IT'S BURGER TIME!

It's been a while since we've checked out the burger scene.

1) Over years, invariably we've had way more burgers than hot dogs but since the beef is so poor here, the pendulum is starting to swing the other way and now we routinely grind our own (especially after all of the recent articles about food safety)...

2) Burger King has a mushroom / Swiss Angus burger and we tried it that way to start with (eh) so then I asked them for a Whopper with mushrooms and cheese. That wasn't bad (we did it a second time) but the best was when we asked them to add mushrooms and cheese to a 6 pack of their sliders ("Short Shots", I think they're called).

3) Carl's Jr's has a new / old addition to the menu called The Big Carl.

Ideally, it should be everything we initially liked about Carl's but it's not. After the first visit, I asked for one cooked to order, which they promptly ignored. When I asked for a freshly cooked burger my third (and last) visit, evidently the woman at the register was offended by my request and not only wasn't it cooked to order (for the third time) but she slopped on so much sauce I took one bite, threw it on the table and walked out...

4) Wendy's new Bacon Deluxe isn't half bad, I must admit.

I also used to love Wendy's when they first started out but can't recall the last time I got a freshly cooked burger or the fries were hot so I was pleasantly surprised by this item. The bacon is cooked much closer to how I like it (crispy) and I will try this once more, at least. The difference between the Bacon Deluxe and their Baconator is the Deluxe has mayo, lettuce and tomato while the Baconator has mustard, catsup and onions.

5) My brother Jim came through here recently to pick up his youngest son (Charles) in the Bay Area and move him to Cleveland Heights.

Jim is a diabetic (and has other health problems) so we were looking for something / anything to eat one morning and ended up at the local CoCo's where he had ham and a biscuit and I made the mistake of ordering their San Francisco Sourdough Burger, an old favorite only the cook must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed as it was the greasiest burger I've ever had. Not only was the Angus patty (a change from the original) incredible greasy but the grilled sourdough bread was soaked in melted butter making the whole mess totally inedible.

6) A couple of days later, we wandered over to Johnny B's Burgers & Brews in La Mesa. It's too bad I no longer enjoy my beer as I wish this place was in our neighborhood...

7) Finally, I should point out that McDonald's 99 Cent Double Cheeseburger (hold the cheese) has been renamed the McDouble.

Late entry: I just choked down a Rally's Bacon-Zilla Burger. It looks gigantic on the poster but it's about the same size as a Mickey D's McDouble (the combo was a fairly pricey $7.01). The poster shows sliced cheese but it came with that liquid cheese food and the only condiment was some sort of mystery sauce...