Today I woke up relatively late. I slept until 11am, which is later than I’ve slept in months. See, what happened was, I went out last night and got trashed. Apparently before I went to sleep I set my alarm for 7:50am, but when it went off this morning I was still a little drunk and I thought I turned it off…and really I just had the clock stuck on 7:50am. So I kept waking up and thinking it was still 7:50am, until I realized the time on the television in my old bedroom told a different time than the clock on the nightstand. I walked downstairs to get a glass of water and encountered my mom, who asked me if I was ready for our big day together. Oh, right…I’d told her to take off work on Tuesday so that we could spend at least one day together during my trip home. And here I was, hungover, just woken up, and she was asking how long it would take me to get ready for our day out. Ugh.
We decided we’d drive up to Paramus to try the burger at Bobby Flay’s chain of burger joints, Bobby’s Burger Palace. That piece of vagina with a voice that sounds like a man, Claire Robinson, said that Flay’s eatery made the best burger she’s ever tasted. It was the Buffalo Style Burger Crunchified. It sounded like something a retard might say. Before we could leave, we had to stop at my mom’s bank. Apparently it was really important that I sign onto her vault so I can have access to whatever she has in her safety deposit box when she dies. I thought it was a bit of a morbid way to start my day. My mom was mailing a letter across the street and then she said, “Do you know where the vault is? Do you have access to it in case something happens? I think we should go into the bank and make sure you can get to it incase I die.” It’s a conversation we’ve had before. In fact, twenty-seven years of conversations like this probably explain why I am so completely consumed with death.
The drive to Bobby’s Burger Palace was fraught with peril. Mom thought she knew where it was, and it turned out she was wrong. Garden State Plaza and Bergen Town Center are two different places. But she didn’t comprehend this. Rather than listen to reason and logic — which I attempted to provide — she had her own ideas about how to get us somewhere she didn’t know. So we drove around Bergen County for an extra hour when we were about two blocks away the whole time. And my printed directions went ignored. But we eventually arrived at our destination.
Bobby’s Burger Palace is a kind of slow-fast-food restaurant. You have your menu with seven or eight options posted on the wall near the entrance, you order and pay, then you get a number, seat yourself, and your food is served to you about ten minutes later. We could not order the Buffalo Style Burger Crunchified (red hot sauce, blue cheese dressing, watercress) because mom finds blue cheese displeasing. Instead we opted for the Dallas Burger (spice crusted, coleslaw, monterey jack, barbecue sauce, pickles) and the Santa Fe Burger (queso sauce, pickled jalapenos, blue corn chips). When we reached the cashier he mentioned the current “Burger of the Month,” the Nacho Burger (nacho cheese sauce, tomato-chipotle salsa, pickled jalapenos, blue corn tortillas). We asked if that was spicier than the other spicy one we ordered, and when he said “Yes” we switched our order.
All the Photoshopping in the world couldn’t save these burgers.
The burgers are cooked medium, but I requested medium rare. It didn’t much matter, because they weren’t as good as advertised. These sandwiches are all about the toppings. The meat — the heart of a burger — was without flavor or moistness. Even though we had ordered ours medium rare (undercooked by the Palace’s standards) there were no fatty juices and no texture of which to speak. I can’t imagine how a medium-cooked burger, which the cashier told me was the default level of cooking, would have tasted. The bun fit the meat/bread ratio, and it held all the toppings together well. I would have thought with the salsa and the slaw and the gooey nacho cheese threatening to turn our burgers into a sloppy mess that’s what would have happened. Alas, these turned out to be relatively solid buns. The toppings were the main attraction. At least, in theory. The Nacho Burger was fine. There was a good amount of heat in the cheese and salsa. The pickled jalapenos kicked in some extra burn. The addition of corn tortillas added texture and crunch. We both agreed that it was a decent — not great — burger.
The Dallas Burger, on the other hand, was totally bland. Not only was the patty equally flavorless and dry, the toppings added little-to-no distinctive taste. The spice crust didn’t not change anything. The coleslaw was useless, and there was no smokiness or tanginess from the barbecue sauce. In fact, we had to use the tableside condiments, like chipotle ketchup, “burger sauce” (which tasted like A1 to me), and jalapeno sauce (tasted like green tobacco) to add a marginal amount flavor to the burger.
We opted for the regular fries instead of the sweet potato fries. They were mildly seasoned, and came with a small amount of a chipotle mayo sauce. That was likely the best part of the meal. We didn’t opt for any shakes or anything else because, well, we’re not milkshake-drinkin’ folk. Gail Simmons was nowhere near Bobby Flay’s burger joint today. I would have thought at least eating at a “Best Burger” joint voted on by a Food Network celebrity might give me a shot at coming close to Gail, but it was not to be. Gail’s on Bravo! TV anyway, not the Food Network. She probably doesn’t even know that “Best Thing I Ever Ate” show or the people on it. Stupid Evan, why would Gail be in Paramus? You have to get back to the city…
Following our meal, we drove back from whence we came. The only problem (for me) was that my mother decided we needed to stop and buy me new jeans. She couldn’t stand how I was wearing around ripped jeans, and when I commented that “all my jeans are torn” she had one of those Jewish mother panic attacks where my not buying new jeans was tantamount to committing suicide. So we spent two hours in a mall and it ended with me thanking her for wanting to keep me clothed but, seriously, if I didn’t get out of there I was going to kill somebody. I got a couple pairs of pants and a shirt. She felt like a caring mother, I felt like I’d just been run through The Machine in the Pit Of Despair. Yes, I just made a Princess Bride reference. But my girlfriend is hotter than your girlfriend, so I can get away with shit like that.
Ken and KT are working, I’m exhausted, and the week is only going to get more exhausting with each passing day. Tomorrow night I have huge plans, the likes of which might very well turn into one of the most amazing blog posts in the history of Swan Fungus. I speak without hyperbole when I say that I am going to have a once-in-a-blog’s-lifetime chance to do something really cool tomorrow night. It will be an event. In New York City. Gail Simmons probably won’t be there, but some other Swan Fungus memes will be. Stay tuned.
Pictures pending…
