Gourmand at Work

I have quite a few restaurant related thoughts that will all just get plopped in here. They're not worthy of a separate post, but all together they look impressive.

Best Beef: I was called back to Washington for a couple of days last week to try and get Congress to not pass a bill that would hurt our company. As one of my DC traditions, I managed to swing past The Prime Rib for dinner. I tell you what, there's nothing better than The Prime Rib. It's certainly only for special occasions like having an expense account or an anniversary, but oh man it's delicious. Of course, with the name The Prime Rib, you better get you some prime rib. Best I've ever tasted by a healthy margin and right up there in the All-Time Greatest Meat category with Dickie Brennan's strip steak. The interior could use some freshening (it looks like we're in the 70s), but with meat like that, who cares.

Best Crap in a Burrito: This is a tough category. The Crap in a Burrito segment of the market, at least in Utah, was started by Cafe Rio and expanded from there with Durango Grill, Costa Vida, and so on. Even though Cafe Rio was my first experience with this, it's far from the best. Indeed, it's only better than Chipotle Grill (which is the McDonald's of the category with bland food and dubious quality - fitting, as it's owned by McDonald's). (Speaking of McDonald's, their credit card policy has taken a turn for the better, what with the not tacking on a surcharge, but their "filling the fry container" policy needs some work, as they hosed my wife on fries there today.) The best that I've had is a place called Burrito Brothers and I've only seen it at select places on the East Coast. Their beef is quite good and they have a fabulous salsa verde that is not even remotely hot, but has great flavor. It could have been hotter to be sure, but it was well worth my company's hard earned 5 bucks.

Most Overpriced: Oh where do we begin? I think that a lot of places deliberately price themselves out of the market. For example, Arby's. They have some things going for them, but value is not one of them. It's a bit too much, especially when they decreased portion sizes. I don't mind the smallifying of portions, because if we don't stop super sizing everything, we'll have to buy double-wide pants, but decrease the cost to go along with it. Don't screw me every which way here. Oh, but anyway back to my point. Places price themselves high to go up-market when they should be satisfied with the mass market. The biggest offender of this that I have come across is hotel buffets outside of the US. A lot of times they're included in the cost of the room, so that works, but in other instances you have to pay. How much you ask? A cool 28 euros covered breakfast for one person at the Salzburg Sheraton. I ended up paying with points, but that's more money than I paid for my wife and I for lunch and dinner combined.