Diner Standards

While I'm not the Pinger who is way into diner culture, I certainly appreciate some good diner food. There are three items I consider standards. In my esteemed opinion you can feel free to judge a diner's food quality on any of these items.

First up is the patty melt. It's a traditional burger patty served on rye, with melted cheese (hence... melt) and grilled onions. It's easy to mess this up: overdone patty, charred toasted rye bread, not enough onions, too little cheese. You might think it's just a cheeseburger variant on rye and... uh... you'd be right. But still!

The second is the grilled cheese sandwich. You can tell a lot about a restaurant by its grilled cheese. Is the toast overdone? Is there too little cheese? Is there more than one type of cheese?

Finally, french fries. For me this is probably the best way to judge. I expect to get steak fries that are crispy on the outside and mashed potato-like on the inside. Not too crispy, of course, and they must have a potato flavor. It's easy to just crisp these things into oblivion but, what's the fun in that? Traditional thin cut fries are all right, too; crinkle cuts - which I had recently - are odd.

What are your diner standards?