunchy in the middle, a huge demerit in my eyes. The seasoning was good but lacked any heat. This was a super-wimpy chili, quite odd in view of the spicy Czech sausage. There were also big chunks of green pepper in the chili, which never pleases me. They were cooked soft, but I prefer all the vegetables to be finely chopped as in a sofrito, instead of wedges big enough for a beef stew.

Chili is mentioned twice on Fremont Diner's menu, so Carlos thought he was getting a small cup of chili as a side to his fried chicken plate. But it turns out there is only one size, and that is a full bowl, complete with a wedge of cornbread. It comes with add-ons on a separate plate to spice it up: chopped green onions, fresh cilantro, sour cream, and pickled jalapenos. But even adding both plates of pickled jalapenos to his bowl of chile didn't do much. They did bring hot sauce, and he used it liberally. But overall this was a disappointment. We wouldn't order it again.

The cornbread, btw, is the non-sweet Southern style. It's quite tall and cut in a pie-shaped wedge, browned on the grill to heat it up. If you order the cornbread separately you get it with honey and butter; but when it accompanies the chile it's plain.

The food came out very quickly, so we hadn't finished more than half the chile when the fried chicken was put in front of us. Advertised as "Nashville Fried Chicken", with sides of white toast and mac'n'cheese, this is another Mary's brand chicken. The portion is generous – an entire half chicken. It's crispy batter but not too thick, with a nice sweet/hot spicing to it. But unfortunately, Nashville seems to like an oily pool of mildly hot sauce drenched over their chicken. 

It's not a glaze, so it lacks the goopiness we object to, but it is flat-out greasy. Why anyone wants to have an already fatty dish like deep-fried chicken coated in orange-colored oil is beyond us. Carlos and I agreed we would have liked the chicken just fine if it hadn't been Nashvilled into Prilosec territory. The chicken sits on a slice of classic white bread, or it really would have been swimming in oil, which puddled all over the rest of the plate. 

The mac'n'cheese, served in a small "relish bowl" on the side, was pretty good. It wasn't creamy – a thick Béchamel stiffened even further with cheddar, but it was tasty on the macaroni and browned very lightly under the broiler.

The waitstaff is friendly and efficient, just like a good diner should be. And the quality of the ingredients is undeniable. But except for the sausage and maybe the mac'n'cheese, Fremont's food was too heavy for our taste. Not indigestible, as is all of Black Bear Diner's food, but Fremont Diner's food must be praised by people who are price-sensitive and looking for big portions. The chile wasn't greasy, but the cornbread is buttered and browned on both sides; and that chicken is Oil City.

One of these days maybe we'll make it here for breakfast, when we can find a hearty breakfast that will hold us until dinner. But that's a "maybe"...there are a lot of places in Sonoma County more to our taste for breakfast or lunch. 

This was our first stop on our five day Sonoma trip; not an auspicious one. We'll hope it gets better!

Two people, lunch: One starter, one salad, two chilis, one entrée, two beverages, with tip was $82. We could have left off one of the chilis and saved $11.99 along with the proportional tip amount.