Andy Tullis / The BulletinBartender, Ann Marie Bell, center, talks with patrons as they enjoy The Garden Grille & Bar at the Hilton in the Old Mill district in Bend Thursday afternoon 7-3-14.

I think it’s great that the Hilton Garden Inn gives diners an additional meal option in the Old Mill District, especially in the morning, when the nearest full breakfast menu is offered nearly a mile away.

But the dining experience at the former Ameritel Inn, on the bluff overlooking the Bend shopping complex, is far from extraordinary.

Whoever wrote the book on dining at franchise lodging properties may want to consider revising the text, or at least bringing its content into the 21st century. The corporate model is overrated. Continental breakfast buffets are singularly uninteresting, and dinner menus that don’t take local or regional standards into account — in choosing its wines, for instance, or purchasing local produce — are way behind the times.

The Garden Grille & Bar, as the Hilton calls its restaurant, is mainly a convenience for hotel guests who don’t want to descend a flight of stairs to dine at Greg’s Grill or Anthony’s, or any number of other reputable eateries that dispense Mexican and Italian food, burgers, sushi and more in the Old Mill’s marketplace.

But it is a comfortable enough venue to spend an hour or two. Offering about 60 seats beneath the soaring cathedral ceiling on the north side of the hotel lobby, the Garden is surrounded by handsome wood-and-stone décor. Its polished-granite tabletops lack only white tablecloths to bring an extra touch of elegance in the dinner hour.

Morning meal

Continental breakfast is included in the room cost for hotel guests; for outsiders, the charge is $6.95. From the viewpoint of a frequent traveler, it is an uninteresting buffet.

Tiny bagels and slices of bread are available for toasting. There is a choice of cold boxed cereals and prepared oatmeal. Hard-boiled eggs and a variety of fruit juices and fruit are offered: whole oranges, apples and bananas, chunks of watermelon and honeydew, thawed frozen berries to complement yogurt. And there is a choice of pastries.

For an additional $4, however, a visitor can make a full breakfast that includes all of the buffet items. And this is where the meal becomes a reasonable $10.95 value.

I was able to choose the ingredients for my omelet. I requested ham, mushrooms and onions, all of which were folded into my eggs in decent quantity, with Swiss cheese melted on top. With a few piquant drops of Tabasco and a side of potatoes O’Brien — country-style, fried with onions and green peppers — the meal was complete.

My dining companion opted for eggs Benedict, which she found barely satisfactory. Served on an untoasted English muffin, the poached eggs were swimming in Hollandaise sauce made with an excessive amount of butter; it was separating out on the plate. On the plus side, my friend said, “It didn’t taste bad.” Her meal was accompanied by somewhat greasy hash-brown potatoes.

Dinner choices

We were more pleased with an evening meal that began with a “nontraditional” shrimp cocktail, which my companion and I shared. A generous portion of medium-sized shrimp filled an 8-ounce glass with no lettuce or celery filler beneath. Instead, there was chopped avocado, cilantro and a squeeze of lime, along with spicy horseradish in the ample cocktail sauce.

My main course was a pork tenderloin entrée. Several tender, juicy slices of roasted pork were served with a medley of delicious roasted vegetables: zucchini, yellow squash, carrot, asparagus, red pepper and red onion. The only thing that didn’t impress me was a blend of brown and wild rices, an overly moist, pre-packaged mix with a few lentils and other legumes added in the final preparation.

My companion enjoyed her steak salad, although she wished there had been a greater quantity of garden-fresh greens (tossed with a pleasant vinaigrette). The beef, she said, was lean but sliced very thin and wasn’t well seasoned. Blue-cheese crumbles and stir-fried onions finished the dish.

Service, provided by a former Blacksmith employee and under the direction of food-and-beverage manager Kati O’Connor, was attentive and professional. Dishes were presented in a timely fashion and requests, as for additional dressing or seasoning, were answered immediately.

Shortcomings

Apart from shortcomings in the preparation of some foods, my biggest complaint is with the “brand standard” position of the hotel group. Meats and produce come not from local providers, but from a corporate supplier, enabling the company to keep its costs down but cutting Oregon farmers and ranchers out of the economic equation.

There’s nothing unusual about this. It applies not only to lodging groups, but also to franchise restaurants such as Olive Garden and Applebee’s, to name but two. An easy place to see where money is spent is to look at the wine selection: The Garden doesn’t have a single Oregon or Washington wine represented, despite these states’ excellence in pinot noir, pinot gris, merlot and syrah varietals.

While the Garden Grille & Bar has begun to promote itself outside the hotel with fliers in the Old Mill District, offering half off a second dinner entrée (with the purchase of a first), it hasn’t taken the important step of updating its website to reflect a new menu, or even to change its name from the former “Great American Grill.” Information listed on that site is inaccurate, so I haven’t offered it in the contact information with this story.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com.