Global Fast Casual Chain – Chili’s

The first Chili’s opened in Dallas, TX in 1975, and after a short run and a sale to Norman Brinker, a former executive of the restaurant division of Pillsbury, who used it as the foundation to build a global restaurant company.  There are 1400 Chili’s worldwide, and while most are in North America, there are locations in 33 other countries. The current list doesn’t include France, but I’d swear I was at the grand opening of one on the Champs Elysees some years ago. Maybe not.

This isn’t really a fair “review” as I didn’t actually visit Chili’s.  The last time I was in one was in suburban New Orleans, a couple months after Katrina. It was one of the few things open in that area, and one of the closest restaurants to my house.

Chili’s says they sell “American food with a Tex-Mex influence.”

Well not today.  I had three of their Big Mouth (r) Bites, mini cheeseburgers off their appetizer menu. For this menu item, you can choose three of a number of different items, these burgers, boneless wings, egg rolls, potato skins, some other items. According to their online ordering menu, these  three items will set you back $11.79, and they are accompanied by dipping sauces. Really?  Twelve bucks for three sliders?  Yikes.

The burgers are probably 2.5 – 3 ounces, hand-formed patties, on appropriately sized sesame topped grilled buns, with a smattering of onion.

The occasion for me having these babies was as a courtesy from a pharma rep. Pharma reps do business these days by bribing medical offices with food, or at least that’s the way it seems to me.

Another digression. I don’t like food reheated in the microwave, with very few exceptions.  If you’re keeping track, or are going to entertain me sometimes, reheated lasagna would be ok, meat sauce, chili I guess.  But I find microwave reheated fowl foul.  Just FYI.

Anyway, I had to reheat these burgers, which presented the same type of problem that heating frozen White Castles does, even tho these weren’t frozen.  The trouble with both is, if you put all the components in the microwave at the same time, you can end up with either an unheated meat patty or a very overheated bun.

My solution.  Patties only on a paper plate for 30 seconds, then I tossed the buns in for another 20 seconds.  It worked out.

I adorned the mini burgs to my taste, crappy yellow mustard and cheap dill pickle chips, and they were pretty good.

If some other pharma rep wants to drop some by, I wouldn’t protest. Too much.

The love of my life, the one that got away, worked for Brinkers once upon a time.  That didn’t affect this review.

Chili's Grill & Bar on Urbanspoon

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