Elephun Wednesday

It's Elephun Wednesday again!!  This patriotic pachyderm is ready for the 4th of July.  He should put the watch away though because he's got a couple of days to wait.  Hope everyone has a happy 4th and no one blows their fingers off.  But of course someone will.  Because someone always does.  Because for some reason people don't realize that fireworks explode.  Don't be that person.

WTF Wichit?

I was just beginning to think that it was an honest mistake.  That maybe, just maybe, Wichit wasn't actually trying to kill me in the mustard incident.  I even went so far as to say they were off my s#!t list.  But now I am more convinced than ever that Wichit hates me and doesn't want me to eat their food.

For like two years I refused to eat a Wichit sandwich.  During which time the guys continued to rave about them. And now, just when I started eating there again, they have the worst food they have ever gotten from Wichit.

They got the order wrong.  Three sandwiches were supposed to come with chips and only one did.  And they put sauerkraut on Danny...Boy's sandwich when he didn't ask for any, The Monkeys say that they have never gotten bad french fries from Wichit,  This time they were dreadful.  They were cold, old and stale.  It was like someone had forgotten to throw away yesterday's fries and they just decided to serve them even though they had been sitting out all night.

Several of the Monkeys even complained that the sandwiches were not as good as normal.  And this time I went off the map a little and got a buffalo chicken wrap.  The description says 'crispy' chicken but no matter how crispy if you put it in a wrap with buffalo sauce and blue cheese dressing the breading is going to be a soggy mess.  And in the end the wrap tasted like something you could get ready made at Star Market.

Maybe it was just a bad day.  I will give them another try.  But really, I think they are out to get me.

Elephun Wednesday

Happy first day of summer!  You would think that on the first day of summer we would have a happy, cheery picture.  Surprise!  Instead we have this rather depressing offering.  We had the new guy pick the picture this week.  I think he misunderstood when we said to make it a goofy one.  Hope your summer started off better than this poor elephant's did.

Big Night Out for the Monkeys!!

For our big night out the Monkeys decided to go to Floramo's.  We have been planning this for months and I think we were there for about 15 minutes.  But that's okay.  We managed to eat a lot in that small amount of time.

looks like a prison

I don't know how we came up with Floramo's, but we are all red meat lovers so it all worked out.  Even The Kid decided to forgo seafood for the night.

they don't do take out

It was raining which made parking an adventure.  Drainage is next to nonexistent in the parking lot and there were puddles that were half a foot deep.  So be careful where you park.  The building is not all that inviting from the outside.  It looks like it is a fairly busy place but we lucked out and only had to wait a few minutes for our table.

huge rack

The menu is extensive and you can get just about any combo of items you can imagine for all the indecisive.  The bread for the table was nice and fresh and came with a boat load of butter.  I don't know what they do to their fountain drinks but both Babbit and Danny...Boy thought they were significantly better than other fountain drink they have had.  But they do not give free refills.  The service was friendly but rather abrupt.  Bee Hee and The Kid got the mixed grill, Henry and I got the steak tip and rib combo, Danny...Boy got the rack of ribs and Babbit got the chicken tips.  All of them served with your choice of side and a salad.

The salads are uneventful but nothing was wilted or anything.  But they were all overdressed.  By a lot.  It was more a little lettuce with my dressing than anything else.  Maybe getting the dressing on the side is the way to go.

Babbit got onion rings for the table and they were good.

plenty of butter

overdressed

yummy

tips and ribs

rice and potato

The food came out in a reasonable amount of time.  And the portions are huge.  But you would think that a place that serves so much steak would have a way to tell which plate is cooked to which temperature.  Henry and I ordered the same thing only his was cook well done and mine medium rare.  It's a big difference.  But when he was handing out the plates and I asked which was which he had no clue and just took a close look at them and guessed.  The ribs were served at about room temperature but they were delicious and meaty and the meat did fall off the bone as advertised.  The steak tips were tender.  The chicken tips, and lamb tips were good.  The sausage was flavorful and just slightly spicy.  In fact all the main dishes were good, if not quite as hot as I would have liked them.  The side dishes however were a different story.  The mashed potatoes and rice were pretty blah and the roasted potatoes were not roasted in any way I could see and did not taste very good either.  

Danny...Boy's car in a lake

chicken tips and roasted potatoes

We were not encouraged to stick around and take our time nor were we offered dessert.  As soon as we started to slow down our waitress came over and asked who wanted boxes.  

We left full and reasonably happy with our meal.  Poor Danny...Boy got back to his car only to find that it was now in the middle of a small lake and had to swim to his car.  But other than that I think we all enjoyed the night.  Floramo's is by no means gourmet and there were a few disappointments but the prices are good and it showed enough promise that we wouldn't write it off completely.

Elephun Wednesday

This happy go lucky goofy bastard is here to brighten up your Elephun Wednesday.  How can you not smile when you look at that dopey face?

Burgers - But Not Five Guys

So we tried a new burger place.  Well, new to us.  We went to the Boston Burger Company.  We all got burgers like normal people except for Babbit, who got a chicken club.  The burgers come with homemade potato chips and your choice of slaw or baked beans.  We didn't want any of that.  So we asked if we could do away with all of that stuff and get fries and onion rings instead.  But that was a no go.  So we got some fries and onion rings as well as all that other stuff.


Everything was good.  The fries are more like potato wedges.  The chips were okay, Babbit was not a fan.  I think the slaw fell in the same category.  It was fine but nothing special.  The burgers are big and delicious.  We all just got the basic burger and added whatever we wanted.  They have a bunch of specialty burgers but most of them sound insane to me so I don't see myself ever getting them.  (I feel bad enough eating the burger I don't need to add mozzarella sticks to the mix.)  Onions cost extra for some reason.  Danny...Boy tried an egg on his and was very happy with it.  Babbit got some jerk mayo and no one was really a fan of that.  But Danny...Boy got sriracha mayo and he said it might even rival the chipotle sauce he gets from Wichit, and we all know how much he loves that stuff.  I though it was good but I couldn't quite get over the idea of dipping my deep fried food into mayonnaise.  But maybe I would have felt differently before I starting counting calories.

I think everyone was pleased with the food.  But since we could not sub things out for fries we ended up with way too much food.  And I think people would have been slightly disappointed if there were no fries with the burgers.  And it was expensive.  It is not a burger we could get all the time.  So we would all be willing to go back but I don't think it will ever take the place of Five Guys as our go to burger place.

Elephun Wednesday

We all know that it isn't over until the pachyderm sings.  Well, it looks like it is all over.  This elephant is wrapping everything up with one of Babbit's patented Beeeeeee Heeeee's 

Breakfast at Wichit

As I have mentioned, I have suspended the ban on Wichit.  And I was in the mood for a breakfast sandwich and I always like to try new places.  So I told the other Monkeys that I was going to be stopping at Wichit for breakfast today and they all decided to join me.

We all looked at the rather extensive breakfast menu and ooh and aah'ed about it.  Big plans were made about omelettes and breakfast plates and all of that.  But in the end we all got breakfast sandwiches.  And pretty much all the same breakfast sandwich.

The Bread Winner is your basic egg and cheese with your choice of meat.  We all got bacon.  Some were on ciabatta and one on marbled rye and the cheeses were varied.  But still, basically all the same.  We also got home fries to share.

The sandwich was good.  But even though they put two eggs in it the ciabatta roll was a little big and it made the sandwich a little bread heavy.  The home fries were really good and probably would have been even better if they didn't have to travel.  But it was too much food.  The home fries, although I'm glad we tried them, were probably unnecessary.  You might even be able to get away with half a sandwich and half an order of home fries.

There are a lot of places around to get a breakfast sandwich but Wichit is close and good and I would definitely go back.  Maybe next time we will get a little more adventurous and get an omelette or pancakes.

Woody's again

In the past I have only posted about restaurants the first time we have gone there.  But it has come to my attention that we have been using the Shipping Monkeys blog as a kind of reference/archive sort of thing.  So even though we have posted about Woody's Grill before I'm going to post it again. Because I want to keep better records of the toppings we have tried in the hopes that some day it will not take us five hours to pick what we want on our pizza.

This time around we got a pepperoni, a green pepper and onion, a ricotta cheese and Italian sausage, and a feta, spinach and tomato.  This time around we could not order ahead of time because their phone lines were down so Babbit and Bee Hee went over and ordered in person.  And I think Woody's felt a little rushed because the pizza should have been in the oven a couple of minutes more, the toppings were not even close to evenly distributed and the slices were cut in a random fashion.  Not that I blame them.  If those two were hanging out in my restaurant I'd hurry to get them out too.

The pizza was still good though.  The feta, spinach and tomato is always a surprise hit.  The pepper and onion was good, Henry and I liked it but since two of our number do not like onions it is not really a crowd favorite.  The other two were good too.  The ricotta was nice and creamy and the sausage was not too spicy.  There were four pizzas and seven of us and only two slices left over.  And both were pepper and onion.  So maybe try a different combo for us vegetable lovers next time.  But otherwise everything was yummy as usual.