I had no idea, either, what "five alls" meant. Turns out "five alls" is a traditional - as in "ye olde" - British public house sign depicting five men with a motto underneath each. The first, the king, has the motto of "I govern all;" the second, a bishop, says, "I pray for all;" a lawyer, "I plead for all;" a soldier, "I fight for all;" and a poor countryman with his scythe and rake, "I pay for all."
Hardy-har-har. This is British humor worthy of late-night PBS, especially when you realize the "alls" is also a pun on another olde term, alls, which referred to tap-droppings, that is, the remains of all sorts of spirits drained from the glasses then sold in gin joints for cheap.
You may have guessed that Five Alls, Salt Lake, is something of a period piece, but the period - as you understand the minute you see "Filet Oscar" on the menu - is not 18th century England. Rather, it is circa 1960s, the pre-Julia Child era when the apex of American dining was something called "continental cuisine," a name that referred to no particular continent, but to a place whose cuisine was invented by professional chefs in hotels and cruise ships all over the world and tends to involve expensive proteins and heavy sauces.
Our waitress, an efficient, hash-house type costumed like a serving wench, dealt out the menus and gave us her rote spiel as soon as we were seated: "Have-you-ever-eaten-at-Five-Alls-if-not-you're-in-for-a-treat-we-offer-five-courses-for-one-price-you-look-over-the-menu-while-I-get-your-first-course."
And, in a jiffy, she was back with the kitchen's all-purpose appetizers. The three tiny meatballs, one for each of us, looked suspiciously like school cafeteria meatballs, slimy outside and mushy within, and our suspicions were confirmed. The other appetizer was clam dip served with miniature bread sticks as soft and white as grubs.
The meatballs, along with your choice of fresh fruit or soup and a salad, are included in the price of your entree. So, before he dug into an amazingly chewy lobster tail ($48), my friend had a dish of strawberries (instead of the alternative, cream of spinach soup) and a cold iceberg lettuce salad.
Another dining companion, who ordered beef Oscar ($38) - a soft piece of beef, topped with shredded crab, resting on overcooked asparagus and drowned in béarnaise - opted for an upgrade and for an extra $7, was served a dish of creamed herring instead of fruit. With my alleged "boneless" chicken Kiev ($25), I ordered the shrimp cocktail for another $7 and got six 24-26-count crustaceans with the usual red sauce.
I put the quotation marks around "boneless," by the way, just because it's such an amazingly redundant descriptor. Chicken Kiev is a classic of continental cuisine. It is prepared by pounding a chicken breast into a thin sheet of meat that is wrapped around a chilled lump of seasoned butter. Then the whole thing is fried. Ideally - and traditionally - when your server ceremoniously cuts into your chicken breast, a tiny geyser of melted butter spurts out dramatically.
Obviously, you could never make this dish properly if you left the bones in the chicken. So if I were a real dining sleuth, I would have known better than to expect real chicken Kiev from the Five Alls menu description. I would have expected what I got, which was half a boneless breast of fried chicken. For those who remember continental cuisine at all, I hardly need to add that the chicken came with wild rice.
Plenty of tables around us were eating happily and I can only assume that's because fond memories dull the taste buds.
Along with our Bill of Fare, written in faux olde Englyshe, came a Bill of Grog that included a list of "mocktails" - virgin margaritas and daiquiris and such - along with the usual mixed drinks, beers and wines.
I don't remember ever seeing such a thing on a fine dining menu before. Then again, I don't remember seeing wines offered in "fifths" or the last time I saw LiebfrauÂmilch's Blue Nun ($20) on a wine list.
But that's the life of a restaurant critic.
I am the sixth all; I eat for all.
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* MARY BROWN MALOUF is a Tribune restaurant reviewer. E-mail her at food@sltrib.com. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib .com.
Five Alls
* OVERALL RATING: 
* FOOD:
* MOOD:
* SERVICE:
* NOISE: 3 bells
* IN A NUTSHELL: If you don't already love Five Alls, don't try it unless you are dying for tired food in a corny olde English décor.
* WHERE: 1458 Foothill Drive, Salt Lake City
* PHONE: 801-582-1400
* HOURS: Tuesday through Thursday, from 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 5:30 p.m.
* WEB SITE: www.fivealls.com
* PRICES: $$$
* LIQUOR: Full bar
* RESERVATIONS: Accepted
* CHILDREN'S MENU: Yes
* KID FRIENDLY: OO
* TAKEOUT: No
* WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes
* OUTDOOR DINING: No
* ON-SITE PARKING: Yes
* CREDIT CARDS: All major
