The Unvegan

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Dining in The Garden of Santa Barbara

Halfway there.
Halfway there.

In Santa Barbara there’s a spot called the Public Market. It’s kind of like an upscale food court, but most importantly there is a bar that attracts Michigan fans called The Garden. It’s not your typical sports bar, and is a sort of attempt to be a beer or wine garden. Whatever the case, I was eager for some beer and a burger.

What I found was The Market Burger. It came topped with a whole bunch of stuff I had no interest in, like lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. But it also came with provolone and Russian dressing, which I felt were acceptable.

It took a surprisingly long time for my burger to come out, and at one point I saw a very un-unvegan (with all the toppings) burger come around that no one was willing to claim. It was sliced in half and I could see it had been cooked to medium-rare, but alas it wasn’t mine.

Shortly after, my burger arrived and was in a strange state. The patty was cut in half and the bun was still complete. It didn’t take a fool to realize that this was the original unclaimed burger that had been thrown back on the griddle with a fresh set of cheese. It tasted like it too. There were bits of the previous toppings on the burger, and the burger was overcooked. Moreover, being weirdly cut this way made it a real pain to eat.

In all, you can probably guess that this was not one of my favorite meals. In fact, probably the only thing that would bring me back would be a Michigan game timed somewhere outside the realm of normal meal time.