Penguin Point - Pointerburgers

The opportunity provided itself. So did the coupon. Yes, it was time to try two of Penguin Point's signature Pointerburgers (for a tiny price of $5.55). They have three on their menu and I could only pick two. One of the burgers is Jalapeno and Swiss so this was a no brainer because, as my wife would tell you, I have very wimp taste buds. This woman once ate an entire habanero and lived to tell the tale. I filmed (well, videoed) the whole show. It's on YouTube but I'll let you dig for the link because I'm mean that way.

Two burgers, each with a single quarter pound of beef. As the paper wrapped sammiches weren't labelled I picked one at random. It was the Western burger. Dig all those stringy onions! The pickles with the BBQ sauce is a nice touch, a very good tasting sweet sauce, I should add. Why is it that BBQ places in the south provide dill pickles but up here they don't? It's a perfect match! Anyway, there were a lot of onions on this burger. This tasty burger was good, I'll admit, a nice combination of toppings and my favorite of the two.

Next up is the Onion Burger, or rather "The Works." Again, look at all them onions! Shredded lettuce, a slice of tomato, mayo, cheese. It's hard to go wrong with this classic sandwich... wait a minute! Where are the pickles?!?!? Oh well, I chewed this one up and let it mingle with the pickles from the Western burger in my belly.

As usual, Penguin Point food is good but doesn't have any kind of unique taste signature. When you eat a McD quarter pounder it tastes like a McD quarter pounder, something which it reminds you of for hours after eating it. On the plus side, there were no hours-later Pointerburger-flavored burps after eating this duo.

Penguin Point - Footlong Spanish Hotdog

For some reason I have a soft spot in my brain for footlong hotdogs. Perhaps it's their whimsical over-the-top nature or perhaps some long forgotten event in my childhood, a normally denied extravagance granted for some reason that made me feel special and loved, but for whatever reason footlong hotdogs remain wedded in my mind with happy memories. Oddly, you rarely see both footlong hotdogs AND footlong hotdog buns in the store at the same time so if I had wanted to recreate these happy memories with my own children (before they were found to be allergic to gluten and a dozen other things) I had to find a Dairy Queen that had footlongs on their menus.

Which is why I knew from the first time that I saw the ad taped to their wall that it was my destiny to try a Penguin Point Spanish Footlong Hotdog. It didn't help that they also have it on their outdoor sign, a sign which I pass at least three times a week, it's message subliminally soaking into my brain. Spanish Footlong $3.49

Without further ado, here it is:

The big question is what makes it spanish? It looks like a coney dog to these eyes. However the sauce is less tomatoey and has more onions in it. Unlike their regular hotdogs, the bun was not verging on stale though it wasn't going to win any awards for being fresh from the factory ovens. But before I took a bit I realized that it didn't look to be quite a foot. The span of my extended hand is just under nine inches and this confirmed that the hotdog itself was likely a mere nine inches long. I'VE BEEN RIPPED OFF! While I wasn't about to wait until I got home to tape a proper measurement I did measure the paper it came in. In comparing the two photos you can see that the bun was no more than ten and a half inches and you can see that the hotdog is not exactly poking out the ends.

In all fairness, Penguin Point and other restaurants order their hotdogs and buns and serving papers from common suppliers so if the "footlong" Penguin Point Spanish dog is a mere nine inches then it's a good bet that everyone else's "footlong" is similarly sized. THIS IS A NATIONAL HOODWINKERY! SOMEONE CALL GERALDO!!!!

The hotdog itself, aside from being only 75% of what it should be, had the circumference of a dime. Skimpy. However the taste was good, especially the Spanish sauce, a zesty and meaty concoction that I wish I could try on a more substantial hotdog.

Penguin Point - Fried Chicken Keel and Pineapple Turnover

The time had come
The time was now
Jason A. Hoffmana
Would you try a keel now?

I was hungry after a small lunch and figured that dinner would be late due to my wife's schedule that day so I decided that the Penguin would get my money instead of some Scottish clown. Aside from the chicken strips I had not yet tasted their chicken and so it was the keel for me. Keel? Leg, wing, thigh. All these I know but keel? And rib? Gimme a rack of chicken ribs! Instead they make the breast of a chicken into three pieces, lopping off the top to make the keel, an all white meat piece with no bones but a small bit of cartilage. The coating was not at all crispy, reminding me of grocery story chicken. It's flavor, and that of the meat which was moist but not dripping with oil, which was enjoyable but a tad too salty. $2.29 isn't a bad price for white meat but for $6 I can get an entire chicken at Kroger of about the same quality and saltiness.

One thing I like about Penguin Point is that they have a huge menu and constantly rotate new items. Right now they have a Spanish Footlong Hotdog for $3.49. I'm not sure what makes it Spanish... possibly they don a sombrero when passing you your food. But as you can see from the picture I did not order the Spanish Footlong Hotdog, or else it's the oddest hotdog ever served. Instead I fell prey to another special item ("Back for a limited time!"), the Pineapple Turnover. As you can see from it's imperfect shape, these are made up and fried on the premises when you order them. In fact it was so hot that it made the lava inside McDonald's pies seem like ice cream. I was able to handle this four inch pastry only after putting on my welding gloves which I keep with me at all times because my wife is so smokin' HOT! But I digress. What we have here is a circular piece of dough with a plop of pineapple filling, folder over, sealed, deep fried, and topped with some powdered sugar icing whose flavor seemed to overpower everything else. Yes, I could taste the pastry and it was surprisingly flaky, but I only caught hints of pineapple. They also sell cherry, peach and apple turnovers though at $1.99 for a tiny treat I'm going to be hard pressed to part with my moolah.

Penguin Point - Bacon Double Cheeseburger

Hold on, kiddies, as I might be getting a bit philosophical in this one. First, the coupon and the image presented: a glorious bacon double cheeseburger! Now of course only a fool would expect their sammich to arrive in such a pristine condition but as I look at this and the other equally tantalizing examples of foodstuffs presenting on their coupon page, I remember that this is a local company and that someone prepped and photographed these items and ya know, it kinda makes me feel a sense of local pride. There are advertising rules regarding food that is photographed and I once saw a clip where a burger was rushed from some New York Micky D's across the street to their official advertising agency where it was dissected and sterilized and preserved and restacked and layered to make the perfect image seen across this genetically modified land. Or at least that's what I remembered. I found the clip easily (and so can you) and I guess they use the exact same ingredients but it didn't have to be prepared in the store. And it wasn't even New York. I'd make a horrible witness.

Comparing Penguin Point to McDonalds would be like comparing my bank account to that of George Soros so I don't expect them to create such perfection. Here's a real burger and it actually looks pretty good. The bun, unlike that of their hot dog products, is nice and fresh. The bacon was decent as was the cheese. They didn't offer condiments so I took what they offered, which ended up being a thin red sauce. It wasn't ketchup and may have been BBQ sauce but I didn't detect a great change in the flavor because of said sauce.

Which brings up the philosophical. For some reason I have positive childhood memories linked to Penguin Point lodged in my brain. However when I eat their food, with few exceptions so far, I'm not getting a mouth full of flavor sensations. It's kinda generic. Decent but not amazing. Not to bring up the beast again, but if you go to McDonalds you find a distinctive flavor in their burger. No one else has this flavor and I strongly suspect it's opium-based or perhaps some addictive chemical brewed up by a pharmaceutical company. Like it or hate it (or addictively crave it) you can tell it's a McDonalds burger. Ditto for Burger King and Wendy's. But the burgers and such from Penguin Point are curiously non-descript, like they use the standard products available from our local restaurant food service and don't have their own recipe. In fact, I've seen the trucks from the local restaurant food service in their parking lot. Curious...

However I'm not giving up my quest! I shall push forward and try more items from their menu. Maybe their fried chicken is the total bomb! Maybe I'll have another order of chicken fingers and gravy! I mean, that was total YUM but there wasn't anything special about either the chicken fingers or the "mixed from a powder" gravy but still I enjoyed the surprise.

Penguin Point - Chilidog

It's not a very good picture, is it? And the chili dog doesn't look all the appetizing either. But following my standard protocol, I took what they gave me. If they had asked what I wanted on said dog I would have loaded it up but they didn't and so I assume this is the Penguin Point version of the famous food item.

Overall, it wasn't bad. With a coupon I received two doggies for three bucks, plus little white trays at no extra charge! The hot dog itself was the highlight. Beefy, tasty, average sized, well cooked but not overcooked. Like the time I had a regular hot dog, the bun seemed on the verge of stale, being slightly tough and not softened by steam so again, I'll conclude that this it is a corporate decision to serve all their hotdog related products in such buns. As you can (almost) see, they were pretty skimpy on the chili sauce. Five or six beans, maybe? Average value with a coupon but I'd be ticked if I had paid the published rate of $2.29!

Penguin Point Review - Chicken Strip Basket

Everything lined up perfectly for a trip through the local Penguin Point on my way home and I had a coupon for a Chicken Strip basket (see above). I grabbed two cups o' ketchup inside the store and hurried out to my car so the employees wouldn't see me taking a picture. The items were piping hot, though I've never been around a hot pipe, and I dug into the fries first. Crinkly and deep fried. No complaints here! Then the dinner roll, which is just like I remember them being as a child. Nothing special but nothing bad. They provided one plastic tub of plastic margarine goop which went back into the bag. I ate a few bites and figured that was enough of the gummy white bread so I put the rest in the bag.

Three chicken strips and a container of slaw remained. There was no wee cups of BBQ sauce included and no offer of any kind of sauce was made inside so the chicken strips would have to be eaten plain. The things I endure for this blog. I'm no fan of slaw but figured that since I'm doing a review that I should at least take a bite. A small bite. I looked for a fork or a spoon, of which they included neither... only a knife. Odd. Well, a knife of slaw is about all I'd want to eat anyway so I opened the lid and instead of icky slaw the wee styrofoam container contained GRAVY!!!

I think I heard angels sing.

White gravy with flecks of pepper! It was like opening a present at Christmas that you are sure contains socks but instead houses an Android*. I was literally stunned for a few moments. You can bet that I dug the rest of that dinner roll out of the bag for a hot dip! The crunchy, crispy chicken strips were also baptized. T'was a meal highly recommended!!!

Why don't more fast food restaurants offer gravy as an option? Imagine how great a Wendy's baked potato would be drowning in gravy? Or maybe some gravy to give your hashbrown a dip? Deep fry that burger, toss on some gravy (over the fries too) and you've got a poor mans Fried Steak!

*Or an iPod if you're one of those Apple die-hards.

Penguin Point Review - Hot Dog

I'm experimenting with a lovely picture of the Penguin Point hot dog before I stuffed it into my gaping maw.
According to their calendar el Hot Dog was on special on Monday for a buck. I got everything on it that I could have without paying extra, which means onions, ketchup, mustard and relish. It took way too long after ordering to get the doggie, like four minutes or more. It's just a stinkin' hot dog! But it came in the paper holder that could probably double as a coffee filter, if times are hard, and a foil wrapper. There was nothing fancy about the bun. Just a bun. It wasn't even steamed or warmed which definitely detracted from the experience. The hotdog itself was on the skinny side but was nice seasoned instead of those pale greenish dogs you often get at restaurants.
Overall, well worth a buck but next time please do something about the bun!

New Series - Penguin Point!

For those not in the secret club, Penguin Point is a local chain based in Warsaw, Indiana, about an hour north-west of Fort Wayne. Growing up I would often beg to visit the Penguin Point when we visited grandparents in Wabash, about an hour south-west. How long to get those glasses? About an hour. I see a trend.
There used to be two locations in Fort Wayne but now there is just one, oddly surviving for decades on a semi-rural corner, flanked by a Dairy Queen and a Mexican restaurant. For me Penguin Point used to be a destination eatery in that I would have to drive way out of my way to patronize the establishment but now I drive by there twice a day most days of the week, each time resisting its siren call of fried chicken, tenderloin sandwiches, burgers, chili dogs, and crinkle cut fries. They pretty much have a little bit of everything, even ham and beans with cornbread which is a nice alternative to chili. Plus you can pull up outside and they’ll bring it to your car, though I haven’t attempted such a feat in the sub-zero temperatures we've been having.
I checked out their official web site and calculated that I could have one of everything on their menu for about eighty bucks. Eighty bucks over a year or two isn't much, especially since I now get their coupons at the new abode and they have daily specials. So I reckon I'll try everything off their menu and write about it. I'd take pictures but you don't want to see me eat. I could take pictures of their food but it's the same as everyone else. It looks amazing on the menu but once unwrap the sammich it looks yummy but not like the perfection previously postulated.
The other issue is that I'm not much of a foodie. I eat food and either it's yummy, yucky, or somewhere in between. There shant be any nuances with these stunted taste buds!
So far I've made three visits to this outpost of food stuffs.

Big Wally
How could I resist a Big Wally, especially with a coupon? If you've had a Big Mac then you've had a Big Wally. The secret sauce could be different but it was song mind of mayo-derived glob. Service was friendly.

Tenderloin
Oh how I loves me a tenderloin sandwich! Two for five bucks but oddly not very filling as I was hungry later in the afternoon. They were nice and crunchy with a meaty center, just like they should be. Some kind of goop was on top, either mayo or tartar sauce or hair cream, but it was minimal in amount and covered over with an ample portion of vegetation. Possibly shredded iceberg lettuce but it was big and chunky and had a crunchy texture so it could have been flavorless cabbage. And don't forget the slice of cheese. And the obligatory bun.

Vanilla Milk Shake
This thing was so thick that even an hour later I had to scoop it out with the straw. I'm sure the ten degree weather had something to do with that. Good flavor, good texture. I'm not sure if its a chemical shake like McDonalds has but I wouldn't be surprised if it's real either. After all, their Ham N Beans only had ingredients you can find in your kitchen, or your mothers kitchen if she's into beans. Hey, Penguin People, why not list the ingredients on your web site?