Bonjour, friendly folks, and welcome to yet another inspirational, most sensational restaurant review. (Hey, I only have a few more columns left so I thought I’d spice it up a bit.)

One of my best friends eagerly accompanied me to the Mary Greeley Medical Center Cafeteria last Sunday afternoon. No, I wasn’t sick (not physically anyway), I just wanted to review an atypical restaurant.

To my surprise, I ran into an acquaintance of mine working behind the food counter.

I was glad to see his psychology degree is being put to good use. Other than the underlying bitterness of the recent ISU grad, everyone behind the counter was nice, too nice, almost to the point of being apologetic.

Besides the “Cardiac Special” of a cheeseburger and fries, we couldn’t quite tell by looks alone what the entrees were.

We had to ask for help in identification. I couldn’t help but laugh when the “lunch lady” not only named the food, but also told us how much was available.

“Well, we have two pieces of herb chicken, three enchiladas and it looks like a little bit of scalloped potatoes left.” (By the way, I was just kidding about the Cardiac Special, folks.)

The blonde cashier asked me if I was just visiting. (No, I’m here for my 2:30 appendectomy.)

Turns out if you’re a patient the food is half price. I gave the happy high schooler my $5.44 for a carton of skim milk, plate of pepper steak over rice, scoop of scalloped potatoes, frosted bar and cup of snack mix.

We took our partially-filled hexagon trays, walked past all the George Clooney wannabes and made our way to a window seat. FYI — in warmer weather there is an outdoor patio for dining enjoyment.

My friend ordered the Chef’s Special — an enchilada — and I watched in anticipation as he took his first taste, wondering if we would have to stop at McDonald’s after this.

His second bite confirmed that the enchilada was bad — real bad. For one thing it was ice cold.

I asked him if a microwave would help.

“God couldn’t help it,” he replied.

After the disappointing Chef’s Special, I was understandably nervous about digging into my pepper steak over rice.

Yep — it was pretty bad too. We’re talking it tasted worse than it looked.

It reminded me of freeze-dried camping food that had been reheated one too many times.

The coconut, apple-spiced, frosted lunchroom bar wasn’t much better. You know it’s bad if you don’t even want to finish dessert.

There was still a faint glimmer of hope for our lackluster lunch.

There’s nothing like the pure unadulterated joy of eating trail mix with a spoon, and my friend and I both had a cup of it on our tray.

I was interrupted from enjoying my gummy bears with the cry of, “Jeez! This sucks, too!”

In retrospect, we wondered how, with a clear conscious, the servers could smile as we went through their line. It’s like it’s all one big joke to them.

As we stayed on Duff and headed south towards Arby’s my friend said, “You know, it would really suck if you had to eat there for any extended period of time.”

My sentiments exactly.

Our only consolation is that hospital food is presumably healthy.

Perhaps if we would have gone to the cafeteria at noon instead of right before it shut down at 1:15, the food would have been warmer and there would have been a better selection of entrees.

But you know what, I don’t plan on going back to find out.

1 star out of five

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Kim Zangger is a senior in advertising from Mt. Vernon.