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

A Marathon Burger Day, or Burgers for Breakfast

After a depressingly long hiatus from rounded meat patties, today I ended up eating nothing but cheeseburgers. And side dishes that go along with cheeseburgers. And maybe a cookie too. It was a good day.

I picked up Bill at Logan after his trip to California since apparently no one else was able to do it. This was slightly after 10:00am. As we were navigating Logan's treacherous road system (which I believe was designed by a guy who was inspired by the web of a drunk spider), he suggested that we could get burgers at RF O'Sullivan since we were sort of close to it. I gave them a call and found out they opened at 11, so that was good news. I was also shocked to find that I was able to get there from the eastern side of Cambridge, since that meant I needed exit 20 instead of exit 18, even though I was going to the same place. I put that little tale in there because someone else has got to find that strange.

It turns out that 11am is a good time to beat the rush, since we were the first people there. Surprisingly, another group of people came in as well. That's how good the burgers are. I had the Black & Blue burger again, and it was super again. My only issue with it is that they use bleu cheese dressing and put it on last, which meant that by the end of the meal I had bleu cheese hands.

Also, their pickles aren't great.

Fast forward to dinner, and it was burgers again! Mostly because Chuck was bribing me, Bill, Kathryn, Mia, Nate and Mia's roommate Sarah Beth with burgers in exchange with assistance in addressing wedding invitations. The burgers of the night, at least for me, were made with both bleu cheese and American (melted over the crumbled bleu cheese to keep it from escaping), mushrooms and sauteed onions. Then we got wild for the 2nd burger and actually put the bleu cheese inside. That was an even better method to prevent premature bleu cheese jail breaks.

I have a strong suspicion that today will be far less burger-filled.

-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.