Buffalo Wild Wings

Restaurant: Buffalo Wild Wings
Address: 205 North 76th Street - Between Chuck E Cheese and Toys R Us
Website: http://www.buffalowildwings.com/ (Warning, flashriffic)
Genres: Buffalo wings, American
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: Yes | More Omaha Locations: Yes

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• 10 Wild Boneless Wings ($6)
• 10 Spicy Garlic Boneless Wings ($6)
• Basket of Buffalo Chips with Cheese ($4.59)
• Drink ($2.19)

Work is slowly returning to normal levels, but we were ready for a little bit of a rest, so we went somewhere safe for the week. It was kind of a homecoming for us, since Buffalo Wild Wings is what helped us start this blog in the first place. That doesn't make much sense at first, I'll admit. It's hardly a restaurant that screams "Omaha". But if you'll give me a moment, I'll explain.

In the before-times, in the Long Long Ago... I hadn't even moved to Omaha yet. MapleSyrup and I were still living in Indianapolis, working at a horrible job that had one large perk - an extra-long Thursday lunch. A great deal of the time, the lunch destination of choice for the office was the downtown Indianapolis Buffalo Wild Wings (or BW3s, if you're cool). That preference possibly even dates back to most of us in the office having gone to college in a town where one existed, but that's reaching back a little too far for comfort. When I moved to Omaha, it turned out my new job had a similar informal lunch policy, and so Thursday Lunch continued. For a year or so. With most of those Thursdays being spent at a BW3s. So you can imagine that we were all really rather sick of it.

I can't remember which of us proposed we first start eating around at other restaurants in Omaha, but we were all very ready for the idea. That decision led pretty directly to the decision to start up first a Google Map and then a blog about where we were eating. So it's not a large stretch to claim that BW3s is the reason we're doing this at all, and thus last Thursday's lunch should have been a triumphant homecoming.

Unfortunately it just reminded me why we wanted to branch out in the first place. First off, the prices at BW3s are just this side of ridiculous unless you go on a day they're running specials (Tuesdays for 35c regular wings, Thursdays for 60c boneless wings) and even the specials are more than some places have wings for normally. Secondly, the boneless wings here are always far too dry. There's no flavor of the sauce and to be perfectly honest that's the only reason to get the things because the breading's not that good and it drowns out any chicken flavor. That may only be a problem at this location, though, which leads me to point three.

The biggest problem I have with large chain restaurants is that their ostensible purpose - in fact, the whole reason places like McDonald's have page upon page of food documentation - is to deliver the same food in multiple places. Unfortunately that's so hard to do it's nearly impossible. BW3s suffers from this in a large degree - since most of their food is made in batches and then the sauce is added, you can wind up in a situation where not only did your order get overcooked and undersauced, but so did everyone else at the table's.

To be fair, there's some delicious to be had here or I wouldn't have kept coming back as long as I did, even considering the inertia. The chicken tenders are the best item on the menu, as they just come with a cup of sauce (and extras are only 60c, so you can mix and match flavors) which allows you to control your own sauce application. They're also the most consistently cooked item, in my experience. They're even one of the "value menu" lunches so you can get some potatoes of your choice and a drink for a reasonable amount. Their sauces are also good. I'm sure they're horrible for me, but even the Wild sauce has a good amount of flavor paired with the heat. Blazin' is just a stupid level of heat and there's no point to it unless you're trying to display your huevos for all those people in the restaurant to not care about.

My verdict on this place is Would Eat Again, as a safe destination for business lunches when I'm not sure my colleagues are going to be into, say, baba ghanouj.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• 10 Spicy Garlic Boneless Wings ($6)
• 10 Honey BBQ Boneless Wings ($6)
• 10 Garlic Parmesan Boneless Wings ($6)
• Basket of Buffalo Chips with Cheese ($4.59)
• Drink ($2.19)

The really sad part about that list of food is that it wasn't all that much actual food. Back when we were doing this place every week, I could do a basket of Spicy Garlic and be okay. My capsaicin muscles have not been working out, unfortunately, and I am no longer able to do so, not even with ranch.

On the other hand, the honey barbeque and the garlic parmesan are just as good as I remembered them. They have a bit of lingering heat to them, which is fine with me. The honey barbeque is not as good as someone blending it at home, really, but it's damn good for a mass produced sauce. The garlic parmesan, though, is really great stuff. I've never had anything quite like it anywhere else, not even at home. It's actually kind of hard to describe, it's almost like they took a caesar salad dressing and then added a bunch of parmesan and hot pepper, only it's not at all tangy. The flavor is pretty much all parmesan, garlic, and hot.

Other than that, I really don't have a hell of a lot to say. I wasn't part of the group Cham was talking about, having gone to school in merry old fatass-ville, where you can get anything at all delivered right to your door. I'm afraid that having eaten at so many other places now, this one doesn't seem so appealing anymore. Except that garlic parmesan sauce. I might have to go buy me a bottle or three.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• 6 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($3.60)
• 6 Cajun Jerk Boneless Wings ($3.60)
• Regular Wedges with Cheese ($?)
• Drink ($2.19)

I wanted to have this on the blog mostly to show our roots, and Cham has done a fine job of it. We actually started on Wednesday 50c Leg day, but they dropped that long ago. We switched to Thursday when that happened. This revisit went a little better than a previous revisit, I think. Quality of food items varies from visit to visit as Cham had mentioned.

I agree that the boneless are on the dry side. You may be able to get that extra sauce Cham mentioned for these as well, but nobody here has tried. Honey Barbecue is a good, flavorful sauce with what I think is just the right amount of heat to it. The Cajun Jerk is on the upper end of my heat tollerance/bravery. I think it has decent flavor to it as well, but a few boneless with that starts to make me sweat. They have two shapes of potatoes. I tend to favor the wedges while the other guys get chips. I don't think there's much difference. You can get cheese on either for a little extra.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• 12 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($6.00)
• Regular Wedges with Cheese ($?)
• Drink ($2.19)

Actually, the whole BW3's thing at our old company started before the company even moved to Indianapolis. Through some happenstance while we were still in Terre Haute, it became weekly ritual to head to BW3's on Thursdays for their 60c chicken tenders special (this was where we found out one of our coworkers was deathly disgusted by ranch dressing and its ilk and would rather be lowered into a vat of human waste than a vat of ranch). This carried over when we moved to Indianapolis as a general Thursday company lunch policy, which usually ended us up at BW3's in Indy.

I hadn't eaten at a BW3's since they got rid of the one in downtown Indy and replaced it with a Badaboomz. The HoneyBBQ sauce was just as good as I remembered it. It was a little sweet with a not overpowering medium heat, which I killed slightly with a cup of ranch dressing. I echo everyone else's complaints about how dry the boneless wings usually are. And I also echo the price complaints: it was 60c for a whole chicken tender a couple of years ago and now it's 60c for a boneless wing.

Overall, I'd still eat there again. It's a tad pricey for what you get, but what you get is good enough.

P.S. We discovered very early in Indy that it was a bad idea to take advantage of the full service option at BW3's. I was very amused to find that they'd discovered the same thing here in Omaha.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• 5 Honey Barbecue Boneless Wings ($3.00)
• 5 Teriyaki Boneless Wings ($3.00)
• Regular Chips with Cheese ($?)
• Drink ($2.19)

It may be a bad idea to take advantage of full service, but that doesn't keep a number of the people from our office who go each week from doing it.

No disagreement on the boneless being sometimes very surface dry, but the flavor of the sauces usually seems to carry for me, barring phase of the moon. Cham nailed the weirdness of the inconsistency dead on here: National chains are supposed to be, to some degree, consistent, and this place isn't even consistent with ITSELF, let alone other restaurants in the chain. And the price is definitely a bit impressive. 10-15 dollars for a lunch is a decent meal in many other places that aren't quite so bad for you, and a fast food meal for 5-6 bucks is just as obtainable, just as large, and just as american.

I am not sure the 'Teriyaki' flavor is really what I'd consider teriyaki, especially compared to a place such as Sakura Bana, but I do enjoy it, even though it's not spicy. The Honey BBQ is a good goto sauce with a bit of heat that rarely steers you wrong. I've had a number of their sauces as well, and they are, on the overall, enjoyable. What this place really has is 'options with nonobjectionability'. The food does not impress, but it's 'there' enough, and customizable enough to fit the Average American Palate. Also, if you're a fan of bar games/trivia, BW3s tend to have those (as this one does), which can be a draw for some people. (Cham didn't go into his depressingly large Players Plus numbers.) Of course, alcohol as well, as BW3s is also theoretically a sports bar, so TVs and alcohol for people who want to be anti-social or social, (mostly) respectively. It's not a bad place to go socially, but there are better food places in the world. And probably even in your city.

Margarita's Mexican Restaurant

Restaurant: Margarita's Mexican Restaurant
Address: 3636 S 72nd St - attached to the Howard Johnson
Website: None
Genres: Mexican
Check Constraints: If there were any, we missed them.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Enchiladas Suizas Lunch Special
  
• Tamale
• Sopapilla with Ice Cream
  

Last week's lunch feels like it happened in some kind of fugue state - I remember trying to decide where to go, and then somehow we were there. Work had started to taper off, but the accompanying brain fuzz had not yet been dispelled... as a result, the whole experience seems fairly dreamlike, and the quality of the review suffers for it. We offer our apologies in advance. We also lost the receipt - since there's no known website for the restaurant that means we're even lacking prices. Mea culpa.

Margarita's came about sometime last year, replacing the "Dreamers Bar & Grill" previously in the same location. I'd always intended to try it, but it somehow never managed to come up until last week. The place wasn't crowded, but we did show up at 11:30 since one of our number needed to be back at work for a phone meeting. Seating was fast, and though it took a minute to get drinks, chips and salsa, it wasn't overly long. Unfortunately, none of the above ever got refilled during the meal. It's a restaurant's prerogative to limit it to one basket of chips, I just wish they'd put that on the menu somewhere. There's little excuse for the drinks, though.

It being lunch, I ordered a lunch enchilada special. I also ordered what I thought were three tamales, that being the only number listed on the ala carte section of the menu. However, only one came out - I'm not sure if it cost less, since we lost the receipt, but I imagine it did. Anyhow, the enchiladas were chicken, and coated in a green sauce. They were kind of tiny for examples of their species, but they did taste good. Oddly enough, they were topped by what looked and tasted like pregrated parmesan instead of some more traditional Mexican cheese (Oaxaca comes to mind). It actually went pretty well with the flavor of the enchiladas, I just remember being tired enough I did a doubletake when it wound up on the table. The tamale was also a little small, but good as well. Like a lot of its kind it came unwrapped from the corn husk already, and instead of just being covered in red sauce it was served under what was almost a chili; lots of cumin and beans.

We ordered sopapilla with ice cream, but unfortunately Mecha and I had to skip out before they arrived at the table because the whole dining process was taking quite a while. We'd have made it an hour lunch if we hadn't done the ice cream, but ordering 5 of those added an extra half an hour to the meal, easily. The rest of the guys brought us our desserts in to-go boxes, and I wish I'd had time to eat it while it was warm (if it ever was). The sopapilla itself was not as sweet as it could have been, which was honestly a plus in my eyes, but it makes the ice cream a necessity if you're looking for a typical American sugarbomb dessert. Forgoing a spoon and using the pieces of sopapilla to scoop up and eat the ice cream is definitely the way to go with this dish, by the way.

Given my state of mind at the time, I am wary of condemning the restaurant for the speed or the portion-size, especially in the absence of the receipt. I will say that I'm not especially eager to go back and verify our experience - not when there are places I know are much better and new places to try, as well.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• #19 Lunch Combo (Enchilada, Burrito, and Chalupa)
  
• Sopapilla with Ice Cream
  

It's actually my fault we have no recipt, but I can tell you that for the five of us, with dessert, it came to 66bux. Not surprising, for a mexican restaurant, but I can tell you that the portions were surprisingly small for one. I ordered a triple combo, which at the other mexican places we've done was enough to defeat, or nearly defeat, even my capacious stomach. This place didn't even come close.

Worse, the lunch combos are ground beef only, and while the ground beef was good quality, and the cheese and cheese sauce over the top were quality, the chalupa left something to be desired. It came out more like a tostada. I didn't even recognize it as anything but a side salad, as the shell was soggy by the time it got to us, and was invisible under the beans and salad on top. It was very much a waste of money, and I definitely should have ordered something else.

It seemed to take half an hour for them to get us the sopapillas after they were ordered, so much so that by the time I had to flag down the waitress and ask for them to be boxed, they hadn't even actually started working on them. The sopapillas themselves were... bland, I suppose is the term. I mean, a fried tortilla with cinnamon, sugar, and chocolate sauce is something I am inclined to like, but this was lacking, even with the ice cream on top.

This isn't a place I'd willingly go to again, not with places like Senor Matias and Jonesey's Taco House around.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Margarita's Burrito Lunch Special - Spicy Chicken (Somewhere between $6 and $7)
  
• Sopapilla with Ice Cream
  

I know that my dish was somewhere in the upper $6 range. A lot of the lunch specials were about the same, plus or minus a dollar or two. I think my plate was almost a reasonable size for the price. It was a medium sized burrito filled with "spicy" chicken and sauce. It was buried under lettuce, a little cheese, and a big blob of sour cream. There were fried rice and refried beans on the side. The chicken itself was pretty good, if not very spicy. It wasn't dry like I've seen in other places. The rice was pretty bland and the beans were ok.

The sopapilla didn't impress me at all. It was pretty bland, as the others have said. To me, it was just eating ice cream with a crunchy, unappetizing tortilla. It wasn't even like having an ice cream cone. It was just "meh." I couldn't taste the cinnamon or chocolate... I could, however, taste black pepper. It was the stranges thing, but I think it was due to the to-go utensils we were given. Even though it did take forever to get our desserts, they were well prepared with special to-go containers and pre-packaged plastic utensils. Now the thing is, the utensils came with a packet of salt and pepper inside. Clever, but not useful for ice cream. I had eaten a few bites and was wondering why it tasted like pepper when I realized the pepper packet was right under my nose. I thought removing it from the area would help, but it seems that the spoon became infused with pepper. That may have had a hand in ruining my sopapilla experience, but it was probably just the icing on the bland tortilla/ice cream dish. (Not cake. I would have rather had cake.) However much this thing cost me, it wasn't worth it.

A note on the service: It looked like our server might have been the only server. I can't remember if she seated us as well or not. When food came out, it seemed like the chef(s) brought the dishes out. It wasn't terribly busy, but there were enough people that one server would not have been enough. It may not have been 100% the waitress' fault, but she certainly didn't look like she was in a rush either.

I don't think I'd visit again unless it was with friends who really wanted to go (and these guys don't seem too enthused with the idea). The food was unremarkable, the prices were not the best, and the service was really slow (which may or may not be typical).

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• #15 Lunch Combo (Enchilada, Burrito, and Tamale)
  
• Sopapilla with Ice Cream
  

As ND said, the only option for the meat for the enchilada and burrito was beef. The burrito was pretty good. It was smothered with cheese, but was terribly small at about the diameter of a half-dollar. The enchilada had something off about it. I think it was missing the sauce you normally get with such and it came in at about the diameter of a quarter. The tamale came unwrapped with lettuce and some sort of chili bean concoction on top. It almost resembled what you would get from a can of chili beans (though I don't contend that was where it came from). The tamale was actually pretty good in retrospect. That was the entirety of the platter. There were no refried beans or anything else. The portions were grotesquely small for the $7.79 I paid for it and I didn't even have the option of chicken or cheese as every other mexican restaurant in existence gives.

The sopapilla was a bit plain. It could have used a touch more cinnamon and sugar and I think they would have been better off serving it nacho style--quarter it then third those quarters and scoop up the ice cream with your "chips."

As others have hinted, the service was atrocious. The whole experience ended up taking well over 1.5 hours. We only got one basket of chips and a small caraffe of salsa for 5 of us. We never got a refill on our drinks. And we ended up having to get our desserts to-go, because it had been 20 minutes with no sign of them.

I don't think this will be a place that I return to. The service was terrible and the portions were way too small for the prices.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Some Lunch Combo (3? 5?) (Beef Burrito and Enchilada) (~5.50)
  
• Sopapilla with Ice Cream (~2.50)
  

I can add to price analysis by pointing out that my mind said, with tip and tax, that 10 bucks would cover my piece.

The place actually had some interesting flavors in their dishes, which gave both Cham and I a little pause, IIRC, but ND and Maple are right: the portions were surprisingly small for a mexican place. The place did have more than one _person_ there, as they also tried to ask us for our drink orders, but the service was still incredibly slow.

I'm not sure I'd go back to this place either, all things considered. The chips/salsa were standard fare, the meat actually worked for me, the sauce was a little odd but okay, and the sopapilla I really would have liked warmer (that phone con really didn't help)... but there are a lot more solid options around. Looking for a place to eat is a bit of a competition, and this place really doesn't compare.

El Basha Mediterranean Grill

Restaurant: El Basha Mediterranean Grill
Address: 7503 Pacific St. - In the mini-mall just west of Tires Plus
Website: None
Genres: Mediterranean
Check Constraints: Short order
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Falafel Appetizer ($5.50)
• Chicken Shawarma Wrap Combo ($7.75)
• Fries
• Drink

Work recently has been positively crazy. As a result, the lunch destinations of late have been picked with an eye towards speed, distance, and the most bang for the time - also as a result, we had to skip a week due to an utter and total lack of time. But El Basha is fairly close to where we work, and it's been long enough since AFK that it was judged a worthy destination. I'm rather glad about that.

Despite being short-order, the restaurant is rather intriguing and has plenty of space for people. Their menu seems to pull a good balance between being fast and offering a wide variety of Mediterranean flavors. Unlike AFK, El Basha is far more towards the traditional side of the ethnic restaurant scale - that's not a dig on either restaurant, they both have their upsides and honestly very little downside. It's just a different take on the same kind of cuisine, and all that matters is what suits you the best.

The falafel appetizer came over a salad, dressed with a very thin creamy garlic dressing. That made it a little hard to share anything but the falafel themselves with the rest of the geeks, so I wound up with a heaping helping of salad to start off the meal. It was rather good, and if you were perhaps hunting for a slightly lighter lunch that is where I'd suggest you start. The falafel, while perhaps a little small, were moist and flavorful, and went pretty well with the dressing. I would have preferred the dressing to be a little less watery, perhaps, but sopping it up with the falafel worked pretty well. I'd eat this again, especially if I were trying to be calorie conscious.

Brief comments on the other appetizers: The hummus was far smoother than I am used to, but it was delicious nonetheless. The baba ghanouj had a very sharp taste to it, but was darn tasty as well.

The chicken shawarma wrap came wrapped in foil, which was goobord as it had the garlic dressing inside, and trying to eat it without the foil resulted in a very drippy (if delicious) mess. It had onions inside, and not much else that I could tell, which resulted in a fairly solid if unvarying flavor. Given the option, I'd probably go for the gyro or something a little more interesting next time.

Most importantly, though, the time it took to order, get the food, and eat it was less than an hour by far, which is good for when you're in a crunch but want to avoid "fast food". All in all, I might start suggesting it as a regular destination for meals, even if I did wind up having had a little too much garlic for even my comfort.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Hummus Appetizer ($5.50)
• Gyro Platter ($8.75)
• Lentil Soup
  
• Drink

I'm afraid I don't have much good to say about this one, unfortunately. Luckily, not much outright bad, either. I did not, in fact, understand what hummus was when I ordered it. I actually thought I was getting falafel. What I got was excellent tortilla-thickness pita bread and a bowl of extremely smooth hummus. Cham says that it is good hummus. It was a taste I could take or leave. Not something I'd ever go out of my way to get. The falafel, though, that was good stuff.

The lentil soup appeared to not have a name, but it is very easy to describe. It was quite heavy on the cumin, making it taste like a good chili as a starter. Then, instead of meat and beans in that chili, add potatoes and rice. That is essentially the soup. I ate it, and enjoyed it. Also, it was a damn good size bowl for coming as part of a combo.

The gyro platter came with that funky potato salad, a very sour taste which was not pleasing to me at the time. The gyro was mounded pleasingly high with meat, but the toppings were not on the side, and as I am not a huge fan of the sauce slathered all over it, it was somewhat less appetizing than I would normally find a large pile of good meat (that is to say, om nom nom). As it was, I still nearly finished it, but just couldn't bring myself to take the last few bites.

I really don't think I'd come here again, given a choice, but if you like the more authentic foods from the area, go for it.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Beef Shawarma Wrap Combo ($7.50)
• Fries
• Drink

Due to the hectic nature of the past couple of weeks, I don't remember an awful lot from this place. Luckily, the beef shawarma is very similar to the chicken shawarma that Cham had. It only had a few things in it with a good amount of beef. The sauce does accumulate at the bottom of the foil, so grab a pile of napkins for those last few bites. It was also fairly filling. The fries didn't stand out one way or the other.

They were actually out of another item that I (and MapleSyrup, I found out later) attempted to order. I forget what it was called. The bit of falafel I had was good and less dry than AFK. I'd eat there again, especially since I'm in the area fairly often. It'd be worth another visit or two to try a few other items.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• Gyro Platter ($8.75)
• Lentil Soup
  
• Drink

It seems that I ordered the same entree as ND, so there isn't a whole lot for me to add. I wasn't as great of a fan of the lentil soup as he was. It was ok. It wasn't vile. But it isn't something that I'll be getting again. The Gyro Platter came with a big scoop of "mashed potato stuff." We're not sure what it was, but it was delicious. It had a mildly sour taste, reminding me of lime and cilantro. Cham claims there was some sesame oil in there. I could have eaten much more of it than what they gave me. The addicting nature of it kind of reminds me of that of Salt & Vinegar potato chips. The Gyro itself was overflowing with meat and fillings. I barely finished it.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Baba Ganoush ($5.50)
  
• Gyro Platter ($8.75)
• Lentil Soup
  
• Drink

Talk about busy. Took us a while to even get the review out. Cham nailed the Ganoush (or however it's 'properly' spelled) with being sharp, but also fairly complex. The hummus was incredibly smooth and tasted good, and both had a lot of similar notes, unsurprisingly. The lentil soup I don't remember much of at this point, but I remember liking it quite a bit.

Something I think the others didn't mention about that weird potato-salad-like-thing is that Cham and I think it had sesame flavor/oil in it, making it extremely interesting. I'd never had anything like that that I remember, and it seemed unique for a mediterranean place. The gyro itself had a large amount of meat, and ended up making this all an extremely filling meal.

I have to agree with Cham that the place's speed and flavor makes it a good place for a lunch visit when you actually have to do it in an hour (or maybe even just over a half an hour, if you're close enough), and while it may seem a bit expensive compared to a value meal or whatnot, there's a lot more here than you'll get in a fast food paper bag.