This Might Be Something New

It is possible that the last time I went to R.F. O'Sullivan's fine burger establishment was in 2010. That's a little bit sad.

Fortunately, tonight offered another chance to eat a deliciously huge ball of meat since Alex's friends Adam and Jess were in town and have never been there. Obviously he is a bad host. That sad situation has since been rectified, and I even tried possibly a brand new burger. However, I am starting to think that I have had this burger before. This is quite the conundrum.

Whether it's new or not, I ordered the Out of the Blu Burger, which is both stuffed with blue cheese and has blue cheese on top. It's recommended by the owner (who is a crazy person) to try it with bacon, so I did. I don't want to mess with crazy people. For once, I ordered it with tomato and onion and actually got tomato and onion! Sorry lettuce, you just aren't that great. Check this thing out!

You can ignore those Coronas in the background because Corona is gross and they're obviously not mine. Focus on the ridiculous size of this burger! And those massive "fries," which are just giant potato wedges served at the temperature of molten lava. Still tasty though.

To give you an idea of the cheesiness of the burger, I tried to get a picture with the cheese oozing out. Unfortunately, it just looks like the burger is bleeding white blood. But the burger is cooked properly, so it's got that going for it. Which is nice.

That brings today's list of positive things up to: ate a delicious burger, worked a fun volleyball tournament, drank some beers. And in the negative column: drove way too many miles and might have destroyed the inside of my foot. Unless feet are supposed to be puffy, purple, and 150° to the touch. Stupid feet.

-Jon

How Did That Take So Long?

Paradise City Tavern in Northampton has a special every weekday from 4:00 - 5:30 where you can get a beer, a burger and fries for $6.95. Yet somehow I had never taken advantage of this, probably because that's kind of early for dinner. But it's not too early if you skip lunch! Thus, this terrible burger injustice has been righted.

The only downside is that the beer choices are Narragansett, Boston Lager and Hibernation Ale. Actually the second two choices are good, but Narragansett is terrible. It's even terrible as a Trivia Night beer, and at Trivia Night my standards are pretty low. Ignoring that sad fact, it turns out that the Hibernation Ale is pretty terrific. It's also only a winter beer, so hopefully they will have something equally delicious for a spring choice.

For the burger deal, the only option is the standard burger, which comes with lettuce, tomato and onion. Cheese is an extra dollar, which is ridiculous because you can get like 30 slices of cheese for $5 at the deli. Talk about a ridiculous markup. I went with gouda since a burger without cheese is a travesty. It looks pretty good.

For some reason, they decided that the burger needed a charred outer coating, which is a simply ridiculous notion. Who would want a charred burger. More impressive is the fact that they charred the outside without making the inside into a disaster. It's like a tale of two burgers. The outside was a gross mess, but the inside was nice and tasty. I am torn by this state of affairs. I guess I would say that overall, the burger was ok.

Also, the gouda was delicious. Don't sleep on the gouda.

-Jon

Three Down, 47 To Go

I can now check off Connecticut in my quest to finish Food Network's 50 States, 50 Burgers list before the link dies. Or they come up with a new list. Or, at this rate, all the cows on the planet go extinct. It's taking me a really long time to do this list, which is probably because I hate driving and that's a major component of getting to other states.

Connecticut's contribution to the list is the steamed cheeseburger at Ted's Restaurant down in Meriden. They've got 3 little steaming cabinets where raw meat goes in and rectangles of burger come out. They also steam their cheese (probably cheddar if my tongue is correct), which makes it super gooey and extra tasty. There's like 10 different topping options, but I kept it simple with just tomato and sauteed onions. Kathryn, on the other hand, went with everything but the sauteed onions. That includes gross mayonnaise. I think hers in the one in the middle, and mine is on the right.

Once the cheese gets on it, things start to get serious. There's pretty much an equivalent amount of cheese as beef, which is a lot of cheese.

Ted's doesn't serve normal fries, but they do serve home fries. And you can get them with cheese. Which I did. I think I ate 3 weeks' worth of cheese in a single meal.

Sadly, there were so many home fries that I couldn't eat them. That cheese is really filling! The burger was pretty good, but I need to get some additional toppings next time. Specifically bacon. A little bit of saltiness would have been perfect. But definitely no mayo! Silly Kathryn.

-Jon