The Unvegan

These should never be called sliders.

On Saturday morning, I headed to Duffy’s Tavern and Grille in Lincoln Park, Chicago.  Duffy’s is the big Michigan bar in Chicago, so on a Saturday football morning, it was loaded with recent graduates.  My friends and I were unable to find a place to sit, but we were more than happy when we found a table top to stand next to, eat/drink on, and lean against.  Since Duffy’s is more of a bar than a restaurant, I didn’t order anything to eat until taking down at least three beers (I always lose count at three).

With the beers in me, I scoured the menu for something greasy.  Only a few items down from the top, I found a shining beacon of grease, sliders!  I made sure to order them without the dreaded onions and for cheese I chose cheddar (try saying that ten times fast).  As I waited for my food, I continued drinking and watching football.  Eventually, my sliders arrived, but not as I had hoped.  My eyes instantly shot to the glowing green flourescence of the pickle on my plate.  A pickle is a seemingly harmless garnish, but for those who don’t like pickles, there are few things worse.  First off, very few restaurants mention when a pickle will be accompanying food, so I can’t easily ask for it without the pickle.  Secondly, the pickle, although easily removed from the plate, leaves a path of pickle juice.  Sometimes the pickle juice remains in one place, but all-too-often, the juice splashes about the plate until it find a nice piece of bread, bun or other assorted absorbent product to soak into.  Such was the case with the sliders.  Although I was able to relegate the pickle to the outer rim of the plate, it was too late to save the buns.

Despite the pickle juice, I was hungry and bit into my slider.  Inside the bun, I found a pretty decent cheeseburger, but it wasn’t the greasy slider I was expecting.  Where I grew up, burgers were called sliders because they had the nasty little habit of sliding right through you.  I have since found that many restaurants pass off mini-hamburgers as sliders.  Mini-hamburgers are great, but please call them what they are.  Despite my issues, I had to be realistic.  I wasn’t at some fine dining establishment, but a bar that happened to have food.  I finished up my food in no time and was content with the knowledge that the “sliders” had quenched my drunken hunger.