Rallys Eat-It-All #20: Bacon Cheese Champ

There I was, eager all weekend to get a free stacker, only to find out that my coupon had expired. ARG! It's not like I hadn't picked up an Oreo Fudge stacker on Friday (no camera so no pic). It was good, with mostly ice cream but about 1.5 oreo cookies crumbled up on top and one spot in the middle, plus a squirt of fudge. But that only whetted my appetite and heightened my disappointment.

So I got a swirl cone instead for a buck. I hadn't noticed it with the stacker but the ice cream wasn't very creamy. It wasn't as ice-laden and flavorless as the cones you get at a Chinese buffet but it was in the same class. So it ain't no DQ but it was decently sized and very, very cold.

And they no longer have a Bacon Double Rallyburger with Cheese on the 2 for $5 menu. The manager said they could make one up for me, charging me for a regular Double Rallyburger with Cheese and then adding bacon for a dollar, but I declined because it wouldn't be eligible for the 2 for $5 menu and I'm cheap. Also I double checked the menu and there is no mention of a chili cheeseburger (double or otherwise), though I suspect again they could make one up for me if I asked the right person the rigth way. If it weren't for disappointments I wouldn't have any appointment. Oh well. But I'm not here to do secret menu items which left me with one option:

The Bacon Cheese Champ. As you can see, it's a messy fella. And there were barely two strips of bacon. Flavorwise it was about average, as far as their burgers go, and it was enhanced greatly by the medium fries I added and the SIXTEEN PACKETS OF KETCHUP I was handed when I asked for a few ketchup packets. Sometimes they give you two, sometimes they give you a double handful.

So that's it. Just like that, eleven months in and I'm done*. I've eaten every burger/entree option on their menu. Favorites include the Deep Sea Double, the Fry Lovers Burger (properly fried), the Bacon Cheddar Crisp, and the Baconzilla. Because there are only a couple I'll likely finish up trying the sides and because it's summer I'll probably be trying some milkshakes and slushies and smoothies, that is if I can find time between trying biscuits and gravy.

* Except I'm not. I'll probably never be done because as I walked up to order I saw signs for the New Bacon Double Bistro Stacker. One thing I really like about Rallys is that they are always coming up with new things. Such as the Apple Pie milkshake/stacker, though I only know this from their web site due to there being no signs in the walk-up area. However the end is definitely near.

Biscuits and Gravy Review: City View Cafe

Because I'm only two items away from finishing the Rally's Eat-It-All challenge (and because I forgot to bring something for breakfast) I thought it would be a good day to start up my next life goal.*

This aforementioned goal is to find (drum roll please) THE BEST BISCUITS AND GRAVY IN DOWNTOWN FORT WAYNE.

It's long been my position that a simple order of biscuits and gravy is a good litmus test for any restaurant. Are the biscuits hand made or (gasp) from a tube**? Likewise is the gravy made from scratch or is it from a can? How much sausage does it contain? Is it greasy? How plentiful is the portion? I think you catch my drift.

For my first foray into gustatory delight I ventured up, up, up to the City View Cafe, which is on the 13th floor of the second tallest building in Fort Wayne. This space used to be called the Window Garden Cafe and it has great views of the city. Currently it's run by a local catering/food service company.

First off, ordering was kind of weird. There's a hot bar area and you fill out your order on a small square of paper, checking the appropriate boxes, and lay the paper on top of the counter. The only other human was the cashier and a lady who arrived mere moments before me. After a full minute or so a young man showed up who looked like his best friend had died. He took our two slips of paper and got to work. Eventually he left and came back a minute or so later with a box of food service biscuits. It wasn't looking good.

Even though you're standing mere feet away the food preparation area is hidden behind a wall of frosted glass so you don't get the diner experience of watching your food prepared. I kid you not but it took almost ten full minutes to get my food. TEN MINUTES. And there was only one other person ahead of me!

I took my carry out order to the cashier who rang it up and said "Five dollars? Sheesh! Open that up will ya? I want to make sure he gave you enough." I wasn't the only one who thought that $5.07 was steep (including Fort Wayne's generous 8% food tax). But apparently the depressed young lad was generous enough because I was allowed to leave without further delay.

But the big question is how was it?

Surprisingly the star of the show was the pre-made biscuits. The young man split them, slathered them with butter and plopped them on the grill until they had a nice crisp on them, plus the fantastic flavor of butter. The gravy was of medium viscosity and didn't have much flavor. What it did have was a slightly strange taste such that halfway through my breakfast I could have been done eating, but being a member in good standing of The Clean Plate Club I made sure that I finished. There was a small amount of sausage bits, probably fried up on the premises and added to what was very likely canned gravy, but they tasted good and were also crisp. Sadly, I ran out of gravy with two bites left, although I'm not sure how more gravy could have been stuffed into the carry out container.

Biscuits - 8
Gravy - 4
Value - 5
Service - 2
GRAND TOTAL - 4.75

UPDATE Jan 2019
Alas, City View Cafe is closed. Gone. Extinct. The business that took it's place doesn't sell biscuits and gravy and so I shall shun them.

* And yes, it's good to think small.

** I had tube biscuits served to me once. Obviously it scarred me for life.

Rallys Update

I am 94.3% done with my goal. Yesterday I found that Rallys no longer sells the classic wings... it's all "boneless" wings a.k.a. chicken nuggets. So that's one off my list. They also don't sell the Chili Cheeseburger, even if asked politely.

Which means I'm down to a Bacon Cheese Champ and a Bacon Double Rallyburger with Cheese, although this last one may also be extinct. Yep, the end is near.

But not near enough. Yesterday I needed some extra sustenance so picked up a quick Fry Lovers Burger. It had three fries on it. Really, Rally's? Three? And they were soggy to boot! Fortunately I had used a coupon for a free medium fry so I just added some of my own instead of having to complain to someone who didn't make the sammich in the first place.

Sept. 10, 2018 Update

I just picked up another Fry Lovers burger and it had five fries on it. Soggy fries. Like they were waiting in a tray to be put on burgers for a while. Come on, Rallys! Get it together!

Rallys Eat-It-All #19 : Bistro Stacker Burger

One of the exciting things about Rallys is the new menu items that pop up randomly, usually advertised on their sign. And if you find yourself getting excited about new Rallys menu items then I'm sorry that your life is in the same kind of repetitive doldrums as my own.

So here it is, in all it's glory. There's the usual Rallys "hand-seasoned all-beef patty" that isn't much to write home about and the "toasted brioche bun" which had a shiny top and perhaps held up a slight bit better than their usual buns. I actually saw the buns come out of the toaster but someone needs to tell this location that their toaster is broken.

You can see the dusting of parmesan seasoning and that tasty onion tanglers. The web site says there are grilled onions but I don't see them now and don't remember tasting them earlier. The Bistro sauce was a nice variation but there wasn't much zing to it. However once I topped this puppy with some of their fries and a single ketchup packet I was in flavor-town! Or maybe it was flavor-hood.

Rallys Eat-It-All #18 : Cheese Double and Rally Bacon Cheeseburger

The end is near.

Here's the Cheese Double. Not a double cheese. WATCH YOUR VERBAGE! I dunno... maybe the gloss has worn off but there just wasn't anything special about it. The diced red onions were properly zingy but otherwise... meh. I can see why the fries are the star of this franchise.

The other half of my Two for $4 deal is the Rally Bacon Cheeseburger. It's got round onions, not diced. I wonder how the Rally Gods decide which kind of onion will be on which burger? Note the severe lopsidedness of this sammich. For the pictures I just pop off the top bun and whatever clings to it stays with it and wherever the condiments lie, there they lay. Despite the odd arrangement, this burger had some good flavor. But then again, how can anything with bacon taste bad?

Only five more sandwiches to go! That is if they really do have a chili burger which was on one web site but I've never seen on the menu board. And I guess classic bone-in wings don't really count as a sandwich. Technicalities!

Rallys Eat-It-All #17 : $2 Shrimp Box

I loves me some shrimp but it's expensive. When I saw the sign for a $2 shrimp and fry box at Rallys I figured that the shrimp would be pretty tiny but I didn't expect them to be non-existent.

I also wasn't expecting the ten minute wait in the drive through but you know how the Rallys ordering lanes are... they're like channeled chutes and once you're in there's no way you're getting out aside from driving over some shrubbery.

When the employee, at long last, handed me my bag and said, unsolicited, "These are really good!" I didn't expect the smell of garlic that entered my car. Shows how closely I read signs, eh? [NOTE: The sign only says BUTTERY shrimp, not GARLIC BUTTERY shrimp... VINDICATION!!!!]

So here they are. A bit on the overcooked side, eh? There may be shrimp juice poured into the batter, or possibly artificial shrimp flavoring (I don't have the gumption to go check their web site) but there were no discernible shrimp parts even in the largest pieces. The garlic sauce was squirted over the whole mess and as usual had more smell than taste. The fries in garlic sauce tasted pretty yummy but for the most part I paid for batter and not shrimp. It's a good thing it was only two bucks.

This Too Shall Pass Too

To follow up on my original G.A.S. (guitar acquisition syndrome) article, my sweetie bought me the top guitar back in 2007, the lovely natural finish monster that weighs a ton but sounds amazing. I would love to someday hear it played by a real guitarist! The only problem with it is that it has jumbo frets and I play too hard. I recently switched to heavier gauge strings and it has helped me quite a bit with staying in tune and not having the guitar sound “queasy.”

I still would love a Danelectro. Every now and then I search for used ones and they go for around $300. I missed the boat on a good investment, but maybe not because I kind of remember the clearance guitar being a seven–string. Maybe one day I will own a Mod or a 59.

The pawn shop by my work recently had the bottom/Artist guitar in. It was only $150 and was in great shape. However since I have two nice mid-range guitars I couldn’t bring myself to shell out $150 for a beginning guitar. It didn’t take long for someone to buy it.

Enter modern times.

Last summer I played a few times with a guy named Ricky who owned a half dozen or more Telecasters. Aren’t those country guitars? It turns out they aren’t and I soon started seeing Telecasters everywhere. Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, all your heartland rockers. I wanted that twang! I can build my own from BYOGuitars for $110 and have a decent guitar. Or I can add new pickups, new electronics, a Wilkinson bridge, through body strings, a better nut, copper shielding and have an amazing guitar. All it would cost is $270 (sarcasm) but it would be the equal of an $800 guitar when finished.

But there’s a problem. Aside from money and the fact that I think about guitars more than I play them. I’m not particularly fond of the Telecaster shape. It’s a classic but it doesn’t make me drool.

Then one of the ad-servers, based on my Telecaster browsing, showed me a picture of a Talman. It’s got a retro-Danelectro-Mod type body but with a Telecaster pickup arrangement. In sea-foam green!!! Sha-ZAM!

Speaking of sea-foam green, why are there two different shades from the same maker? The guitar shown above screams "That's ME!" but this one, with the same shape and pickup configuration, does nothing for me. Very strange.

Also strange is that they make a Talman bass guitar. I would probably use a bass more but once again it just leaves me cold. Is it the pickups? Is it the color? Should I get professional help?

Like most subjects of G.A.S., the longer I wait the less pull it has on me. But I enjoy the wanting. At my age there isn’t much that I need and very little that I want that I have any real chance of getting. A two week vacation with my family in the Smoky Mountains? I’d love it but it would cost five grand or more. Not in the budget if we want to eat and have money for medical bills. A house with enough bedrooms for every kid and one for my music stuff? A car that isn’t wishing it was ten years old? Pipe dreams. But two or three hundred dollars? I can scrimp/save that in six months, giving me something to hope and dream about the entire time. That is until a new guitar catches my eye.