Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

Fool me twice, I shall blog about it!

After getting up at 4am, driving down to Ludlow to transport the pugs to Uncle Bill's for the weekend, riding down to the airport and flying to Chicago, I was ready for lunch at like 10am. There are a whole lot of restaurant options at O'Hare, but we settled on Chili's due to its proximity to the gate for our next flight. And I wanted a burger!

If only I had read the fine tales spun by the author of Mmmm, burgers, I could have avoided a disappointing breakfast burger. As it turns out, this was not the first time I've had a burger at a Chili's in an airport.

It's pretty sad that not even I read my own posts. No wonder I don't get more traffic.

So not only was there the warning sign from myself, there was another, more current warning sign when Melissa ordered her burger and the waitress did not ask her how she wanted it cooked. That's a major red flag right there, and if I hadn't been hopped up on Dramamine, I probably would have had a backup meal picked. Unfortunately, I panicked and ended up sticking with the Avocado Burger because hey, avocado. It looks kind of like this, except for some reason all the toppings had fallen off. That's bush league.

Yeah, this is the first Mmmm, burgers photo from my iPhone, so if it looks particularly rectangular, that's why.

This burger was very meh. It was definitely cooked way past where I like it, and all the flavor from the meat seemed to have cooked away. The avocado was good, but not good enough to save the whole thing.

Fries were good though.

If we are ever at an airport again, don't let me get a burger at Chili's!!!

Seriously. That's what friends are for.

-Jon

Wedding Weekend

Since Matt and Tanya's wedding was this weekend, several people headed down to Rhode Island to celebrate with them. I went down with Steve and Maura the day before so that we could participate in the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We were there a while before either, so we went over to Chili's (which was one of about 40 restaurant options within 5 miles of our hotel) and had some lunch. And beers!

After a lengthy deliberation, I finally settled on the Shiner Bock BBQ Burger. I have pretty much no idea what Shiner Bock is , but my guess is that it's some kind of BBQ sauce made out of Shiner Bock, which I am assuming is a beer. Either way, it was good stuff. There was also cheddar cheese and onion straws along with the standard lettuce, tomato and onion. There were also pickles, but I took them off and ate them separately. No pickles on my burgers!!

That was a good burger. Maybe it's because there weren't many people there, but I actually got it cooked the way I ordered it! That is a fantastic thing these days. They also have pretty good fries at Chili's. It's weird going there and not ordering a fajita though.

After that, we went back, adventured out to the church for rehearsal, and then went to a semi-fancy restaurant for dinner. As fancy as the place was, they are poor counters. Matt had told them between 35-40 people, so they set up seating for 30. Last I knew, 30 was actually a smaller number than either end of Matt's range. Eventually they got their act together and fed me a tasty steak, also cooked medium rare. Two properly cooked meats in one day? Stupendous!!

-Jon

Airport Burgers < Normal Burgers

So this was probably my fault for expecting more from an airport restaurant, but Chili's Mushroom Swiss Burgers pales in comparison to the Swissroom Burger. Now, this was obviously going to be the case, but I had higher hopes for Chili's.

The first sign that something was up was when Jen and I ordered a Boston Lager and the waitress brought us Foster's. Now, Foster's sounds similar to Boston, especially when you don't really speak English (like our waitress), but c'mon now. Does anyone even drink Foster's? I believe my response to the appearance of said beer was that it was "Australian for crap*." Eventually this situation was rectified, with normal Sam Adams beer replacing that sham of a beverage.

The burger itself wasn't bad. It wasn't good either. It just. . . was. I literally remember nothing remarkable about it. Now that may be because of the dramamine, but I am going with a rather disappointing burger night. Luckily there was burger brilliance to follow!

-Jon

*If you are one of the 6 people in the world who like Foster's, my apologies. Not about what I said, but about your horrendous choice of beers.