The Best $3 I Ever Spent!

Friday night we ventured out to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT.  I wanted to eat at one of their newest restaurants:  Bobby's Burger Palace. It's been a slow process with me, but I have really come around to being quite the Bobby Flay fan. I think it's been the throwdowns where you get to see a little more of his personality that have really won me over. You can tell he HATES to lose! And I LOVE the gals in his kitchen who give him such a hard time, Stephanie & Miriam. So, being a fan, I wanted to support the restaurant in general, but I was also curious just how good it would be. After all, it was just burgers and fries.

 To say that it was absolutely worth every minute of the 40 mile drive in the grey, drizzling rain fighting Taylor Swift concert and Friday night casino traffic, would be an understatement. I'd go back in a heartbeat....not many places I'd rather go in fact......a lobster roll at Abbott's? Sushi in West Hartford?  Mexican anything at Puerto Vallarta in Newington? I'd have to give it serious consideration before I gave up a chance to go back to the Burger Palace. But it's just burgers and fries. What's the big deal, you say? 

Well, maybe it would help you understand if I set the scene: counters lined with bar stools set close together, stark white plastic cafeteria plates, paper napkin wrapped forks, a myriad of sauces in squeeze bottles (a personal no-no in my book), paper menus complete with $6.50 grilled cheese sandwiches, $7.50 burgers, $3.00 fries and every sort of milkshake you can imagine all in an over-lit, hospital white, glaring restaurant "nook" tucked in the back part of one of the casinos. Ready to book your ticket to New England just to eat here? Yeah, I was a little disappointed too.  It was nothing like I thought. At least Chili's gives you a real plate on a wooden table complete with colorful Mexican tile.  Whatever....it was $7.50 a burger, it was an experience. Chalk one up to "well, at least we can say we tried it."

What was it that changed my mind so dramatically? The burgers?  David ordered the Dallas Burger: spice crusted burger with coleslaw, monterey jack, and BBQ Sauce - hold the pickles. I went with the Santa Fe: queso sauce, pickled jalapenos, and blue corn chips. An order of sweet potato fries to share. I try not to eat too many chips or fries.....I'd rather save the calories for something else. I'd eat a few and David could have the rest.  He knows the routine. We waited.

The burgers came out. A pickle on the side of David's. Not mine. He passes it over. Short of the lone pickle spear, there is nothing on our plates but two burgers.  Not a piece of curly lettuce with a tomato slice. Not a small spoon of pasta, potato or green salad to offset the white plastic. No cheap piece of cantaloupe or a couple apple slices. No small ceramic container of bright red ketchup or yellow mustard. Nothing. Nada. Just the burger. Really, it kinda reminded me of a prison burger, served on plain, uninteresting plates you could drop or throw and would never break. Just a burger as in: what do you expect, you're in jail. You want a garnish on china, don't kill anyone. It was almost unappetizing.....one rung from wrapped in paper and served from under a heating lamp. But even lacking the visual presentation, the burgers were pretty good. Fresh bread, juicy burger, a little spicy kick. It was okay.  I still contend that SOMETHING on the plate to make it "pretty" would have been much appreciated.

Still confused as to why I would give up the steamed lobster, arroz con pollo or bento box in a heartbeat?  It's all about what came to the table moments after the now affectionately named "Prison Burger."  An order of bright orange sweet potato fries served in a tin cup (loving this whole hobo/prison theme) lightly sprinkled with the perfect amount of course sea salt and a side of sunny lemon-yellow honey mustard horseradish sauce in the cermanic container I had been searching for earlier.  I took one and dipped it in the sauce. I don't like honey mustard, but the horseradish part intrigued me and the fact that it looked thin instead of thick, made me go for it. 

Have you ever seen a melodrama?  You know that part in the play when the strapping young hero first lays eyes on the young, fair lady in distress and the piano music kicks in and his eyes get as big as saucers and you know that all he wants to do it kiss her because he thinks she's the most beautiful woman in the world?  You know what I'm talking about?  Okay, it wasn't that dramatic, but that was one good tin of fries!  The sauce had that fresh horseradish kick.  I went back for another.....and another....and another.  The tin looked smaller and smaller as the fires went down.  David reached in and pulled out two.  Not to be out-eaten I reached in and grabbed two.  They were perfectly cooked, perfectly salted, perfectly sauced.  We ooooed and gooooed and moaned and licked our fingers.....we ate every last one stopping only out of guilt to eat a bite of  hamburger.  When the fries were gone, we looked longingly at the plate.  "Those were really good," David said.  "I could eat a whole 'nother plate full" I added.  "You want some more?" David asked with a spark of hope like a child finding out there's one more gift to open  on Christmas morning.  "YEAH!" I said.  We ordered another plate and waited.  I'm sure it was 5 or 10 minutes, but it felt like an eternity.  Where were those fries?  Would they be as good as the last batch? 

I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at this:  I don't think there is anything in the world I could have bought for $3 that would have brought me more joy than that second plate of PERFECT sweet potato fries with honey mustard horseradish sauce. We ate every last one, and purposely deciding not to be gluttons, left it at two plates.  (But in my heart I know, I could have eaten a third).  If you EVER get a chance to stop in at a Bobby's Burger Palace, don't let the ambience or the lack of frills keep you from it......RUN in, sit down, order the sweet potato fries and then ask for a menu.  You won't be disappointed.  And if you now want to buy that ticket to New England, we've got room for you.....Come on!  Our charge for room and board: a $3 plate of fries! ;)