Much like New Year's Eve, New Year's Day calls for complete gluttony. I slept until 2pm, then finally got the chutzpah to wash my face and begin the quest for a serious carbo-load that my marinated belly was craving. I desperately wanted stromboli, but almost every place was closed. My folks called and were headed to the Startlite Diner on Wilmington Pike and asked that J and I join them. My dad just raves about this place, so I figured we'd give it a whirl.

The place was dead as a doornail despite a few early birds having dinner, which means the greeter and servers were pretty happy to see us just so they'd have something to do. The menu here is massive. The menu sections encompassed sandwiches, hoagies, wraps, melts, Italian fare, seafood, burgers, daily specials, grilled items, soups, appetizers, baskets, salads - I could go on and on.

After much deliberation, I opted for the cheese steak hoagie. At a ridiculously low $5.95, it came with choice of soup (I picked the chicken pasta soup), as well as either fries.

The soup was tasty, but all of the different varieties of pasta in it were as far from al dente as you can get.

This massive mama came out loaded, and with a heaping helping of fries - it barely fit on the plate. It was delicious. The only thing I could have changed is the cheese - it came with perfectly melted American, but that's not really what I want on a cheese steak. I'd go for either provolone or even Whiz.



I'd like to say I crushed it, but I left a few bites of the hoagie and several fries on the plate after realizing I might go into some sort of coma if I ate any more.

J had the fish and chips, Dad had tilapia, and Mom ordered the baked ziti. I'm not a big ziti fan, but it looked like a heaping helping of delish! Hers came with the salad bar and garlic bread and only costs about $9.




Even though there's no way we could have held any, we weren't offered dessert - but the selections in the pie case up front looked pretty fantastic. My dad said the last time he ordered a piece of chocolate cake there, it was as big as the damn cash register.

Given the incredibly varied menu, friendly service and serious bang for your buck, this place gets 4 out of 5 sporks.