#38 - Mighty Fine Burgers

I soooo was not in the mood to cook dinner last Friday so I emailed Chris and said "let's have a dinner date!" I imagined some romantic dinner and how I would be able to cross off a dinner date on my 101 list...and then I got this god-awful craving for red meat. This rarely happens - usually once a month when my body is begging for some iron (if you catch my drift). And this is where the weirdo in me kicks in and Texans start looking at me in horror - I don't normally like red meat and I really don't like steak. The texture gives me the ibbity gibbities. So when I crave red meat, the idea of a romantic dinner at a steakhouse is not what my body wants - it wants ground beef - usually a big fat burger!

That's when I remembered all the buzz I'd heard about a new burger place in town - Mighty Fine Burgers. The owners of Rudy's Country Store and BBQ (...now drooling thinking about smoked turkey and BBQ sauce...) opened this burger joint so it had to be good, right? Romantic dinner was out - new juicy burger was in!

So after a much-longer-than-anticipated stop at Fry's electronics (where we were supposed to be looking at SLR cameras for ME but ended up spending $150 on CHRIS), we walked into Mighty Fine Burgers with a mighty fine appetite.

We walked up to the counter and the guy asked how I was. Being the polite person I am, I said "good and how are you?" His response "mighty fine!"....should have known... I order: jr. cheeseburger with nothing but jalapenos (trying to be good with the calories) , fries and a chocolate milkshake (totally blowing the "trying to be good with calories" thing). Why did I order a milkshake? I never order those - I know they're full of evil calories that I won't be able to walk off after dinner because I'll be too full and tired. What was I thinking? I wasn't apparently...I was just acting on gut instinct.

Photo from Statesman.com

After waiting for our order to be up we sat down at the picnic style tables next to some random guy watching the basketball game on TV and had our nice romantic dinner date. The results?

Chris is a burger connoisseur - he scarfed his food down. Must have liked it! I had to agree - the food was pretty good. Not the BEST burger I've ever had but the joint never claimed to be the best - just being mighty fine. And they were mighty fine. If I had to pick a least favorite part it would have to be the fries. The problem was that I'd heard all this talk about how they'd bought this fancy schmancy crinkle cut fries machine that was supposed to make super fries or something darn near close. They were a little too limp for me. Still tasty but not my favorite. Bad batch maybe?

But oh wait....this experience isn't over - I wouldn't end on a bad note. I haven't told you the best part - that chocolate milkshake that I never should have ordered. See, this milkshake is pure evil. It cast a spell on me to the likes I've never known (except that Spicy Pickle gobbler panini and the River Pub mango mojitos, but that's besides the point). It was so creamy and cold and full of yummy Blue Bell ice cream - I only wish it had been bigger because I scarfed it down way too fast...which only resulted in a massive brain freeze, by the way...ouch!

They must have put some secret ingredient in the shake to make my brain demand a second helping (my bulging belly ultimately made me resist). Or maybe there is no evil secret ingredient but just my pure, unhealthy love of ice cream. Either way, I'm sitting here now trying to convince myself that I don't need to drive the 15 minutes over to Mighty Fine Burgers just to get another round of yumminess. Must resist! Pants too tight.

So will we be back? Oh yes...but not soon enough.