monsoonmartin

Monsoon Martin’s Red Robin, Red Robin Forecast

Monday, 3 December 2007

First, the weather…

Monday 12/3 very windy, mostly cloudy and cold with a few breaks for sun possible in the afternoon. Sustained winds of 25 to 35mph with gusts above 50mph are expected. High today 42, low tonight 22 with a few flurries in the area.

Tuesday 12/4 partly to mostly sunny, windy and colder. High 35, low 21.

Wednesday 12/5 cloudy and cold with snow showers and flurries in the afternoon, accumulating a coating to a half-inch at most. High 34, low 24.

Thursday 12/6 sunny and clear with increasing cloudiness late. High 37, low 25.

Friday 12/7 mostly cloudy with rain and snow showers in the afternoon, with no appreciable accumulation. High 40, low 28.

The weekend a bit more (seasonably) mild with highs in the low to mid 40s and lows in the upper 20s.

Next week colder toward midweek with highs on Thursday and Friday barely getting above freezing and overnight lows in the teens.

Beyond still cold, but no major winter storms on the horizon.

I first want to congratulate the Governor Mifflin Mustangs football squad, along with my coach and colleague Mick Vecchio, on an outstanding 12-2 season. Mifflin's accomplishments were undiminished by Saturday’s District championship loss to an astonishingly talented Harrisburg team in Hersheypark Stadium. Mick’s 100^th win as a head coach will just have to wait until Mifflin’s next game—in August 2008 against rival Wilson!

The highlight of the evening was my first ever visit to a Red Robin restaurant. Red Robin, for the uninitiated, claims to be the World’s Greatest Gourmet Burger Makers. As some of you know, I am a connoisseur of hamburgers and therefore felt it was incumbent upon me to confirm or refute the veracity of this extravagant claim. I even participated in a burger study out at OSU for which I was paid little and fed cold burgers, but in which I got the thrilling opportunity to expound on the thickness, texture, and juiciness of the various specimens to my heart’s content.

The restaurant’s décor is typical good-time strip-mall fare: quirky photos, loud signs, a cacophony of sight and sound. One unusual touch was a television monitor built into the floor of the waiting area; this was negated, however, by a loud and cramped game room that featured a game called “Buck Hunter.” The physical layout of the restaurant is extremely poor, with cramped walkways leaving very little room to wait for a table (our wait was just over 20 minutes) or maneuver around—say, to the lavatory, which was located in a terribly inconvenient place, was filthy, and had a very slippery floor that almost caused Monsoon to do a split at a very inopportune moment.

Seated at long last, we found our waitress to be attentive; she brought our drink requests in a reasonable amount of time. We settled in to peruse the menu, which was an oversized laminated job with cutesy entrée names and lots of colorful graphics. One of my dining companions ordered the Royal Red Robin Burger, which is essentially a standard bacon cheeseburger topped with a fried egg. Other choices included burgers topped with jalapenos, crumbled bleu cheese, guacamole, pickle relish, grilled pineapple, and much more.

Since this was going to be my virgin voyage into the world of Red Robin, I thought it best to sample its claim to fame, its signature burger: the Red Robin Bacon Cheeseburger (henceforth, RRBC), which the menu claims is the “best bacon cheeseburger in the world.” It arrived in approximately 12 minutes, which seemed to take longer than other tables around us but was not an inordinate amount of time. And now I shall pronounce my judgment on the RRBC:

The RRBC is among the top ten bacon cheeseburgers my mouth has ever had the good fortune to wrap itself around. (Of the others, two certainly are to be had at Fuddruckers and the Cracker Barrel; the remaining ones’ names escape me, but are not franchises. Mrs. Monsoon, do you recall?)

The burger was done medium, just as I had ordered it, topped with tomatoes, lettuce, a light slathering of mayonnaise, bacon, and cheese. The nicest, most thoughtful touch (especially for a fussy-pants like me) was that the hind third of the burger was wrapped in wax paper, making it easy to hold without having burger grease, mayo and viscous cheeselets dripping onto the hand.

The burger featured in the photo above contains onions and onion rings under the burger; mine did not contain such ingredients. The photo is included for illustrative purposes only.

The RRBC seamlessly blended these ingredients into a beefy, juicy treat for the palate. The bun was nice, though it had sesame seeds, and if I had my druthers, there would have been none. The lettuce was of the shredded variety, which I normally eschew, but it worked fine in the context of the sandwich. The tomatoes were “end slices,” which should be discarded, but the restaurant was very busy and such trifles reasonably (but inexcusably) get lost in the shuffle. The cheese and bacon were outstanding, though not the best I have ever had. Finally, the “bottomless” fries—so-called because one can apparently continue ordering and eating said side items until one explodes or dies—were nice. Thick and potatoey, but also crisp on the exterior. Quite satisfying.

And although the cost of the burgers ($8.99 for most burgers, including the RRBC; more for “Knife and Fork” burgers or other specialty items) was a bit dear, the sight of seeing my perplexed colleague serenaded with a birthday song—though it wasn’t her birthday—due to my actions was priceless. (Happy Red Robin Birthday, Karen!!)

Over all, I was pleased and will return at a time when the establishment might be a bit less jam-packed with overeaters—and on such a visit, I might try some of the more exotic toppings (like, say, onion rings). On a scale of one to ten, then:

Ambiance                5

Bathrooms               3

Value                         7

Service                      8

Burger                       8.5

Monsoon