Better Luck This Time

After our last attempt to visit the Gill Tavern failed miserably and resulted in my cheese-less cheeseburger, Kathryn and I decided to give it another go. This time was much more successful, and resulted not only in a tasty burger, but also a delicious new beer. It's win-win!

The Gill Tavern is super tiny, so it's probably a good idea to call ahead or go on a non-popular dinner night like Wednesday. That way you might actually get a table. Kathryn told me that it used to be a general store long ago, so it looks like a little house. Except that it's a house with a giant kitchen and a bar. So it's like a Portuguese house.

I decided to get the Grilled Local Beef Burger, with cheddar cheese. Luckily, it actually came with cheese, so I won't have to flip out. See? Clearly there is cheese here.

There's also lettuce, tomato and onion. And some kind of weird roll. The roll wasn't great, but the rest of the burger was delicious. Actually, the roll almost ruined things for me until the juice from the burger soaked into it. Then it became pretty good. The burger was also cooked nicely, with a lovely pink color. There were also delicious fries, although they called them potato wedges. And they claimed they were roasted, so I guess they weren't technically fries. It doesn't matter; the point is, the burger and "potato wedges" were both great.

Then we had apple crisp for dessert. It was also pretty good. Overall, the Gill Tavern is a place I would visit again. If I can get a table.

-Jon

Another One Bites the Dust?

As we are rapidly approaching Steve and Maura's wedding, the time had come for that ever-present male ritual of the bachelor party. For this one, the plan was to go down to Foxwoods (which actually ended up changing to going down to Mohegan Sun, which is ok because they are really close to each other). And once we got down there, it was very clearly time for dinner, because by the time we got to Mohegan Sun, my entire day's food consumption was 1 plum and 4 beers. You can tell this is the beginning of an epic night.

But you don't get to read about it, because if you aren't part of the bachelor party, then the events of the bachelor party technically never happened. Or if you're Steve's cousin, Jimmy, who may have blacked out in which case he really doesn't know what happened.

We had dinner at Margaritaville because that's where Steve wanted to go, and he was in charge of the decision making. Remembering my last trip to a Margaritaville (which was in Las Vegas), I knew NOT to get the Cheeseburger in Paradise because I would only be disappointed. Instead, I decided on the Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger. Actually, a lot of us decided on that one. It was easily the most popular meal choice.

And it was delightful! That was some good BBQ sauce, and there was quite a bit of bacon. And, probably most importantly, it was actually medium rare. Perfectly cooked, I would say. And they also have good fries.

After dinner, I lost some money playing various games, and then sat in the racebook yelling at horses and drinking for free. I would say that it was a good night.

-Jon

Home Cooking Is the Solution

The solution to what? To not having the cheese left off your burger. Because that is truly an almost unforgivable offense. Sort of like being a Jets fan.

It was burger night over at Mom and Chuck's, and they were burgers hand-made out of ground beef. That's generally going to give you the best burger, although I think they need to be seasoned a little more before they hit the grill. I put a little bit of garlic salt on them, but it wasn't quite enough. I'll be tweaking my seasoning attempts whenever people aren't paying attention over there, which is frequently.

The burgers came out nicely, with a lovely pink hue. And, far more importantly, mine had cheese on it! And also onions and tomatoes. But the main focus is the cheese. This blog could have been more appropriately titled Mmmm, cheeseburgers, but that was too long. We also had tater tots like it was middle school, fries, salad and zucchini. One of those things definitely does not fit in with the rest of the meal.

For the humourous part of this story, Odin had to spend the meal outside on the deck being sad because he doesn't know how to behave himself around Patches. He's like Jojo the Indian circus boy with a pretty new pet. And Chloe spent part of it sitting on the single step up into the kitchen, and crying because apparently it was too high for her to climb down. Pugs: nature's joke.

-Jon

Seriously?

Since we couldn't go to the restaurant we planned on going to for dinner because apparently having 7 tables isn't enough on a Friday night, Kathryn and I went to Hope and Olive instead, already knowing that they have good food. And also knowing that they have a good selection of beers on tap, which meant that I could try something new. There was plenty of time to savor a new beer too, because this place was also packed. However, they have a more normal number of tables, so the wait was only 30 minutes instead of an hour and 45 minutes.

I had intended on eating something different, but eventually I ended up going with the burger because it's been a while since I've had one. Tonight I chose cheddar cheese, tomato, onion and avocado as my toppings. That doesn't seem like an especially complicated burger, so at no point in time did I expect them to screw it up.

Boy, was I wrong.

They forgot the cheese. They. Forgot. The. Cheese! That's literally the most important part of a cheeseburger!! I've eaten burgers that were burger, cheese, bun and that's it, and they've been enjoyable. The cheese is key. Do you see any cheese here?

No. No cheese. Also, and this is a distant second in things to complain about, the burger was cooked right but somehow still really dry. I am not sure how a burger can be medium rare and also be dry, but they pulled it off. That's not nearly as disappointing as the missing cheese thing though.

On the plus side, the fries at this place are fantastic, and you get approximately 14 lbs of them. Avocado is also a delicious addition to a burger. I thought I had said that before, but it wasn't a tag yet so I can't go back and figure out whether or not it's the case. Well, it's not so much "can't" as "won't," but I'm not going to split hairs here. Oh, and they have good pickles. Sadly, they only give you 3 little slices instead of the number I want, which is like 25.

I won't write Hope and Olive off completely, since I have had a fantastic burger there before. I am going to put them on notice though. Another incident like tonight, and they are off the dinner rotation. That's a pretty serious threat coming from a guy without a full-time job, let me tell you.

-Jon

A Missed Opportunity

I'll be kicking myself for this later.

Also, this will not be a long story.

We had burgers and chouriça for dinner at Dad and Kelly's tonight, and I didn't think of making a chouriça burger until after I had already eaten. That would have been a crazy burger! It would have also been huge, which people seem to like nowadays in their burgers. I was somewhere (maybe HCC?) and they had a poster showing the average size of a meal at a restaurant next to what would actually be considered a serving size, and the "real" serving size was like half of what you'd expect. That is probably not good for the health of America. It could also explain why I'm fat.

Sadly, the chouriça burger will have to wait until some mysterious future date. Someone will probably have to remind me about this idea next time it becomes an option, because there is a 99.99% chance that I'm going to forget. Kind of like I continually forget to take pictures of my burgers. Tonight's burger was good though. It deserved a picture just because it was cooked nicely. I really need to start writing myself little notes, since apparently I am already suffering from the symptoms of old age.

What was I saying?

-Jon