Again I am reminded why I shy away from franchise restaurants.
We opted for Chili's the other night for dinner, with my vote being essentially nullified because I really didn't care where we ate.
It'd been quite some time since I'd been to a Chili's, largely because the last time was overwhelmingly lackluster, and I'm being generous with that.
Cut to the chase.... The Wife had chicken enchiladas, The Kid had a cheese pizza, our son had a bacon cheeseburger, and I had the half rack baby back ribs, original sauce and fries with a cup of chicken enchilada soup.
The soup was the high point of the meal, but not by much. But first, the other dishes.....
The Kid's pizza was actually pretty good, not tasting like a frozen pizza, which I assumed it would be. Score one for The Kid.
Our son's hamburger was, in his words "alright, but nothing special". When I asked if he would pass up a Goldie's or a Ron's for Chili's, he said "no way". So that tells me what I need to know about Chili's burgers.
The Wife's enchiladas weren't all that bad, but the chicken was fairly dry, and there just wasn't a lot of flavor going on in there.
And finally to my ribs. I do a lot of baby backs at home, so I know the ins and outs. For the money, these were not only subpar in flavor, but a horrible value. A 'half rack' of baby back ribs should be a minimum of 7-8 ribs. An average rack of baby back ribs will have between 14-16 ribs on it. I know because I've counted. So what I got was a '1/4 rack' of ribs and a mediocre serving of dried out luke warm french fries for north of $16.
The sauce was pretty good. I'd love to have a bottle. The ribs had little to no flavor, and, unforgiveably, little to no meat. I felt cheated and robbed. I went home and made a ham sandwich.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who love franchises, and maybe even Chili's, but I'm not one of them. read more