Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Quick Hits...

I got a lot of feedback from you readers out there about my experience with the Outback. I am happy to report that the manager of the Westborough location was man enough to call me last week and discuss my experience, after one of you readers pointed him to the blog, and he read my email to “corporate.” He acknowledged how awful the experience must have been, and will be forwarding some additional “correspondence” on the matter. I will keep you posted.

I know what I am about to say will come as a complete shock to most of you…we’ve been eating out quite a bit lately!

We went to John Harvard’s last week with a large group of people. We generally like it there, and consider it a step above TGI Fridays (then again, what isn’t?) or Bugaboo Creek. John Harvard’s is a fine place to have a burger (so I thought), a sandwich or a salad. Oddly, I didn’t include it in my “Burger Quest 2008”, but a week later I noticed that the menu now claimed “the best burgers in Framingham”. I’ll be the judge of that. Not them…me!

The menu says…

“THESE ARE THE BEST BURGERS IN FRAMINGHAM! JUICY & DELICIOUS.
 TRY ONE TODAY AND TASTE THE DIFFERENCE!”
I ordered the “AU POIVRE BURGER 
1/2 lb burger with green peppercorns, Swiss cheese, mushrooms and lemon garlic aioli $10.99”

As they said in Project Bluebook, “Ezekiel saw a wheel…this is the wheel he said he saw.” Well, as Eric says, this is the burger I thought I ordered, and this is my assessment: my sister, a vegetarian, can make a better burger. When I read “au poivre”, I expected peppery pleasure. It seems that “green peppercorns” are the ugly stepchild of caper berries. This wasn’t peppery/spicy at all, but was salty, from cured capers, and slimy, from the “aioli”, which is just a fancy name for “mayonnaise.”

More to the point, my burger was cold when it hit the table, and even more interesting, in order to determine which burger belonged to whom, our waiter lifted the bun top off mine to inspect it…with his bare hands. Hey, I’m no fool, and having worked in restaurants, I know what goes on in back…but I don’t need to see him man-handling it tableside.

Well John Harvard, let me tell you…1. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and 2. Tell your wait staff to keep their hands off my buns!!!

I have consumed a lot of ground beef to review for the consuming public, and taken a lot of flack for it from my Gastroenterologist…and my mother, and I can tell you I tried one today, and tasted the difference, which is that yours aren’t nearly as good as other places.

You’ve been great…enjoy Frank Zappa and “cruising for burgers”…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the vote of confidence on making a burger. However, I can only make veggie burgers which by the sound of it would have been better than what you ate!