Food Digest

As is my tradition when recovering from a cold or flu, I treated myself to the two-cheeseburgers value meal from McDonald’s for dinner. Not the healthiest thing to put in my recuperating body, but it makes me feel normal again. Gotta go back to work tomorrow.

Straight from the airport, my host took me to Seattle’s landmark late-night burger joint, Dick’s Drive-In. A perfect welcoming. I got a chocolate shake and the Dick’s Deluxe burger (for $2.70) which featured two thin patties, cheese, lettuce, and chopped pickles. Not bad. Simple burger, nothin’ fancy. Exactly what you’d want and expect. The location we went to — on Broadway — just to happened to be the one featured in a Sir Mix-A-Lot video. My posse’s on Broadway now, too, Sir.

There was only a slight amount of irony to the fact that the theme song from Top Gun (Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”) was playing when I walked into Chuck Wagon today in Wilmette, Ill. I was there for one reason: One of their deadly Niki Specials. It’s as dangerous (and serious) as a heart attack. A cheeseburger with gyros meat piled on top, with all the fixins. Deeee-lish! And deeee-structive to my circulatory system!

Look at that cheeseburger and weep.

Strange story behind this one. After a morning up in the north ‘burbs, I hustled back to the house to work from home so I could hopefully avoid missing the UPS man — I’ve had a bad run of lost/misdelivered mail recently. I drove up to the house just as that big brown truck was driving away. Curses! I decided to tail it and, in the most non-threatening way possible, corner the driver at his next destination and see if I could get my stuff.

I followed him for several blocks before he stopped. I parked up the street, ran back, told him my situation, and he went back into the truck and got me my boxes.

Walking back to my car, I decided I needed to celebrate this small victory over delivery-tyranny by grabbing a cheeseburger. Since I was now right near Mic Duck’s Drive-In, I figured now was as good a time to try it as any.

Bought the cheeseburger with everything on it, plus pickles. No, at Mic Duck’s, pickles are not included in “everything.” Good burger. GREAT cheese sauce for the fries. Including a drink it came to $6.18. Cheap and fulfilling, just like a good Valentine’s Day should be.

A double cheeseburger from the Billy Goat — Chicago’s greatest subterranean journalism tavern. Met up for some after-work cocktails with colleagues to share war stories and talk shop. A couple other people raved about their egg sandwich. I was hungry enough I could have probably eaten one of those, too. Maybe next time.