Expectation versus reality is a term that sums up the experience of being let down after preconceived notions of how a situation is going to play out fail to live up to our expectations.
Two Cracker Barrel customers decided to record a video and have a gay old time with the fact that they were presented with a menu item that certainly defied expectations.
Some viewers who saw TikTok user Ariannaa’s (@ari__faith) clip couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing.
“Cindy, what did you order?” someone off-camera asks a woman in front of them. The woman laughs, and references the rectangular, golden-brown crust in front of her.
“It was supposed to be a chicken pot pie,” Cindy says.
“Isn’t the crust supposed to be sealed to the bowl?” the voice recording asks. Cindy then lifts up the pie crust, revealing the pot pie filling in a bowl beneath the crust, before dropping it back down.
The photo on Cracker Barrel’s website of the dish indeed shows that the edges of the pie crust are draped over a pot, indicating a traditional, circular topping of the pot pie, with a hearty chicken stew and vegetable concoction beneath.
Cindy’s pot pie, however, looks like she was given a ginormous cracker she could break pieces off and dip into her meal.
Viewers had a litany of different responses to Cindy’s bizarre pot pie, with one user commenting, “That’s the legendary buttery crispy flake.”
Someone else asked, “Is that matzah bread????”
“A giant cheeze it on top,” another jokingly commented..
Another user thought that the clip simply opened up their mom’s eyes to the particulars of American homestyle cooking.
“My canadian mother in law ordered that traveling and thinks that’s just how make them here,” they wrote.
Someone else suggested that the term “pot pie” is one that is loosely used.
“Pot pie is different in different areas…here in PA it’s not even pie, it’s just big noodles w chicken,” the user shared.
Others seemed to prefer this method of pot pie preparation, too, with a viewer saying, “Well, the crust is my favorite part, so I wouldn’t actually complain this time.”
“This would actually get me to eat the entire dish and not just the crust,” someone else penned.
Some chicken pot pie recipes (deemed as “classic” takes on the dish) put the entirety of the chicken filling into an all-encasing pie— an upper and lower layer of crust and not just a sheet of egg-washed bread hanging over a cooking utensil.
As funny as Cindy and her friend’s experience was, it could’ve gone much worse for the Cracker Barrel customers. One diner at a location recently went viral where they shared how servers simply walked out mid-shift. The store purportedly ran out of plates and food during their stay, not to mention employees to assist them with their orders.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Cracker Barrel via email and Arianna via TikTok comment.