Gusto Cuban Cafe

Restaurant: Gusto Cuban Cafe
Address: 7910-7920 Harrison Street
Website: Gusto Cuban Cafe
Genres: Cuban
Check Constraints: $3.50 for splitting an item. No checks. 15% gratuity for 8+ people.
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Papa Rellena a la Gusto ($12.95)
• Congris
• Black Beans
  
• Fried sweet plantains.
• Bread Pudding ($3)

More or less halfway down the block around 80th and Harrison, Gusto is not as small as it looks on the outside, but they crammed so many tables into the area that it feels smaller than it looks, and that's unfortunate. Also unfortunate is the mix of seemingly-homemade seating and somewhat uncomfortable... I'm not sure what to call them. Porch chairs, maybe? They have somewhat flexible seats, and stiff arms, and are not at all comfortable for people who are significantly wide, and even if I wasn't, I couldn't imagine being quite comfortable in them. They seem the sort of chairs I would tolerate, at best.

In any case, the waitress was reasonably attentive, and we took a long, LONG time for this lunch. Like, two hours. Mecha has the price on the appetizer sampler later on, but we all devoured it, of course. For twenty three bucks, it was a heaping monster platter of food. It wasn't even a platter, actually. This is the first place I've been to that actually served their sampler on an honest-to-goddess big wooden lazy Susan. It was incredibly convenient, and I kinda wish more places would do that. Aaanyway, the sampler is basically damn near every appetizer they offer. It costs a boatload of money, and you get a boatload of stuff to try. When the menu says "...etc" in the sampler description, it is NOT kidding. Almost all of it was good, too, a rarity among appetizer samplers. Be on special lookout for the roast pork bits, which are a tad try, but are cooked in an awesome vinegar and lemon based sauce. Mecha got that stuff as his main dish, and I'd eat it for both appetizer and main dish.

After that, though, this ended up being a spectacularly bad lunch for me. When I ordered the main dish, I was under the impression that the menu was not lying to me, and that I was ordering a baked potato stuffed with heavily seasoned ground beef and topped with a bunch of cheese. What I actually got was that, plus a bunch of onions, olives, and tomatoes, which more or less ruined my lunch. The congris turned out to be black rice with bits of pork, beans, and heavy spice in it, which was not particularly appetizing to me. The black beans were more like a soup, but were so beany that I couldn't stand them, and the plantains were, well... plantains. They practically define the word 'plain'.

We had already taken two hours by the time dessert time came, and I had wanted to try the bread pudding, so I gave it a shot and had them box some up to take back to work with me. That was a mistake. It was bitter. Not as bitter as, say, the alfredo at Indigo Joe's, but bitter like "We put so much cinnamon in here that you can't even actually taste cinnamon anymore."

I say, if you're going to go here, get the stuff the other guys got. Or the appetizers. Unless that potato sounds good to you. Honestly, I'd have preferred getting some Taco Bell. Or the stuff the other guys got. Man, that fried chicken was good. Not as good as mine, but damn good nonetheless. And those roast pork bits were to die for.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Gusto Cuban Cafe Sampler Platter ($2?.??)
  
• Masitas De Cerdo Fritas ($?.??)
• Congris
• Black Beans
  
• Fried sweet plantains.

I have been so, so fried mentally. Hopefully, I will find the receipt for this place, as the online menu lacks prices.

So. Cuban food, a first for me, but I do like trying things. The Sampler Platter had a huge amount of stuff. One we identified as a sort-of crab-cake-like seafood item. It had three different plantain/banana looking chips, some very thin crisps, some longer sweet fried, and another type. The lime/lemon and such fried pork bits ND mentioned above. There was some sort of BBQish beans-flavored thing. Homemade thin potato fries of some sort. There was really nothing on this sampler that was bad, but they warned us that we were looking at a half-hour+ to make it beforehand, and they weren't wrong. I wish I had better descriptions, hopefully Cham will be able to shore this up in his section, and I'm sure the menu at the place describes the individual items better. If you've got the time and the people, you would be foolish to not give this a try.

The main meal was actually oddly disappointing in its size/delivery. Not that I didn't walk away full, but that it seemed small for its price. That said, it was all the fried pork with citrus undertones that ND talked above, for the main dish, and that is delicious. A little bit tough, but not too tough, the texture reminding me muchly of the 'teriyaki chicken' skewers that you get at various Chinese restaurants, but as pork. The flavor is fairly complex, and has those citrus notes (I think of them as lime, but ND clearly thought of them as lemon. Not really the crucial points) that really give it some bite. I don't know if I'd eat it as much as ND wants to, but I was glad to eat a good portion of it. The black beans actually had a very strange flavor, with the first note of it being cooking sherry, and then into the black bean flavor. Not my thing. The Congris was advertised as having pork, but there was no real pork flavor to it. Not bad at all, though, to me. Now, the fried plantains, those I would definitely go for again.

The place bills itself as having many a drink, but as usual, that's not something we got to try. It seems to more bill itself as a fun place to drink and karaoke and have unique good food at a leisurely pace, and the lunch we had supports that theory fairly well. It doesn't look like it would necessarily be too slow if you came in for lunch fare, either.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Mango Shake ($4.85)
• Kidney Beans ($3.85)
• Chicharrones de Pollo ($11.99)
  

This has not been the best winter for any of us. There has been plenty of mental frying to go around, and additionally I just purchased a house, so when I sleep at night, I dream of boxes, and when I wake up, I am in a valley between two walls of boxes, rising like a canyon around me. It is dark, and there may be grues. This is my flimsy excuse for my part in letting posts slip for weeks.

I am not 100% positive when the restaurant in question opened in this location. I dimly remember this being the previous location of, perhaps, something called Mimi's? But such memories are lost in the fog of time. Regardless, there has been time enough for the Omaha World-Herald to perform a review and for the review to be on the wall, so I feel fairly safe in saying that the restaurant has had time to work out the kinks. The service was decent despite there being only one waitress there, and the food was prompt (with the exception of the monstrous sampler platter).

The sampler platter had an extremely vast array of food. I will do my best to dredge recollections up from underneath the horrific visages of cardboard, but you should expect at best a faulty list:

• Thin cut yucca fries, rather moist and oily, but possessing good flavor. It pretty much required a fork to eat them, though.
• Plantain chips; these devices were fried cross-sections of plantain, allowed to cool. They were, essentially, the same as banana chips, but as expected were not sweet. Their primary application at the table seemed to be a delivery system for the next entry in the list.
• Garbanzo beans with chorizo. Said beans had more than a hint of "BBQ" sauce in their flavor profile, but that may just have been due to molasses or other flavorings in the sauce. Regardless, they were fairly good.
• Taro fritters. These objects were essentially pressed and fried cakes of taro, though everyone else at the table swears they could taste corn in the mix as well. They were perhaps a tad bland when compared with the rest of the heaping platter, but would probably have stood up okay on their own.
• Fried plantain slices. These slices, unlike the chips, were warm (not to mention cut on a diagonal). They did well at playing to the plantain's strengths; namely, being a potato substitute with a slightly different flavor.
• Roast pork in mojo sauce. These were quite clearly the star of the show, at least as far as our table was concerned. The bright citrus/herbal taste of the mojo sauce was a very high soprano paired with the pork's baritone, and the juxtaposition made for some delicious eating. If you're going with a single appetizer, pick these. For reference, I am pretty sure there was both lemon and lime in the mojo sauce, along with cilantro and some other herbs.
• Papa Rellena Cubana; these devices were fried balls of mashed potatoes, stuffed inside with ground beef. They were excellent - we almost forgot they were there because of how fast they disappeared off the platter.
• Ham and chicken croquettes; I suspect these were the items we thought were seafood (though those could have been the cod fritters). They were deep-fried to a brown crisp, and they went quite well with the mojo sauce we got on the side.

I am fairly sure that was everything, though with the large degree of fried foods arrayed before us it would have been easy to misidentify something. The only real solution is to go and check it out yourself.

On to the kidney beans, which were in the "soup" section of the menu. They were reminiscent of creole-style red beans, though with more liquid and with a more complex flavor. I can recommend them, though I'm not sure it would be worth it to get more than a cup.

The entree I got was, the menu assured, a Cuban version of fried chicken. I wasn't disappointed, though I was perhaps pleasantly surprised when the plate arrived and I was served pieces of bone-in-chicken which had been cut into smaller chunks, just the right size for picking up and then devouring down to the bone. The chicken was very flavorful; either brined or properly seasoned before frying. The biggest shock was perhaps the breading - a breadcrumb-based substance which had a sort of Shake 'N' Bake feel to it, but which was far better executed than anything from a box. The serving size was perhaps a bit small. Had I not stuffed myself to the gills with the monstrous sampler platter I could probably have gone through two of these, no problem. Still, the entrees are served with sides.

Everyone seemed to dislike the black bean side but me. I admit that after my initial taste I wasn't too keen on eating the rest of them, but the taste grew on me as I worked my way through the cup. As Mecha mentions, they had a very, very heavy bean taste, shored up by a rather strong wine flavor; initially I thought it was cooking sherry or some other intended-for-cooking-wine but as I was digging the last bean out I came to the internal conclusion it was just a very strong red, like a Shiraz.
Comparatively, the congris had a far lighter taste, and with the other strong flavors on my plate, it wound up being not much more than filler for me; which I definitely didn't need.

I'd be more than willing to go back here several times, eating around the menu and exploring various flavors. Though it'd be tough not getting that chicken again. Or just the sampler platter.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Ropa Vieja sandwich ($8.99)
• Columbiana ($3.75)
  

Plantains. So many plantains. The appetizer plate was a fun thing to get, but it's definitely for more than four people. The pork was great. The BBQ-ish garbanzo bean stuff in the middle was pretty good. I liked the sweet plantains--the soft ones. The regular plantain chips weren't anything to go out of your way for, but they were good to munch on. I almost forgot there was a smashed plantain patty-thing too, but that's because it was rather bland. You could really tell which items were the seafood ones because they were pretty strong (but not bad). Anything else on the plate has blended into the mix in my mind by now.

The sandwich was delicious and pretty filling. I had a hard time eating it all with the huge appetizer plate. It was tangy and simply sauced brisket on a bun. I asked for plantain chips as the side, and it came with a SERIOUS load of them. No, more than that. It reminds me a bit of the potato chips I had at Dundee. I ate maybe a third of them. If I had known I would get so many, I wouldn't have eaten any chips off the appetizer plate. As it is, we didn't finish all of the appetizer chips either. The Columbiana was an interesting experiment. I had originally asked for the Pineapple drink, but they were out of it. It turned out to be a can of orange-colored cream soda. It reminded me a lot of the Barq's Red Cream Soda I used to have often when living in Indiana. It still had a slightly different flavor than that. For the price, it isn't worth a repeat buy for me, however. To me, those drinks are probably a try-once deal. It was good food, but it was a very long wait. I'm glad I wasn't in a hurry.

Worker's Take Out

Restaurant: Worker's Take Out
Address: 1317 S 50th St
Website: Worker's Take Out
Genres: Cuban, Deli, Sandwiches
Check Constraints: Nada
Chain: No| More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Cuban Pork Roast ($6.50)
  

When these guys say take out, they mean take out. You get your food in a styrofoam container, and there is no seating. None. The guy working said after we ate out in Moogle's van that we could have sat down in the bar next door, since it was closed, but really, plan to take it and run. It looks pretty much like the little grill below my college dorm, actually. Music on the radio, a TV/DVD player for the employee to watch, and a youngish guy who was probably college age behind the counter working the grill.

I didn't get much, because it was take out and I didn't feel like awkwardly trying to hold a lot of stuff like Cham did. I did try a bit of Cham's hummus, and it was better than most of the other hummus I've had. The sandwich came with an optional pickle spear, which automatically makes me like the place a little more, because it was a decent pickle. The sandwich wasn't great, but was one of those sandwiches where if you change a little bit to suit your taste, it'll be outstanding.

The base of the sandwich is cuban bread, buttered and topped with a bunch of shredded roast pork. The pork is pretty well peppered, just the way I like it, and very good. Top that with provolone, ham, pickles, and mustard, then squash it flat and grill it for a few minutes. My recommendation? Take out the pickles and ham, and just let the roast pork and provolone speak for itself. Totally worth the price on that.

The place itself? Would eat again, now that I know what to expect. If you're gonna send one or two people out for take-out, give this place a shot.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Franco ($5.79)
• Texas Caviar ($2.99)
  
• Hummus & Chips ($3.99)

It's hard to look at a menu with some interesting-looking appetizers and then, once you've arrived at the place, realize there's nowhere to put the dang things while you eat, and you have to scale back. As it was I wound up doing a lot of balancing on my knees inside the van, and at one point I flipped the styrofoam container my sandwich was in and it did an awesome 1080-flip directly onto the van's floor. Totally my fault, of course, but ND's advice is good, here. Grab the sandwiches and head back to work (or home).

ND mentioned this in passing but I wanted to point it out more explicitly... there was one (1) person manning the place. From orders to cooking to cashiering, there was only the one guy. And it's not like there were spots for people to hide, either. In one sense, this is good, as he didn't screw up any special orders and remembered what each of us had ordered. On the other hand, it means the process here is rather linear, and if you come in with an order for 15 sandwiches for your office, only one sandwich can be assembled at a time, and only two put on the sandwich press simultaneously. Hopefully there are more people here most of the time, but honestly you shouldn't let this dissuade you. Bring a book, read a chapter or two, then truck the delicious back.

Speaking of the delicious. The hummus here was very heavy on olive oil, a flavor I am immensely fond of, so I could find no fault with it. It made for a smooth hummus, but the other flavors in it shone through quite well. I do have to say that this is the first time I've had hummus with corn chips, but it worked reasonably well. The hummus is lower on salt than it would be if I'd made it myself, but the chips added the last bit of sodium I wanted.
"Texas Caviar" was a new thing on me; it was a construction of beans, onions, sweet bell peppers (the orange and yellow ones), and perhaps a hint of spice in a sweet vinegary sauce. As I read about the dish on the internet I am informed that sweet Texas Caviar is "a New Jersey imitation", and that the "real thing" always includes hominy and black eyed peas, but honestly it was good, for what it was. Not that I'd turn down "authentic" stuff either. The appetizer's served with the corn chips, making for a sweet/salty blend.

The sandwich was good stuff. When you press a sandwich like this it can be hard to discern individual flavors from the mix, which is to be honest part of the point. I received a constant blend throughout the sandwich, with the salami and pepperoni riding herd on the rest of the flavors, but with everything making its own contribution. The bread gets crisped excellently by the press (though it's actually clear that one side of the press is hotter than the other), and the end product would take a Quizno's or Subway sandwich out in the back alley and beat it with a panini press until it admitted that "fresh" is not an FDA-controlled keyword, and that there really is no excuse for horrible sandwich bread.

All of which should be taken as a recommendation for this place. One of the only ways it'd get better is if they delivered.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Cuban Pork Roast ($6.50)
• Hummus and Chips ($3.99)
• Butterscotch Shake ($2.99)

Man, Maple did all that crowing about Butterscotch shakes, and then doesn't write anything about it. So sad. It wasn't a strong butterscotch flavor, but it was noticeable. Not too thick to deal with with a straw, which is what they gave me, so hooray for that. I'm not sure it was good enough that I'd get it often (3 bucks? Aiyah.) but it ain't bad if you're in a shakey mood.

The hummus was indeed fairly smooth, and I agree that the chip choice was a little weird. I would have probably preferred more interesting chips, but the hummus is supposed to be the star, and it's good as it was. The 'Texas Caviar' was also a flavor I really liked. I'd probably take it over the hummus if I go again, so it's my dip recommendation for the place. The menu does not note that the caviar comes with chips and IS a dip, so now you know.

They make an excellent Cuban here. Not super-messy (as one would hope), and a good blend of flavors. These are good sized sandwiches too, in my opinion. Since ND got the same dish there, I don't have much to add to his notes, although I wasn't bothered by the pickle, and the ham did not completely dominate in the flavors for me. That said, I'm sorely tempted to try out the Reuben next time, because I need to figure out this Reuben thing.

Everyone's covered the layout of the place fairly well, but I don't believe anyone mentioned that this week, the guy was out of hot dogs, which is a shame because I know we wanted to try them. They say they've got Chicago dogs, and Cham's never too full to turn down an available Chicago dog. I believe he said his shipments come in on Monday, so perhaps it would be good to plan ahead if you want a meat tube. But you'll find a good meal even without.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Spicy Tuna Melt with Pepper Jack on Wheat ($4.29)
• Coleslaw ($1.09)

We ate in the van partly because it took quite a while to get to all of us and partly because I was worried that the food would get cold on the way back. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to worry about that. The sandwich nearly burned me. You could pick the bread and cheese for this sandwich, and I picked pepper jack on wheat. Once I got past singing my mouth (I have a bad habit of just eating through the heat when I'm hungry), the sandwich did have some spice heat to it. I'm not sure if it was all the pepper jack or not. The sandwich may have been left on the grill a bit longer than the others because it was nearly blackened but thankfully not burnt. It actually made for a home-made feel. There was plenty of tuna and cheese as well. Some sandwich places seem to skimp on the tuna these days. I thought it was a good sandwich for a pretty good price. The coleslaw was ok, but not impressive. It was slightly peppery, but generally bland. I would probably get something else as a side next time.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• Cuban Reuben ($5.49)
  

As everybody else has intimated, this was the kind of place you'd expect to be in the back of a mobile vending truck. It was a very straightforward operation with just the one guy, a sandwich press, some meat and bread, and sauerkraut and such on warmers.

This wasn't your standard reuben. It was salami, ham, swiss, pickles, sauerkraut, and special sauce on a good-sized, hot-pressed roll. Of the flavors, the pickles were unfortunately the strongest. The ham still managed to make an appearance, but the sauerkraut and special sauce (I'm guessing it was Thousand Island. It's always Thousand Island.) didn't show through very well. I'm generally a fan of pickles, but I'd recommend passing on the pickles on this one.

The sandwich was assembled then put in a flat hot-press, so a good crisp was added to the top and bottom, but the bread itself wasn't toasted or made hard. This also, as Cham said, melded the flavors (which may have been part of why the pickels came through so strong).

I look forward to going back, but I'll probably try the Cuban Pork Roast that the others got.

Petrow's Resturant (Visit 2)

Restaurant: Petrow's
Address: 5914 Center Street
Website: http://www.petrows.com/
Genres: American, Homestyle, Fried
Check Constraints: Split checks work fine (in contrast to Cham/ND's last experience)
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

Hey! This is one of our first "revisits". All other reviews of this restaurant are available here.

==Mecha==
Ordered

• Steak Sandwich ($7.79)
• Steak Fries
• Two onion rings
• Bowl of Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup ($3.49)
• Hot Chocolate ($1.39)

Cham and ND were both unavailable this week for various reasons, and so we revisited Petrow's as, conveniently, none of us made the original review a year ago for reasons we can't quite remember. It's unfortunate that I think the sum-up is 'Not quite as good as they experienced.'

Getting it out of the way, the hot chocolate was decent warm hot chocolate, and it was a cold, cold day, so nothing wrong with that, but nothing to recommend it other than the sheer face-numbing cold. I went with a full bowl of the soup, as I'd rather have extra soup left over than not have enough of the good stuff. And this was pretty good potato soup. It actually reminded me, personally, of potatoes au-gratin as I had when I was younger, which is a fine starchy/filling flavor. Some hammy notes, but not a strong taste thereof. Fairly thick. Ultimately good, and sizable for the price (we guessed that I got two or three times as much as Maple did, for nowhere near two or three times the price.)

The steak sandwich was actually a pretty decent strip steak as the base (although not medium rare, nobody's shocked.) But it just did not have a strong enough flavor/mass to overpower any sort of additions of vegetables (which it came with, tomatoes, pickles, onions, lettuce), let alone the steak sauce the waitress offered me and I didn't put on, which made it a very meh sandwich. It actually came with damn fine steak fries, and very, very heavily breaded onion rings that just didn't appeal to me. I joked that they'd be the kind of onion rings ND would like, because they didn't taste like onion at all. Filling, but I was really hoping for some real flavor from the sandwich (if I just wanted a meat base for vegetables, I'd have just gotten a burger!)

If/when I go back, I'll have to try to hit something with a more obvious flavor component (maybe the pork Cham had such luck with), and definitely keep with the soup. And maybe hit a dessert this time. They looked like they had a great selection of dessert.

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered

• Chili Cheddar Burger($7.79)
• Steak Fries
• Two onion rings
• Cup of Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup ($2.59)

As Mecha said, it was an extremely cold day out, so I suggested we hit some place with warm-your-bones food and that's how we arrived at Petrow's. The parking was a bit scarce. We ended up having to squeeze Moogle's car into a space a little up the hill in the back.

I made the mistake of ordering the cup of soup instead of the bowl. Hopefully I'll learn sooner than later that it's always better to go with a bowl. The Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup was a thick and cheesy "broth" with a generous, but not overpowering taste of ham. The potatoes were cubed with the skin left on and cooked perfectly. They weren't mushy at all.

The Chili Cheddar Burger was disappointing. It was a meat patty smothered with meaty chili with lettuce, pickle, and onion on the side. The bottom bun was soggy, the chili had no real flavor, and what little flavor the burger itself had was easily overpowered by the little bit of pickle and onion on top. The steak fries were passable. I left them until after the burger, so they were a bit more soggy than I would have liked. The onion rings weren't very onion-y, but the breading was nice and crunchy, so I can forgive that.

If I go back, I'll definitely be getting a full bowl of the Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup and I'll probably be avoiding any of their burgers.

==Moogle==
Ordered

• Monterrey Chicken Sandwich ($7.79)
• Substitute a cup of potato/ham soup in for fries
  

The others have described the soup pretty well, so I'll just say that I liked it a lot. The ham was not too strong but added nicely to the cheese and potato. I probably could have/should have gone with a bowl as well, but I decided to swap out my fries for the soup.

The sandwich was pretty simple. It had a flattened grilled chicken breast, two somewhat thin grilled slices of ham (not deli-thin), and swiss cheese on sourdough. I'm not sure if there was a dressing of some sort on it as well, but it came with pickle slices on the side. It made for a good sized sandwich lengthwise but wasn't terribly tall. I suggest slapping those pickles on there because they went really well with the sandwich. I was kinda surprised the others were disappointed because my sandwich was delicious. You could taste all the flavors. The swiss didn't stand out as swiss to me, but it might have been mild. It wasn't terribly filling, so it had me considering dessert. However, by the time the waitress came back, it had settled and I was ready to head out. Fries might have made it more filling.

I would come back to hopefully try some more of their soups and sandwiches. I'd probably avoid the chili burger at first, even though it sounded interesting from the menu. My wife had come along with us and ordered the chili cheddar burger as well. Her opinion of it was about the same as Maple's.

Saigon Resturant

Restaurant: Saigon Resturant
Address: 12100 W. Center Rd.
Website: N/A
Genres: Vietnamese
Check Constraints: None known
Chain: No | More Omaha Locations: No

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Egg Dropsoup ($2.15)
  
• Five Spice Chicken Wings($3.50)
  
• Five Spice Chicken ($6.25)
• Strawberry Bubble Tea ($3.25)

I do not like bubble tea. Well, that's an exaggeration. I kinda like the -tea- part of bubble tea, but the bubbles just will not do. I got some anyway, because the glass of water here came with a slice of cucumber in, and that's just not something I can go through a whole meal with as my only drink. Unfortunately, rather than 'strawberry', the flavor tasted rather strongly of strawberry bubble gum.

I also bear nothing but hatred for the egg dropsoup (that's how it's listed on the menu). Rather than the bowl of delicious liquid omelette that I expected and wanted, there was a pile of green onions floating on the top, and -regular- onions lurking in the bottom. The few spoonfuls of soup that I got were decent, but the onions just completely ruined it. On top of that, the five spice chicken wings were less than impressive. There were six of them, which is a plus, but I could hardly taste anything there. There was a bit of chicken flavor and a bit of spice, but it just wasn't that good.

From the appetizers other people ordered, the egg rolls were excellent, the spring rolls are something I need to remember I don't really care for, and the crab rangoon was good enough, if not outstanding.

After the wings, I was a little wary of the five spice chicken (once I got it, anyway. There was a wee mixup with the dish delivery and my first bite was a chunk of Cham's ginger chicken. Delicious, btw) but my concerns were entirely misplaced. There was only a modest serving of veggies, consisting of what we think was pickled daikon, plus pickled carrots and tomatoes. The tomatoes, obviously, went to a side dish, but as it so happens, I adore pickled carrots, and if that was daikon, I like pickled daikon, too. The chicken itself was a boneless breast done up in a five-spice glaze, rather than the dry, roasted surface of the wings, on top of a generous bed of rice, and it was high quality. Like, double plus would order again high quality.

In fact, the only thing here that I liked was the entrees, which I'm pretty sure we all sampled of each other's, because damn, it was high quality. MapleSyrup's barbeque wasn't as good as Moogle's, which was heavenly, but it was still pretty good, and came with the same helping of veggies as mine did, along with a delicious meatball of some sort. Mecha also ordered a plate of fried rice, which turned out to be freaking huge, and we pretty much all had some of that, and it was just as good as everything else.

My final recommendation here is dead simple. Skip the drinks, stick with the cucumber water. Skip the appetizers, just order a plate of fried rice to share among everybody. And then get as much in the way of main dishes as you think you can put away. They're delicious well beyond what their price would indicate.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Spring Rolls (4) ($3.50)
  
• Lemon Grass and Pepper Beef ($6.50)
  
• Combination Fried Rice ($6.25)
• Jasmine Bubble Tea ($3.25)

The spring rolls were fairly neutral, unfortunately. Strong cabbage and/or cilantro taste depending on the bite, not strong on other flavors. I actually did like the crab rangoon, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I will certainly admit that I could use some better examples of it to know what 'great' is, if this isn't it. It's certainly superior to what I've ever gotten in takeout, and equivalent to what I get at most sit-down restaurants. The five-spice wings were pretty decent, although I found them reminding me of the 'teriyaki' chicken appetizer I get from China Garden in texture and a bit in flavor. The egg rolls were delicious, but so few came. It was sad.

Also, I loves the bubble tea (and the cucumber water. Moogle's right. So crisp.) And jasmine is a flavor I do not get nearly enough of in everyday life. Oh, their bubble tea made me happy. On the other hand, I agree with ND's analysis of his, and I wouldn't much like it either with that flavor. Bleh. So good luck finding a bubble tea flavor you enjoy.

I've been getting in a bad habit of not managing breakfast recently (that I need to break. Again.) So I was hungry and made sure to get a couple dishes (to your great benfit, dear readers!) The combination fried rice had a really fantastic, deep flavor. I dare want to call it wok-hay (or like it), but I'm not enough of an expert in the subject to be sure. It might simply be the effects of a well seasoned pan. Either way, it was definitely the kind of fried rice you actually want to eat, not just, 'Well, it's on my plate and I'm not full yet.' Always a plus.

My lemongrass beef was also fantastic, as lemongrass is a flavor I've come to appreciate where I find it. It can be soft, or it can be powerful, and I really like it when it's used well as they did here. Just enough of it, mixed in with the other flavors. They do it with chicken and other dishes too, so no matter what your meat, I think they'll have you covered. Cham's chicken was pretty good, although it could use a little something in my opinion. Their pork they seem to do well, given Maple and Moogle's experience/dishes, and I don't think a pork dish will disappoint.

This is definitely a place to visit again when I can spare the time. Service was a bit inconsistent/slow with a slight mixup, but the main dish flavors are worth the trip. Bring a friend or a book for something to do while you wait!

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• Crab Rangoon (6) ($3.25)
  
• Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop ($7.95)
  

After commenting on the rather cheap soda prices ($1.25), I was told of a vicious rumor that they serve cans of soda (a particular peeve of mine), so I went for water this time. The water was actually interesting. Below the ice that filled only 1/4 to 1/2 the glass was floating a slice of cucumber. I'm not sure if it's a Vietnamese thing or just an attempt to be different or higher class, but the taste is noticeable and not necessarily a bad thing.

The Crab Rangoon were ok. The shell didn't taste of old grease and wasn't too hard, however I prefer my filling a bit sweeter. The spring rolls were spring rolls. They came with a peanut sauce (that's what Cham and Mecha claimed it was. I didn't taste any peanut in there) which had a definite kick to it. I'd say it helped the spring rolls along a bit. Overall, I agree with the others. Skip the appetizers and get a dish of fried rice for the table.

The Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop was a Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Chop on a bed of white rice with a slice of beef ball and some pickled daikon and tomato and cucumber slices for garnish. The slice of beef ball was delicious. It was juicy with a mild and not overpowering taste of beef. The next time I go to this place, I'll be looking for a dish that is nothing but 4 or 5 of these things. The pickled daikon, as ND said, was good. The Chop itself had a nice teriyaki taste. It was a thinner piece of meat about the size of my hand. It wasn't too dry and I generally liked it. It came with a side of some very thin, transparent orange sauce. I'd recommend staying away from it unless you're a spicehag. I did a quick dip of my fork into the sauce and took a taste and felt it in my throat for the next couple minutes.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Egg Roll and BBQ Pork Vermicelli ($6.99)

The cucumber water was really interesting. It wasn't overpowering, but you could definitely taste it. It had a really clean taste to it, and I wish more places would actually do that. The chicken wings were ok. They were mostly all actual wings, which is only somewhat surprising because "chicken wings" doesn't usually mean chicken wings any more. There are better things to get for your money though. Same goes for the crab rangoon. They were ok, but I'm not a fan of them in general. The spring rolls didn't impress me, but the egg rolls were good. They had more meat in them than you usually get. If you are getting an appetizer, go with these or, as was said above, a plate of fried rice.

Vermicelli is a type of short, thin noodle for those who didn't know (like me). There are so many types of noodles out there it's hard to keep up. I picked this dish because I overheard someone at the next table say they had good vermicelli, the BBQ pork dish sounded interesting, and Maple claimed the BBQ pork first. It came in a fairly large bowl with a side of the same or similar spicy sauce. I got the egg roll and BBQ combo for variety, but it didn't actually add anything to the dish. In fact, I think it reduced the amount of pork, and I am sad I didn't have more pork. It was in small pieces and was thoroughly cooked, but that made the flavor that much stronger. It was really good. I'd suggest only going for the straight BBQ bowl. The noodles were good and mixed with various spears of vegetables. I'm sure there were a few daikon and some bean sprouts. I forget what else. The problem is that the noodles and veggies are fairly plain by themselves. The sauce gives it a bit of kick and the pork gives it a bunch of flavor. If you want the egg rolls, get them on the side.

I have to mention that the service was a little slow, but only because there were maybe three people manning the building. I didn't see more than that. There may have been more cooks, but there wasn't nearly enough waitstaff.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Mango/Pineapple Bubble Tea ($3.65)
• Egg Rolls ($3.25)
• Ginger & Pepper Chicken ($5.95)

First off, I should mention that we decided to try Saigon based on the recommendation of a commenter to our Vietnamese-Asian Restaurant review! Thanks for the suggestion, and everyone feel free to suggest your favorite restaurant. We'll get around to it eventually!

Echoing what Moogle was saying, the service was pretty poor. It's my guess the waiter was new, as he couldn't identify some of the dishes when they came out, and we wound up almost sending Maple's entree back to the kitchen because some of the dishes went to the wrong people and we wound up with something nobody thought they'd ordered. It all got put right in the end, though, so nothing was lost but a little time. That said, the restaurant was clearly understaffed for the lunch rush. No telling whether that's from bad management or someone just calling in sick and them not having a replacement.

Still, the food was definitely worth the wait. I have to side with Mecha on the bubble tea issue, as mine had a good flavor. It was probably on the average for bubble teas I've had, so it winds up just being a question of finding the right flavor. For what it's worth, I've never had a citrus or mango bubble tea wind up horrible. The appetizers were all pretty forgettable... nothing bad, and nothing overly good, though I will say that the egg rolls were more full of pork than of cabbage and other stuffing substances, which made for a strong flavor you don't usually get. Also, I totally disagree with ND on the issue of the Five Spice Chicken Wings; they had a very excellent chicken flavor, a crispy outside, and a very light hint of five spice powder, rendering out into a flavor combination which I think I'm going to have to replicate with a roast chicken at some point.

It's tough making a call on my main lunch dish. The ginger chicken tasted very, very much of ginger. I like ginger - I really like ginger - but the flavor was pretty much a unilateral thing, swamping chicken, vegetables, and all the other ingredients in the dish. This wound up not being too much of a problem, as the portions here were pretty small for the main dishes, so I didn't get bored with it. The dishes are still a good value for the price, I think, but if you're here with a group, go for the family-style meal: order a bunch of stuff and taste bits off everyone else's dishes, like we did. You'll wind up fuller and you'll experience a lot more of the deliciousness here.

For the record, the dinner menu offers a far larger variety of food, the prices increase by about $1.20 per dish, and the portions increase accordingly. It seems they even offer the "dinner menu" for weekend lunches, so that's a great opportunity to try some interesting dishes without having to risk Saturday night traffic at Center and 120th.

Gerda's Bakery and Restaurant

Restaurant: Gerda's Bakery and Restaurant
Address: 5180 Leavenworth St.
Website: None.
Genres: Bakery, German
Check Constraints: None.
Chain: No. | More Omaha Locations: No.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• Diet Pepsi ($1.00)
• Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)
• Potato Soup
• German Potato Salad
• Red Cabbage
• Black Forest Cake ($3.00)
  

Just to get it out of the way for the sake of the search engines out there: the restaurant is named Gerda's Bakery, but the sign on the side of the building calls it Gerda's Bäckerie (hint: that's German for "bakery"), and the menus themselves call the place Gerda's Bavarian Stube ("stube" translating to "room", more or less). That's a lot of names for a single restaurant, but trying to pin Gerda's down to a single role is a tough task. Like the Lithuanian Kafe and Bakery, Gerda's has a bakery attached to it; said bakery will sell you fresh donuts, breakfast breads, and a nice cup of coffee in the morning. When you come in for lunch, you're handed a small menu - which lacks prices - giving you your pick from several types of sandwich or the daily special. As you might note, Thursday's special is the wienerschnitzel. Based on the dinner menus, which we mistakenly grabbed first, at night the place turns into a much more involved affair, offering several types of schnitzel and several other classic German dishes, as well as a reasonable selection of beers. It seemed very clear to all of us that writing a review of the lunch dishes was going to give us a mere taste of the possible experiences here. Still, we're primarily a lunch blog, so until we all head there for dinner (spoiler on this review; that dinner's an inevitability), all we can do is report on the lunch offerings.

Don't get me wrong when I say there's only sandwiches and the special, here. There's a decent array of sandwiches, and as I mentioned the special changes daily, so you can still experience quite a bit. The special appears to have the option of soup or salad; it's starting to get cold out there, so I chose soup. The potato soup here is different from that of Petrow's or other such places. There, the potato flavor often melded with the cream and cheese or ham flavors, if such existed. Here, the potato sat up, grabbed you by the tongue, and forced you to acknowledge its position as primary flavor in the soup. That's not horrible, by any means - the soup was delicious, and the chunks of potato in it were well-saturated with the background flavors of butter and cream. If you're a fan of baked potatoes without all the overloading of toppings that can go on, then this soup is definitely your deal.

Once we'd finished with the soup, it wasn't long until the lunches started coming out. The wienerschnitzel special, as I noted at the top of the post, comes with a German potato salad, and some red cabbage. The cabbage was tender and flavorful, with a light vinegar taste to it - it was served room temperature, but that wasn't any impediment to the deliciousness. The potato salad was good as well, presenting a nice tangy flavor to the tongue.

The wienerschnitzel itself was - and you may be sensing a trend - also delicious. In a lesser restaurant you might expect such a piece of pork meat to have been heavily breaded and then casually deep fried, but here it was instead lightly coated in breading and pan-cooked until delicious. It eschewed spicing in favor of letting the flavor of the breading and pork shine through, which I think was an excellent decision. Don't look for an overwhelming taste power like chili or pizza here - instead, let the ingredients speak for themselves in their simplicity. Trust me, you won't be bored.

It would have been criminal to not try something from the bakery, so I opted for a piece of the Black Forest cake. And let me tell you, I was not disappointed. It was a generous piece, constructed out of homemade chocolate cake and glued together with hand-whipped cream... and that isn't even the best part. The cake was dotted with brandied cherries, and from the taste of it, they had not been shy about the brandy part of the equation. In fact, the brandied cherry taste seeped throughout the entire cake - I passed around pieces of nothing but the chocolate cake part, and everyone agreed that the taste was not only there, but strong. You might consider it a peculiar sort of German tiramisu, in fact. The alcohol is not uncommon in Germany, but it's decently rare in the US. Definitely grab a slice of this, but you might not want more than that if you're driving.

Gerda's is a fantastic culinary gem, and you can be sure that at some point we'll be back to review their dinner offerings - and their beers. There's sure to be a lager there with my name on it.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Turkey Club ($7.25)
• Potato Chips
  
• Pickle
• Bowl of Potato Soup ($3.50)
  
• German Chocolate Cake ($3.00)
  

First things first. The soup came out early, and though I much prefer the Petrow's or Brazen Head ham + bacon + cheese potato soup, this was an excellent potato soup and I happily devoured the entire bowl. It was worth every last penny, especially after a light dose of salt and pepper. At least one person was disappointed at not having more of the soup, and jealous of my comparatively large bowl. Personally, I'm quite glad I learned from my prior mistake and opted for the bowl instead of the cup.

The club was very, very impressive. A double decker sandwich, for starters, on your choice of bread, and this being a bakery, their selection is pretty large. The sandwich was essentially nothing but tomatoes, bacon, and turkey. A LOT of turkey. No, more than that. An entire turkey was slaughtered just to make this sandwich. It was definitely an upper class turkey, too, possibly having worn a monacle before its slaughter. The bacon was done just well enough to be easy to bite off, but not so well done that it tasted even close to burnt. And the tomatoes, well, they stayed on the plate, sadly, but we all have our little foibles.

The german chocolate cake does not include alcohol, so it's safe for the designated driver, unlike the black forest cocktail Cham got. I actually turned down a refill of water for a moment while ordering the cake, but quickly rethought my decision. As it so happens, I didn't actually need the refill. The cake was as moist as it could be without falling apart. It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most delicious german chocolate cake I have ever had the pleasure to eat, and I took considerable pleasure in doing so.

Really, the only bad thing about Gerda's was the parking. I would be most happy to return here to try the dinner, as there were a number of things on the menu that looked enticing. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be after the holidays.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)
• Potato Soup
• German Potato Salad
• Red Cabbage
• Apfelstrudel ($1.50?)
  

I opted for the special as well. Most of the other options aren't necessarily German, unlike the daily specials. I echo the sentiments above. It really is a pretty simple but delicious soup. It's almost like a bowl of diced potato cooked until extremely soft with just a bit of cream and butter.

The potatoes that came with the dish were actually pretty similar. They were a bit firmer and had more of a tangy flavor that Cham mentioned. It might surprise you if you're not expecting it, but this type of potato side seems typical. Edelweiss in Bellevue had them as well. The cabbage was delicious. It had a bit of a sweet taste along with the very light vinegar taste. The schnitzel was just right. There wasn't any topping with it, but it didn't need it. It had a good flavor by itself.

From the bakery, I got an apfelstrudel, a pastry with apple filling and powdered sugar on top. It came somewhat chilled and was tasty. It was light and flaky, and there was just enough filling. It is a fairly lightweight dessert, and the price is pretty lightweight too.

It's a pretty nice place. The people are friendly. The parking is a little awkward. They have only four or five spaces in front of the actual restaurant, but they have a parking lot with their name on it a little ways east of the building. Now that I know where it is, I'll be sure to stop by now and then. I was afraid that there weren't any more German restaurants after Edelweiss closed.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Reuben ($7.??)
  
• Potato Soup
• Chips
• German Chocolate Cake ($3.00)
  

I am the aforementioned one who wished I'd gotten more soup. It was such delicious soup. It's been nice to have things that I hated in my childhood (fish, potato soup, etc) done right, and tasting delicious.

A note: Getting chips, don't bother. They're a bag of fairly standard chips, and I won't be making that mistake again! Now, on to the sandwich. The Reuben was a substantial sandwich, exactly what it seemed. Corned Beef, Sauerkraut, Thousand Island. Couldn't really taste the swiss, if it was there, that is apparently in some. It was on rye, and it was really hard for me to look at and eat at the same time, but it was fantastic. I've tried reubens here and there in town, and they've always been a bit different. My guess is that this is the most 'traditional' Reuben, and I guess I like tradition. Lots of meat, reasonably messy as such things go, pretty well balanced with a lot of strong flavors, which is something I always appreciate. If there was swiss, as I said, I missed it, which I guess is a ding, but there was no obvious swiss to my eyes from the side. Just the mass of meat and kraut and dressing.

The german chocolate cake was, as ND pointed out, very good. I always expect these to be dense and difficult to eat, but this delivered on a better chocolate cake experience.... although I'm going to have to go with the black forest next time. I like cherries, and I like brandy, and nobody lets me drive anywhere anyway. All in all, the parking's the only thing that makes this a downer for me, and there's a lot nearby as Moogle pointed out. Oh, also. You do not pick up the dinner menu at lunch. Do not make Gerda angry at you. (This is also why we have to go back another time.)

==MapleSyrup==
Ordered:

• Diet Pepsi ($1.00)
• Wienerschnitzel Special ($8.00)
• Potato Soup
• German Potato Salad
• Red Cabbage

The lunch menu is unfortunately scant, comprising some sandwiches and then the daily special. Feeling a bit Germany and having never had it, I opted for the Wienerschnitzel that was on special. The potato salad and red cabbage that accompanied the special had a refreshing, mild pickled flavor to them. The potato soup was very simple, not featuring any ham or bacon or cheese, but was still delicious.

As I said, I've never had Wienerschnitzel and have actually never had occasion to find out what it is. All I knew was that it was some preparation of pork--maybe. I've spent the last 25 years in Indiana. I've been to many state and county fairs. I've been to many family and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. This Wienerschnitzel was the best breaded pork tenderloin I've ever had. The breading was light and had a delicious buttery flavor. The meat inside was tender and had just the right amount of give as I bit into it. And despite it looking like a medium-sized portion it was filling and satisfying.

Besides the parking, the only other issue I had was that it was a can o' soda. I can understand being a small business and not wanting to bother with the fees and trouble of getting a soda fountain, but say on your menu what you're offering! Nevertheless, I look forward to going back for dinner.

Omaha Food Blog Shenanigans

First off, let me say Happy New Year, Omaha.

There, pleasantries out of the way. It's been a little over a year since the four original geeks started typing their thoughts out and sending them into the ether under the assumption that other people might give a damn about what we thought about food. Since that time, we've added a fifth to our number, seen our daily hit counts trend upward, and been lucky enough to have some big names from the Omaha blogging scene drop by and leave comments (snekse from http://www.gastronomicfightclub.com/ and The Critical Wife from http://omahacritic.com/, to name-drop). Snekse in particular has been very welcoming, and has been pushing for a while in an attempt to meld the disparate pieces of Omaha food culture on the internet into some kind of coherent whole.

In that vein, I present a link to Gastronomic Fight Club, where snekse announces the creation of the Omaha Food Bloggers blogroll. As he notes in his post, most of the food bloggers for Omaha aren't professional critics (this makes G.R(F) the Pee-Wee Football of food blogs, I suppose). Since a lot of us we do this in our spare time, updates can be occasionally sporadic as the demands of Real Life rear their ugly head. With the amalgamated blog roll, you're guaranteed to get the fastest delivery of content without having to find and set up feeds for each individual blog.

When I've recovered a little more from last night's celebrations, we have a review of a truly interesting restaurant to post, and I will get the feed set up on the sidebar of the blog. I'm sure I speak for all the geeks when I say we thank you for your readership, and we look forward to eating our way through another year of Omaha cuisine, and then telling you all about it.

Fuddrucker's

Restaurant: Fuddrucker's
Address: 7059 Dodge Street - At the corner of 72nd and Dodge.
Website: http://www.fuddruckers.com/
Genres: Burgers
Check Constraints: Short-order.
Chain: Yes. | More Omaha Locations: Yes.

==Chamelaeon==
Ordered:

• #2 Combo ($9.29)
  
• 2/3rd Lb Burger
• Fries
  
• Drink
• Black & Bleu Specialty Burger ($1.00)

I admit to feeling guilty each time we review a large chain restaurant for this blog. In some sense the restaurants clearly fit within our bailiwick, since they are restaurants, they are in Omaha, and you could eat at them as easily as we do. But on the other hand these places are already well-reviewed and, excepting quality issues, they're pretty much homogeneous between locations. On the gripping hand, however, we could look at these reviews as sacrifices, of a sort - us throwing ourselves on the hand grenade of food construction manuals and paper hats, screaming "Find somewhere else to eat!"... or perhaps a less dramatic metaphor would work.

Regardless, we went to Fuddrucker's this week. We have eaten here before - in fact, before we'd started the blog - so we weren't going in blind. The location is slightly new, though. They revamped the building, and in the process they seem to have decided that the solution to the parking problem in that entire retail corner was to add more stores alongside it. It might be because I was trained as an engineer, but that seems hardly ideal.

But we are here to review the food, and so we shall. Mecha ordered some nachos, which arrived early as an appetizer should, but which were thoroughly underwhelming. In fact, you might call that the theme of the meal itself. I initially attempted to order a 2/3 lb buffalo burger, but they only do the buffalo and turkey patties in the 1/2 lb sizes, so be forewarned. It also turns out that you can add special toppings to the meals for not much, so doing that's a better price option than trying to assemble a combo around a specific burger. The order-takers will helpfully do this for you - at least, ours did. As is usual at Fuddrucker's, ordering was a pretty painless process.

I only wish the same could be said for the burger. I recieved a heaping helping of blue cheese on top of a large patty of beef, with a sparse scattering of caramelized onions on top. It sounds like a delicious combination, doesn't it? That's what I thought, until I bit into the burger and realized that the whole deal was mostly tasteless. Once I got to the midpoint of the cheese pile, where it was roughly half an inch deep, I finally got some rather empty blue cheese flavor which completely overpowered the already-weak beef. I didn't put any ketchup on the thing, and I'm glad, because if I had I would have tasted little else but ketchup.

It was probably a mistake to review this place with the memories of Brewburger's so fresh in our minds - certainly when comparing it to, say, Burger King, I'd claim that Fuddrucker's wins without a moment's hesitation. But it suffers from the inconsistency and lack of quality ingredients that a lot of chain restaurants have, without really dropping its price point much.

==NinjaDebugger==
Ordered:

• Bacon & Swiss Chicken Sandwich($9.29)
  
• Fries
  
• Drink
• Strawberry Shake (3.50?)

They forgot to give me a flasher, and took my recipt when I went to get my food, so I'm a little fuzzy on the prices, but this sounds about right. Mecha ordered some chicken nachos as an appetizer. I think we all sort of regret that. The chips were on the stale side, the chicken had an undertone of fish, and didn't have much taste otherwise, and the cheese sauce was awful. I didn't try any of the other assorted toppings, but given the way they continued to sit on the pile of untouched nachos, they can't have been much better.

As far as the fries go, they're solid fries, and I identified the spice coating them liberally as Lowry's seasoning salt, or a variant thereof. They're very sturdy fries, about halfway between 'fries' and 'steak fries', and frankly, they were one of the best parts of the meal, especially given Fuddrucker's excellent selection of things to dip them in.

The shake was a classically prepared one, rather than from a fast food shake machine, which is a tick in their favor. It filled the glass and had plenty left over in the metal shake cup, and was made with real strawberries, putting it in the "worth the money" class of shakes.

Unfortunately, that takes me to the sandwich. It is very, very difficult to get a chicken, bacon, and swiss sandwich wrong, but somehow, Fuddruckers managed it. the swiss cheese was fine, their toppings bar was fine, but the bacon didn't taste like bacon, and the chicken didn't taste like chicken, and both of them were hard to get a solid bite out of, making the sandwich a tasteless chore to eat. For the price I paid, I'd much rather have gone back to Brewburgers and tried another meat that I've never had before.

That's pretty much the conclusion we reached halfway through the meal. Fuddruckers costs about the same as Brewburgers, but has worse appetizers, worse burgers, worse drinks, and a worse atmosphere.

==Moogle==
Ordered:

• 1/2 lb Chipotle BBQ burger meal ($9.59)
  
• Fries
  
• Drink

I had actually forgotten about the nachos, and that's about all I have to add about them. The poor burger looked so small in the giant bun it came with. It had a little bit of "chipotle" bbq sauce and a couple strips of bacon on top. I ordered it medium-well, and it came with no pink in the middle, which is fine with me. I threw on some lettuce, pickle, and pico de gallo from the topping bar. The ketchup pumps were out, but they still had some bottles of ketchup there. The burger itself was decent. I didn't really taste the chipotle part of the chipotle bbq. The fries were decent steak fries with a little seasoning. For the price, I wasn't impressed. It's a little more expensive than an equivalent burger at some place like Applebee's or Chilli's. I didn't go to Brewburgers, so I can't compare there. I suppose the draw for Fuddrucker's over another chain with burgers would be the number of options and speed. You can get any burger (well, beef burgers, apparently) anywhere from 1/3 to a full pound and can order it at your preferred level of doneness. There are plenty topping options as well. I would eat here again, but it probably won't be my first choice.

==Mecha==
Ordered:

• Tricked-Out Chicken Nachos ($7.??)
• 1/2 lb Chili burger meal ($9.59)
  
• Fries
  
• Drink

Okay, need to get this done. Moogle and the others are right, really, on the nachos front. They were just not that good. Standard 'tough to get stuff' problems. Very meh. Figured we should give it a shot, though.

The chili burger isn't on their online menu list that I can find, so I'm guessing on the price. The chili on the burger actually kinda looked decent, but the flavor was awful weak. Tough to get a good consistent bite of flavor on it. Not unlike the fries at Brewburgers, in that respect, but the difference is that this is a big mouthful of burger, not a fry trying to pick up a meaty cheesy chili. It should be more flavorful or consistent. The fries were okay, but just fries. The actual burger was solid, to my tastes, but... well, I didn't just get a burger, I got a burger with stuff on it. I think it had cheese on it, but I don't remember much about it.

The overall is more or less how ND put it. Coulda gone to Brewburgers and gotten better for the same cost. I remember the place as much better before the change.  The big plus here is the easy basic fixings addition, and that's nice, but.. yeah. If I go again for whatever reason, I'm getting a bog standard cheeseburger, putting some normal stuff on it, and calling it a day.