At first glance the Pancake Egg Burger looks like something I created. In fact, it bears an almost eerie similarity to the Pancake Burrito Burger that I came up with when I found a McDonald’s near my work that served breakfast all day long. Fear not though blog readers, I didn’t just recycle an old idea of mine to come up with something new to write about, I actually found this sandwich on the specials menu when I stopped for lunch one day recently at John’s Sandwich Shop.
In a way the Pancake Egg Burger is actually a healthier alternative to my Pancake Burrito Burger. Whereas I used hamburger patties in mine John’s instead uses turkey sausage. While my version used regular McDonald’s pancakes as the bun, the Pancake Egg Burger uses wheat pancakes in their place. You get the idea…
Let’s forget about the differences for a second though. Do you know what the two sandwiches have in common? They were both delicious, but more importantly I was able to eat both of them for lunch instead of breakfast. Seriously, can more restaurants please just start serving breakfast all day long? Thanks.
Last summer the big hit at state fairs across the country was deep fried beer, but this year it seems like deep fried butter has taken its place as the completely ridiculous food to try. The Wisconsin State Fair started this past Thursday, and can you guess what my first stop was when I headed down there? Yep, the tent that was selling deep fried butter!
Deep fried butter (at least the stuff served at the fair here in Milwaukee) consists of an entire stick of butter which is cut into five pieces that are then wrapped in wontons, deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
If I can give you one tip if you ever try deep fried butter it’s that biting directly into the middle of one of the pieces is a huge mistake. I did that exact thing when I took my first bite and had the pleasure of warm butter squirting all over my entire arm.
Aside from covering myself in butter though I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I absolutely loved the deep fried butter. Seriously, there has to be something wrong with me. No one should actually enjoy this stuff right?
For as much as I liked it though, I kind of wish that I’d just split an order of it with someone instead of eating all five pieces myself. About 15 minutes after finishing it all I could feel was all the warm butter swishing around in my stomach, which isn’t the greatest feeling when you’re walking around at a crowded fair and it’s 80 degrees outside.
It seems like every bar or restaurant out there has been adding gigantic burgers or crazy eating challenges to their menus lately, and you know what? I’m totally cool with that. I stopped at Off the Clock Bar & Grill recently for dinner and that’s where I came across the Clock Stopper, a 1/3 pound Angus burger topped with Cheddar cheese and onions and served with two grilled cheese sandwiches as the bun. Oh yeah, and if that wasn’t enough the grilled cheese sandwiches also have bacon in them.
Now, Off the Clock wasn’t the first place to come up with the idea for a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches that act as the bun. In fact, a chain of ice cream shops named Friendly’s announced a similar burger a good four or five months before Off the Clock even opened. Seeing as how the closest Friendly’s is 223 miles from where I live though I was plenty happy to try Off the Clock’s version of this monster.
As you can probably imagine, having two grilled cheese sandwiches in lieu of a bun makes for a pretty tall burger. I actually considered eating one grilled cheese on its own first and then pulling the two pieces of bread from the second one apart and putting the burger patty in between them. Then I came to my senses and realized how silly that would be. If I just wanted a regular burger with a grilled cheese sandwich on the side I could have ordered that, but this was the Clock Stopper; a burger meant to be eaten the exact way they serve it, with one grilled cheese sandwich sitting below the burger patty and a second one resting comfortably on top of it.
I’m glad I decided to eat the Clock Stopper the way it was intended because getting a mouth full of gooey cheese and bacon at both the top and bottom of each delicious bite was a definite plus. As I was finishing up my burger the waitress mentioned to me that the record for the most Clock Stopper burgers eaten in one sitting is two. That certainly sounds like a challenge to me…
I came across this Mama Mia! Pizza Beer in the Sprecher Brewery gift shop and just couldn’t resist buying a bottle to try. The beer (invented by a husband and wife in their home brewery, but bottled by Sprecher) is flavored with oregano, basil, tomato and garlic. Although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be it really wasn’t all that great either, and I’ll tell you why.
The creators of Pizza Beer state that their goal was “to create a beer that would pair with a wide variety of foods, especially pizza.” You know the taste you have in your mouth a couple minutes after you’ve finished eating a slice of pizza? That’s sort of what this beer tastes like. The reason pizza and beer go so well together though is because they compliment each other. No one wants to take a bite of pizza and then wash it down with a beer that tastes similar to what they just ate. It would be like eating Thanksgiving dinner and then washing it down with a glass of gravy. It just doesn’t make sense.
This beer would actually be a lot better if you drank it without eating pizza at the same time, but if you’re going to be drinking something that leaves the taste of pizza in your mouth you might as well just eat some pizza and drink a beer you actually like instead.
I’d never seen lamb tacos offered at a Mexican restaurant before I decided to stop at Poco Loco Cantina one day for lunch, so when I noticed them on the menu I knew that I had to give them a try.
Even though I eat tons of meat I felt bad about eating lamb for some reason, but Poco Loco serves free range lamb that are never tethered or raised in confinement, so at least I know that the lamb I ate that day probably had a pretty sweet life before it ended up in my tacos.
I’m not sure if it was the fact that the lambs served by Poco Loco are raised in a nice wide open pasture or if it was just because I’m so used to only having the choice between chicken, beef and steak at most Mexican restaurants, but these were some of the best tacos I’ve had in recent memory.
I’m not a big fan of sweets, so when it came time for desert I originally passed until the waitress told me about the Poco Loco Banana; a deep fried banana covered in chocolate sauce, cinnamon, whipped cream and a strawberry that was cut to resemble a flower. “You had me at ‘deep fried’” I replied to her as I immediately ordered one, along with another margarita. The banana ended up being the second good lunch decisions I made that day, and was the perfect way to end my meal.
At first glance the Pancake Egg Burger looks like something I created. In fact, it bears an almost eerie similarity to the Pancake Burrito Burger that I came up with when I found a McDonald’s near my work that served breakfast all day long. Fear not though blog readers, I didn’t just recycle an old idea of mine to come up with something new to write about, I actually found this sandwich on the specials menu when I stopped for lunch one day recently at John’s Sandwich Shop.
