Erring on the Side of Cholesterol
Flies in a “restaurant” do not bother me. My favorite meals are usually served in bowling alleys right next to a table of rented shoes. If the food is so greasy the bread glistens, I am known to propose to the chef. I am a dive burger hunter. The Dive burger or Durger is automatically and intrinsically superior to the fast-food chain burger. It is also superior to the sit-down, crazy-crap-on-the-wall, theme restaurant burgers. If you disagree with any of the above, go no further, as it will profit you little.
That being said, let me greet those fellow travelers who remain. Hello and welcome; we have much to discuss. Just as there are levels to paradise there are also better and worse dive hamburgers. There is always a melty-er cheese a sautéed-er onion or a double thicker double patty.
I have often driven down Eighteenth Street and succumbed to the siren song of Kitok’s, a classic Asian dive renowned through-out Texas. I have never been disappointed. Last Saturday, however, I took the road a little further than usual to visit Bill and Bob’s Restaurant, a dive I had wondered about for a while as people named Bob usually know their grease.
We climbed out of the car (my girlfriend Rachel went with me) and walked across the white stone parking lot. When I opened the door I felt immediately at home. The walls are lined with sports clippings and clever comics about football and growing old. There are also clip art advertisements for menu items to encourage your continued consumption of Chicken fried steak. There are a lot of odds and ends that hang next to them but every piece of memorabilia was placed their by someone to whom it meant something, not a corporate decorator.
We passed the table of older gentlemen who had, by the looks of the table finished their food long ago and were still sitting around shooting breeze and avoiding mowing the lawn. When we got to the counter a woman named Lisa smiled at me; she was wearing a note book paper sign on her back declaring it was her birthday. I smiled back and looked at the menu above the counter.
Nothing on the menu was over seven dollars. I order the double cheese burger basket with onion rings. My girlfriend (not being the dive connoisseur) tried to order the club sandwich. The cook in front of the grill heard her order and said: “You don’t want that.” Rachel giggled and changed her order to a cheese burger with French fries. The cook laughed and nodded his head. As he began to prepare the food, I saw him reach for a box of pre-made patties and my heart sank a little.
We paid and sat at a booth near the door. Rachel tried to shoo away the flies but I let them come and smiled knowingly. When the food came out, the buns glistened proudly like beacons of freedom in the dark night. Rachel tried to wipe of the grease with a napkin. I pried the burger apart to apply condiments and the cheese held the bun fast to the meat; this is always a good sign.
When I bit down at last, I was satisfied. The durger was warm, thick, and juicy. The burger gets a B+; thick but not outrageous, good grease and good cheese. There were no specialty house-burgers to provide an outrageously creative taste, but still there was evidence of good fundamentals and a solid deliver.
The real test for me, however, is always the onion rings. Onion rings are the delicate art form of the dive joint and they hold the power redeem a disappointing durger. French fries and tots are nice, but they are an easy win. Onion rings are the true test. AS is often is the case; you can have an onion completely encased in batter, like an astronaut isolated from the harsh realties of space. This is never good as the onion goes brown and never reached its full potential for sweetness. Not to mention that the onion is more likely to slip out of the batter-ring leaving you with a soggy strip of onion and a crunchy fat batter ring. On the other side is the ring that is not battered enough and looks like a skinny kid with scabs, hard crispies barely hanging on to a brown onion. A true artist can navigate this, the Scylla and Charibdis of fry cookery, and come out with something truly beautiful.
Unfortunately I was to be disappointed by yet another maximum security onion ring and a small serving to boot. That and the twenty cent refill charge on the soda force me to give Bill and Bob’s restaurant an enthusiastic B-, better than most but not as good as some.    [01 Dec 2003 22:10:01]

Food:    Service:    Ambiance:    Overall: 
Recommended Dishes: Cheese Burger

     ­Dirty Rob, Prof Darden's Class