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Had a program tonight and a guy from the next town over was making a presentation, so we stopped by the Main Street Grill for an early bite. Being somewhat in a hurry I ordered a simple (100% angus beef) hamburger.

Me: I'll take a number 1
Hostess: Do you want the delux?
Me: No, just a hamburger and crispy fries
Hostess: They aren't anything extra, it comes with it.
Me: No thanks, I'd prefer a simple hamburger
Hostess yelling to back: Order #1 ~ cheeseburger
Me: I don't want cheese 1/2 melted on it, just a hamburger

Order comes with a giant lettuce leaf, onion, some kind mayonnaise conconction dripping off the edges and sliced pickle. Hidden in there somewhere was a 1/4# of 100% frozen angus beef patty. After using about 6 napkins I was able to finish. At least there wasn't the slice of velveeta.

Question, Why did I walk out of there feeling like Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces".

Better question, If we can put the proverbial man on the moon, why can't a restaurant simply take some fresh ground hamburger (not those cookie cutter preshaped frozen patties of unknown origin), grill it to a bit of crispy and place it on a quality bun. Let the customer squirt a dab of catsup, or if not, don't.

JH

Quote:

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Question, Why did I walk out of there feeling like Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces".

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before i got to this point in your post i said to self, "oh man--he's having a chicken salad sandwich moment. poor fella."

Its kinda like when they ask you how you want your hamburger cooked.... its seems a bit rhetorical cause it always comes out well done.... go figure!!! .... ride safe... Gordon

I'm the type that won't complain about it cause I don't want the 'special sauce' when they bring me what I really ordered. So I suffer through and never come back. The service everywhere has been declining or non existent.

I sure can understand this and it appears universal. We have the hardest time when ordering what should be a relatively simple lunch. Janet detests mustard (yeah, go figure) and if there is even a minute amount within 4 city blocks of her burger, it goes uneaten. She therefore orders all burgers plain and even those get screwed up.

I've learned to order burgers with 'everything on the side, please'. That way, I can extract the proper amount of desired components from the supplied half head of lettuce, 2" slab of tomato, and the quarter pound onion slab. Sheesh!

btw, doesn't anyone know what 'diced onions' are anymore? Invariably, I will get the aforementioned quarter pounder and have to chop it myself!

The only consolation is a place downtown here that serves the best burger ever. Been in the same place for over 55 years. They grind their own using quality beef. These people get it right every time.

It's the age of sandwich incompetence. We have a daily office pool on the results of the "No mayonnaise please" request for our take out lunches. I like a little mayo, but not two snow shovels full per sandwich, so I order "No mayo please." I guess the chefs figure I don't know what I want, so they swab the mayo on there anyway.

The other mildly annoying ordering tactic - running the full gamut of every possible additional food and condiment option after I've finished ordering, and said "that's all." I know what I want, and I just ordered it. Why take inventory of the sandwich prep table?

On the other hand, I agree with you boomer - I never F* with the people who handle my food or my mail. Ask any cop friends about ordering food. The ones I know usually don't. They're on the "No thanks, I'm on the 'No Loogies For Me Today' diet."

The restaurant business - correction- most customer service business has become a joke. I have been known to make my complaints heard, get a refund, and leave. I don't want my order "fixed".

And don't get me started on real estate agents.....

I will order a plain burger, with no salt. That way they have to make it fresh for you, then I ask for ketchup after I get it. Can ya tell I know someone in the fast food business?
You want fries with that?
No, just the burger
How about a pie?
No, just the burger
You want to supersize it?
No, just the burger....as I feel the blood beginning to boil

Two words ~~ In and Out (wait, that's three).

Fuddruckers makes the best burgers without a doubt. They are the cats meow and treat the palate with just the correct level of taste and understated flavor. The soft nuance of the perfectly toasted bun adds a simple grace by which all others should be judged.


Particularly good with a nice California Merlot.

I dare any of you to send your food back. You know what they'll do to it.

There is a place called B-Bops here in Central Iowa that makes a very good burger. They have a standard with all the stuff that may be cooking as you pull up, but cooked fresh to order if you ask for anything else. I like all the veggies and goo but it's available all the way down to naked with no hassles.

This should make you feel a bit better about your little burger incident;
(Long but worth the read - Many visuals...)
Subject: The Steak House Incident


A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steak House for dinner. It was a Wednesday night, which means that macaroni and beef was on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday night is also kids' night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastyards. It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell you in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At first, I thought it was only gas, which could have been passed in batches right at the table without to much concern. Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines far faster than the food, which spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress...

I got up from the table and made my way to the restroom. Upon entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the right of the sinks, and two stalls against the back wall. One of them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good dump, but in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of diagonal wire cutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a dump. I went to the normal stall.

In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped
stall, even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the pressure on my bowels was reaching Biblical proportions.


I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain "The Grande Movement from the male perspective." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of physiological events occur that cannot be stopped under any circumstances. There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the pot, beginning the body turn to position ones arse toward said pot , hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of waste at the exact same second that ones arse is properly placed on the seat. Done properly, it even assures that the 'package' is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that the 'stream' lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.

I was about half way into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those little bastyards attending kids' night; it was mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for a rematch. What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events are a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can.

In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half crouched down to the can, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus. Now, most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over a dump no matter what is about to come slamming out of your arse. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since crapping will not kill you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My attention was thus diverted.

At that very split second, my arse exploded in what can only be described as a wake... you know, as in a newspaper headline along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous plug of dung the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of greasy liquid came flying out of my arse. But remember, I was only half way down on the seat at that moment. The poop-wave was of such force and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the seat that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it
initially hit the seat. Then I sat down.


Recall that when that event occurred, I was already half way to sitting anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be. Needless to say, the dung-wave, though of considerable force, was not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the seat and deposit itself on the walls, unlike what you would see when hitting a puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a significant amount of crap remaining on about one-third of the seat rim, which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the crapping was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By the time I had actually collapsed on the seat, my mouth had filled up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the cant, though. Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also, directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweat pants with elastic on the ankles.

In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my pants... on the inside... with no ready exit at the bottom down by my feet.

In the next several seconds, there were a handful of gaseous eruptions, a couple of poops, and the event ended, yet I was now sitting there with my pants full of vomit, my back covered in dung that had bounced off the crapper, spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with droplets of liquid crap. All while thick dung was spread all over my arse in a ring curiously in the shape of a water closet seat.

And there was no freakin' paper.


And there was no freakin' paper.

What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper. When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words) that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I
just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a hose.

Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make cleanup easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up with the wet towels. Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get redressed in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some little bastyard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any restaurant in which I have eaten.

pipe...LMFAO !!!!! although i must say, i think that was more info than any of us need. i am rolling and there is no one here to hear me

Geez Barry,

"When Hamburger Threads Go Awry". And here I thought for years that politics and religion were volatile topics!

Jh

Like air out of a balloon, I think Barry's story sure put the perspective on yours, John!!!

My boss wants to know why I am laughing & crying. What am I supposed to tell him?

A friend of mine sent that to me nearly ten years ago. It has remained one of my favorites.

yup still got tears in my eyes and EVERYONE at the office thinks I have lost my mind...(which is still open for debate anyway)

Ok,,, read it or something similar before but....

If anyone ever ends up about 20 miles south of Cleveland, there's a little town named Hickley (yeah, where the buzzards return every spring)... with a great bar named Foster's..

They grind their own hamburger meat, either a 1/2 or 1 lb (COOKED WEIGHT) with or without what you want on it...
Expensive, but.... a one lb burger... comes with fries... is almost enuf for two people..
they have other great stuff too, like pork chops, steaks, clam chowder with so many clams you can't find the potatoes, Dungeness crab, lobster bisque, you know, normal bar food...<G> They change the menu every day..lots of locals eat there.
That was a good story.... had to get up and walk around since I was laughing so had I couldn't see...
Mary

hey good old England ,we dont get asked the questions we just get it slapped up in front of us,good ol mickey D's eh?

man thats the funniest thing ive ever read, it took me a good 20 mins to get through it.my sides are aching, the keyboard and my t shirt are soakin wet. glad i was at home while i read it .best laugh ive had in ages

I almosted choked to death laughing so hard. A great story to come home to after a miserable day at work!

That was the funniest story i have heard in years..I havent laughed like that in a long time..thanks..

So in conclusion the "great burger tour of 07" needs to swing by Larry (Des Moine, Iowa), Al (MD) and end up with Phil in Ft Lauderdale. It'll cut a wide swath around the spot Barry is referring to.

jh

I've read one very similar to that story before.

There's a bar I used to go to occasionally that makes burgers. They get fresh ground chuck, and your condiment options are worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper....that's it. No mustard, mayo, ketchup, or the usual veggies to pile on. And if you ask for any of that, you'll get a dirty look.

I'm not particular about what I put on a burger, but usually I don't go for the exotic like mushrooms and what-not. Fuddrucker's always get voted best in Tucson, but I don't think they're all that and a bag of chips. In-N-Out is supposed to finally open a place here in the next month, but they've been saying that for a couple of years. Ever since the death of small mom and pop drive-ins, it's nearly impossible to find a good burger.

Best burger I ever had was at local Mom and Pop pizza joint.
Nothing real fancy, Just fresh real ground beef. Cooked like you asked for.I tell em "almost burn it". They bake their own buns also. And they have chopped onions if you want.

Benny makes a darn good burger.

Barry, don't worry. There's been a major breakthrough in toilet technology.

Thanks to NASA, adult diapers have now become so advanced in design that you can now patronize Ryan's Steak House at any time, and without these nasty old concerns.(at least that's what I hear lately)

And regarding "THE" hamburger to beat all fastfood hamburgers....

Gentlepeople...

I have ONE word for ya...

FATBURGER!!!(unfortunately for most here...available only in California, Arizona, and Nevada)

For consistant 'burgers' anytime of the day or night, drunk, stoned or sober......you can't beat slyders

my wife actually just came all the way downstairs and told me to pipe down, that i was laughing too loud!! women!! the door to my man cave was closed!! i'm putting dsl in the shed!!

Great places for a burger...

Hamburg Inn No 2 in Iowa City, Iowa...the place is famous, had Presidents eat there, and is a unique visit.

Hunter's Club in Rock Island, IL ...on some nights, live jazz entertains

Pauper's Den in East Moline, IL very nice

Maid Rite, almost any one of them in the Midwest ( they originated in Muscatine, IA ), my favorite one is in downtown Cedar Falls, IA ( it is like a time warp to visit ). Plus Ross's in Bettendorf is great, and has POTENT chili.

Jay's Drive Inn ( in season ) in Oregon,IL very nice

The Full Moon in Batavia, IL very nice

Holahans in Waterman,IL

Of course if a chain is what you crave, them Steak N Shake is great, Fuddruckers is too, and Culver's will grease up your arteries to the max.

I'm late to the burger party but I have to say I have given up on burger places, even Fuddruckers. At least in litigious New York State you can not get a rare burger and hardly ever a medium unless someone goofs up. We even took a ride to a nice place near Allegheny State Park, was told the burgers are great, so I tried to order a rare one. They actually made me sign a piece of paper excusing them of liability for sickness or death. AND the burger came out at least medium well!
Funny coincidence to this thread, I was thinking at work how to dice up onions and find some thin burger patties and steam up something similar to a White Castle hamburger. Unfortunately, there are none in NYS. But they are available in the supermarket freezer to aid in easing the crave.
jeff

Here in the states, the fast food giants bundle food products into a "meal."

I'll order someting like "I'd like a this, that, & the other please, that's all,"

Then the server will ask the question I dread the most:
"Do - you - want - the - meal?"

I'm f'd when I hear that. What can you say to that? Didn't I just order a meal? If I say no, I don't eat. If I say yes, I get a pail of soda and three wheel barrow loads of french fries. I usually reply, "I can't tell you until I get to Neptune," or "I smoked but did not inhale." That seems to help. I've taken to wrapping my head in gaffers tape before I go in those places, just so it doesn't explode.