A few days before, at a Llywelyn's Pub, I joke-not-joked that I'd never order a burger that comes…read moreon an English muffin, because then I'd have to eat it. Yesterday, at Schlafly Tap Room, I did just that.
My excuse is that I didn't read the menu as closely as I should have. I don't read well anyway, and it was late on what had been a long, difficult Monday--a manic Monday, if you will. I wished it was still Sunday.
I'd just run five miles with a group that meets once a month, on the third Monday. But they alternate between here and another location, so they're not here that often, and after last night, they might not be back.
Also, they might not offer a burger that comes on a regular bun. I know they have a few sandwiches that come on hoagie rolls or toast. If they just happened to a random, lone hamburger bun in the back for some reason, perhaps for emergencies, it would have been easy enough to ask them to use that instead.
Their Tap Room Burger, or whatever they're calling it, is a decent-size sandwich. It just seems small because the English muffin they use isn't any bigger than one you'd get with, say, an Egg McMuffin. But the meat is nice and thick (ayo) and hangs out over the side of the, erm, bread a little bit.
It's a shockingly high quality beef, better than on the last several steaks I've eaten, for what it's worth. They actually asked how I'd like it cooked. I requested medium, and would you believe they actually cooked it medium? I order a steak mid-rare, but I find that a burger benefits from just a bit more time on the grill. I'm no savage.
It comes with a weird shredded lettuce (possibly a KFC Shredder) that doesn't contribute any value and a mild, melty white cheddar that's really good and really complements the beef. Clearly, the idea is for the meat to be the dominant flavor.
The English muffin is neither very good nor very bad, as far as these things go. It's just a regular ol' English muffin, like you might find in a grocery store. It would have been better if it were toasted (or toasted more?) and buttered, but the butter in particular might have overpowered the subtle flavor of the beef.
I suppose that if they only had one guy who knew what he was doing, it was for the best that they had him working the kitchen. The guy they had taking orders was out of his depth. You'd think that this was his first day, except he had all of these weird systems.
He was very adamant that no one switch seats, like in a certain kind of fire drill, lest he get the orders mixed up. Which was very thoughtful of him, I guess, but the way he said it was like we'd done something wrong, or were in jail. He tried to count how many people wanted water (in a group of people who just ran five miles in 80-degree weather), lost count, then asked, by show of hands, who *didn't* want water. He accidentally brought an extra beer and then, instead of just leaving it for someone to drink, let us know he was gonna go pour it down a drain. LOL what a spazz.
It's tragic, because this is a fairly easygoing group. All of the really crazy people I know are in another group I run with. He didn't screw anything up that badly, but he would have been better off if he did and he had a more likable personality. Hopefully, he took that extra beer in the back and drank it himself. That may have been what he needed.
