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.
[mappress]
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