When the food critic for Time.com calls Applebee’s a beast, he didn’t mean it in a bad way. The Web site reports that Applebee’s has 1,700 casual dining restaurants, making it the largest chain in the world, far surpassing T.G.I.Friday’s with a mere 880 locations.

However, the writer of the review probably lives in a big city with lots of fancy restaurants where he can run up a big tab and write it off to his Time-Warner expense account, because he was pretty brutal in his opinion about Applebee’s.

Since we don’t live in a big city, and the point of this column is not to compare restaurants only to relate our experience on any given day, we found Applebee’s to be a nice place to visit for good food and reasonable prices.

The Time.com critic’s description of the interior of Applebee’s called the interior “bewildering overstuffed with pop culture images and gimcrack Americana.” That is an over the top description. The booth we occupied was in the area devoted to black and white pictures of old movie stars, so that qualifies as pop culture images, and the walls had many reproductions of items that no longer are in use today, but it wasn’t tasteless or showy, and certainly was nowhere near overstuffed.

So we disagree, and you may too!

Our meal started with a refreshing fruity sangria and pina colada, perfect for a sultry summer evening. As we finished our drinks, we decided this was going to be an appetizer day and ordered the Veggie Patch pizza. The pizza was a very thin and crispy tortilla-like crust topped with a blend of cheeses, spinach, fresh tomatoes and artichoke hearts. It was very good and would make a satisfying lunch or appetizer.

By the way, if you haven’t visited Applebee’s in awhile (like us), their menu has changed substantially. As with most restaurants, they have heart-healthy options as well as 10 dishes endorsed by Weight Watchers.

They have also expanded their menu in other areas to reflect changing tastes. You can now find Italian dishes, Southwestern style items and a larger selection of dinner salads.

For our main course, I had roasted chicken breast flavored with garlic and Asiago cheese sauce. We had to wait a little bit for the fresh tomato and basil garnish, so I wish they had been a little more generous with it. But aside from that small criticism, the chicken was moist and full of flavor.

My partner had a specialty dinner salad, grilled shrimp and spinach, tossed with tomatoes, red peppers, onions and almonds. A wonderful bacon vinaigrette dressing rounded out the flavor fest.

Even the Time.com critic had to conclude that Applebee’s would bring him back because it’s reliable, and sometimes that’s enough.

In other restaurant news, Chaney’s Dairy Barn is opening a second location. The family favorite has a grand opening Saturday at 830 Fairview Ave. in Cambridge Square.

The grand opening is from noon to 6 p.m. A free scoop of ice cream will be given to those in attendance. Meet and help name the Jersey calf – the winner of which gets goodies. And Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central Kentucky will be on hand to talk about its programs.