Sizzler

Tonight was the last night of my ESL Endorsement, and to celebrate, a slew of us had dinner at Sizzler.

My salad from the salad bar was of the not-healthy variety. 

I had a classic Sizzler steak, which came with mushrooms,
as well as fries. 

Seared

Tonight is my last night in Sonoma County, California, so my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew took me out to Seared for dinner.

We shared some calamari.

We also shared some duck confit potatoes.

My bacon cheeseburger was really fantastic; I suspect the cow
who gave her life had gotten spa treatments and massages.

Apollo Burger

My husband got home a bit early from work today, a little after lunchtime, and apparently he had a hankering for a burger from Apollo Burger. It should be noted that at work, he also partook of a taco bar that had been provided by his place of employment. Clearly, I am married to a hobbit. At least he brought an extra burger home with him. This may be one of my favorite burger joints.

We both partook of the signature Apollo Burger, which
comes with melted American cheese layered with pastrami.
I'm not big fan of pastrami, but this was a darn good burger.
(I could only eat about 1/3 of it. My husband kindly ate
the rest of it.) 

Also, even the fries were good.

The Quarry Steakhouse & Brew Pub

We're only spending two nights here in Vernal, Utah, with tonight being our last night here, so we chose to have dinner at The Quarry Steakhouse & Brew Pub.

I started with a bowl of clam chowder.

My husband started with some mozzarella sticks.

I had a bon cheeseburger with some pretty good fries.

Five Guys

As my husband and I wandered over to our local T-Mobile store to upgrade my iPhone (into which I could no longer talk and be heard - a problem with a cell phone), we discovered that the T-Mobile store wouldn't open until noon. We had planned on grabbing lunch after our purchase, but we were nothing if not flexible (and, more importantly, hungry), so we had lunch first, stopping at Five Guys.

We shared more fries than you can shake a stick at. 

I got a bacon cheeseburger with raw onions, pickles, mushrooms,
mustard, and mayo. It was delicious.

T. G. I. Friday's

By dint of not being able to get seats on a flight back to Salt Lake City, my husband and I spent New Year's Eve in Atlanta, Georgia, this year. No one really wants to spend New Year's Eve in an airport, and we were rather worn out from our 12-hour flight from Rome, but extremely grateful that we got seats at all (we got two of the very last seats available on the plane; stand-by can be very exciting), so while we considered our options, we had dinner at one of the several T.G.I. Friday's at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

I'll note that we had had a truly wonderful time in Rome and had eaten extremely well, but we had had a bit too much pizza and pasta - we found few alternatives during our stay, although I'm sure we could have looked harder - and we very nearly didn't get seats on the only flight from Rome to Atlanta that day. (There tend to be few international flights, in this case exactly one to an airport that would offered a transfer back to Salt Lake City.) I'll also note that it's been several years since I've been to this particular chain - it's not one I seek out - but partly because I was so delighted to be back on American soil and eating something that wasn't Italian food, I enjoyed this meal probably much more than I would have otherwise.

Because it was New Year's Eve, I said to heck
with it all, and got a mojito. I like mojitos and
I drink alcohol extremely rarely, but again:
New Year's Eve! In the proper country!
One of the last available seats on the only flight
from Rome to the U.S.  that day! So, mojito time.

We shared a three-for-all appetizer plate, which came with
loaded potato skins, pot stickers, and boneless buffalo wings.

I was itching for a burger, so I ordered the New York
cheddar and bacon burger.

Fuddruckers

My husband and I flew to eastern Pennsylvania today to visit my parents for a few weeks, after which we'll head up to Massachusetts to visit my father-in-law. There are no direct flights from Here to There, as they say, so we changed plans in Detroit (DTW). Between flights we wanted lunch, and fortunately, a Fuddruckers was near our gate.

I got the chicken fingers, because apparently I eat kids' food
when I travel.

My husband got a (I believe) 2/3-pound burger with bacon.
We split an order of fries, which were pretty darn tasty.

Shake Shack

And so this morning we left New York behind.

But because of a time zone flub on Google calendar, we got the airport this morning very early for our flight. (Since we live in Utah, the time zone is two hours behind the east coast, which meant that our 12:50 p.m. flight was listed on our calendar as departing at 10:50 a.m.) This meant, however, that we had a lot of time to explore terminal four of the airport, and have lunch before we departed (also meaning we didn't have to buy overpriced mediocre airplane food).

Fortunately, we had arrived in terminal four, and while I noticed passing Shake Shack on our way out, I forgot, although quick search of airport eateries reminded me. (I've been to Shack Shack before, but only their Madison Square Park location.)

It's a bit difficult to tell, but that's a SmokeShack burger (which comes with applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry peppers, and ShackSauce) on the left; a bacon, egg, and cheese in the middle (which was one of the best breakfast sandwiches I think I've had); and an order of fries. I couldn't eat it all. I tried, though. Unfortunately, I was too stuffed to go back for a frozen custard or a concrete, which was probably just as well. 

It was the best final meal to leave New York.

Red Rock Brewery

My husband and I had had our yearly eye exams at a local mall this morning, and since they were finished around lunchtime, we decided to go the Red Rock Brewery for lunch.

We started with the fried green tomatoes.
They weren't that good; they were a bit bland.

I had the French onion steak sandwich, which was  served
with caramelized onions on toasted sourdough bread
and topped with melted mozzarella & Gruyere.  (I could
only finish one, but it was pretty good!)

íslenska Hamborgarafabrikkan

After the last two rather disappointing meals, my husband and I stopped by íslenska Hamborgarafabrikkan - the Icelandic Hamburger Factory. I have to say, these were the best burgers I've had in Europe so far (having had subpar burgers in Ireland, Estonia, and Finland).

My husband had the No. 2 Lamburger, which he said was very good, but I had the No. 8 Morthens Burger, which came with bacon, garlic grilled mushrooms, cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, Bearnaise, and French fries. I was quite pleased (and thankful that my burger didn't come with any weird Thousand Islandesque sauce on it).

Steak 'n Shake

Having arrived in Las Vegas at a much more reasonable time than I had originally planned (my original flight had me arriving after 9 p.m.), I could actually plan on having dinner out, instead of at the Salt Lake City airport (which is where I wound up having lunch). My husband had a dinner planned for 4 p.m., which was entirely too early for me (especially since I had only eaten lunch three hours earlier), so I stayed behind in our hotel room while he went out with his co-workers. Probably good that I did; he wound up having a two-hour meeting, which I definitely wouldn't have been invited to, although apparently they are out at a buffet, which I'm jealous of.

At any rate, when I got hungry enough, I wandered down to the casino-level of our hotel, and finally found Steak 'n Shake, which I have to admit I'd decided on even before leaving Utah. (Food is very important; I research these things ahead of time. I'd thought I might wind up needing to find dinner on my own, after all, and since we're a bit far from the strip, I'd wanted to see what my options were.) 

Steak 'n Shake turned out to be a great choice. I had a wonderful Frisco Melt (two steakburgers with Swiss and American cheese - although I requested no Swiss - on grilled sourdough with sweet 'n tangy Frisco sauce, which wasn't especially sweet) with shoestring fries.

And of course - of course - a milkshake. I took mine to go, because it takes me awhile to make my way through them; because it came in a To Go cup, you can't tell, but in that cup, is a very, very yummy "chocolate covered strawberry": a milkshake with real strawberries, topped with a layer of fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry. Mmmmm. 

 

Five Guys

The problem with shopping is that it makes you hungry. Sometimes even the thought of shopping makes you hungry, so you really have no choice except to go get yourself a burger.

At least, that was the problem my husband and I were facing this afternoon. He needed a new cell phone and had his eye on one of those Samsung Galaxy phones, so we went to the local T-Mobile store, which, conveniently, was next door to Five Guys. (And we'd need a lot of energy before going to another mall to brave the Apple store to get me a badly needed new MacBook Pro - it had been around seven years or longer since I had a new laptop, which was high time.)

I had a junior bacon cheeseburger with mayo, mustard, raw onions, and mushrooms.

We also shared an order of Cajun-style fries, which were delish. This was the regular size, which is still a pretty big-sized order, and even between the two of us we couldn't finish all of them.

(On a side note, I got fry sauce, which  is as close to native Utah ethnic food as we get here. I don't quite grok its appeal, but today it was pretty good.)