Fine Dining - Ch**seburger in Paradise (Part Two: Review) feat. Mom

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

A review Jimmy Buffett would be proud of! Mom joins one more time to dish on our experience eating at Ch**seburger in Paradise in Honolulu, Hawaii! "Fine" Dining is now on video! Head on over to our YouTube to watch this episode! Vintage decor meets views of the ocean, the beach, and garbage trucks Hawaii is the deepest South A discussion on the word "y'all" A server flat out refuses to bus a plate off our table: What's Going on With That? But also, it's Way Too Much The burgers aren't bad, but they're nothing to write home about No desserts?? The floodgates on fast food and fast casual restaurants have been opened!   Music by: James McEnelly (@Ramshackle_Music) Theme Song by: Kyle Schieffer (@JazzyJellyfish) Segment Transitions Voiced by: Sandy Rose "Fine" Dining is on Patreon! Get an extra episode every month (Dropping tomorrow: part 2 of the countdown of all the restaurants on the Tchotchke of Mediocrity, this time covering everything "mediocre" in the 4.00-6.00 Zone of Mediocrity), extended Yelp from Strangers segments every other week, merch discounts, download access to our music including the 7 singles from our Olive Garden musical, and more! Patreon Producers: Sean Spademan, Joyce Van, & Sue Ornelas   Get the 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send in your Ch**seburger in Paradise stories at [e-mail].   Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let me know where I should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, PodcastAddict, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I read every one!   Next week on "Fine" Dining: Whataburger (Part One: Eat Deets)! I'm joined by friend, producer, and fan of food Ashley Robinson as we take on the first fast food restaurant in the show's main series run, a Texas staple: Whataburger! Ever work at Whataburger? Send your stories to [e-mail].

From this point forward, the word cheese will be bleeped because Michael finds it offensive. Hello and welcome back to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. This is part two of the cheeseburger in paradise episode. I went to Waikiki, Hawaii. I went with my mom. Mom is here. How's it going? It's great.

I'm so glad we had a chance to go to Hawaii to review a restaurant. That's pretty cool. It was nice. So we're going to jump into it. For those of you listening, for the very first time, this is the show where I go to restaurants and I'm trying to find you the most mediocre one so that we can just have a reference point. We need to know what's in the middle so that we can call everything better than it good, everything worse than it bad. And you know what, if anything, it's an excuse to go to all these places, these chain restaurants that I

truly love. Even though I know they're mediocre and, you know, it might feel like I'm kind of just like punching down on them. I enjoy them. I think Denny's, which is on the Chachki of Mediocrity at a 4.5, Denny's gets me excited. Wow. Like, just to go to a Denny's at night to stop by a Wendy's. Like these are the places that feed my soul, but I gotta call a spade a spade.

They are mediocre. We know it, but Mediocrity should be celebrated, right mom? Absolutely. That's that's your support of your own son. Mediocrity should be celebrated. No, you are not. I thought you were going to agree wholeheartedly. Anyways in this show, we're evaluating these restaurants based on their atmosphere, based on their service, and based on their food. Yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy Your table is ready, follow me Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and ribs, I recommend the spaghetti We're here to satisfy, not to impress

Your table is ready Complimentary butter and bread, these walls have growth signs Knit, knack, cowboy hat, good luck hat, autographed guitar Some crap from your city, behold the trash key of mediocrity Fine dining It's just fine! Just fine dining! Fine dining! Two letters on the sign are shining.

Neon flickering, irregular timing. Identify the perfect vibe! Howl at ten! Fine dining! Fine dining! Hey everyone! I want to tell you about another podcast. You see, this is a podcast, but other ones exist too. Do you enjoy vacations? Do you like picturesque destinations?

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your next trip doesn't end up, you know, with a body. So if you don't want your next trip to be your last, tune in to Slaycation on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you find your stuff. Anyways, that's their podcast. Back to my podcast. ["The Atmosphere"] Atmosphere. Okay, so the, I mean, the atmosphere of this place,

it's exactly what you'd expect. It's a tourist trap Hawaiian restaurant. It takes all of those elements and models its decor around that. It's a lot of bamboo banisters and tiki masks. The tables were all bright vintage. Like hula girls and stuff. Very bright and... Paradise seems like a very applicable word here.

I mean, you're looking literally at... Well, I'm looking out. I'm looking out at the Pacific Ocean. My mom is looking at a wall and an alleyway where there are just an exorbitant amount of trash trucks, dump trucks driving by. But also what was interesting out through the window is all the people walking by. With their surfboards, with their floaties. With their shopping carts full of cans.

Some stopping to talk to us as they walk by. Oh yeah, it's an open-air window. There is no separation. We happened to know some of the people that walked by. That was cool. So, the reason that we were in Hawaii was because I wanted to run the Honolulu Marathon and I did run the Honolulu Marathon. And you completed it.

And it sucked. But I did it with two of my cousins and we went to Chisburg in Paradise the day after running the marathon. So I'm pretty sore. And they walk by outside, they've got inner tubes on, they've been in the water and they're about to go on a hike They were going to hike up diamond head the day after running a marathon. Yeah So and was like maybe we'll go parasailing and I'm like, what are you doing? Relax a little bit go get electrolytes like go go have a pina colada. Put your feet out.

Relax for a second. Yeah. I thought it was funny. They just kind of came by, chatted a little bit, went on their way. One thing that I did notice in this restaurant that I appreciate as someone who doesn't like and is always censoring it is the back wall

had a big burger and paradise sign, but the sign was bigger than the width of the wall. So they cut off a couple of the letters and it just said, ease burger and paradise. I didn't. So was that something you could see from where you were sitting or was that in your... No, this is like as we were walking back to our table kind of over by the bathrooms. Okay. Which by the way, I didn't go in the bathroom. You didn't go in the bathroom. My dad did. And he said that it was really wet.

And I saw, I saw a Yelp review that I didn't end up choosing for Yelp from strangers where someone was like, I'm pretty sure 20% of the men's restroom is underwater. And he was like, I don't know if it's fresher dirty water, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I mean, it does. To the beach. It does matter. But like, it bothers him the same. Well, I don't know about the same amount, but it bothers him regardless. Right. So whether it's people tracking in water or their swimsuits are dripping or their aim is bad. Whatever. One of those factors made for a very wet bathroom. Wet bathroom. Okay. I

Did enjoy this more Given that the beach was my view. It's just very pretty to look out a window and you see the Pacific Ocean You see palm trees, you know, lots of stuff that just made this whole experience a little bit nicer Than your experience. I think I think our ratings might reflect that. Well, I am trying to navigate that I decided to order a boat drink, thinking. Wait, what is that? What is a boat drink? You really don't know what a boat drink? I don't know what the term, like they serve it in a gravy boat? So, boat drinks, I don't know if that was coined from Jimmy Buffett or not, but a boat, you know, there's a song, boat drinks.

Is that really a thing? I think that's the name of the song. But boat drinks would be like a pina colada, you know, anything that you're, fill it up, we're gonna go sailing. I mean, I can imagine, I assume the tropical of Bahama Mama is probably a boat drink. There you go. Exactly. Yeah, anything that sounds sugary is probably a boat drink.

Yeah. Is that an accurate assessment? Yeah. Now, one thing I did like on this place is on the menu, they had like the burgers and they have a bunch of different burgers. And then at the bottom for add-ons, normally a restaurant would just say like add-ons. It says more ways for us to make a buck. And I appreciate that level of honesty of honesty of just being that candid. It made me laugh. So the music here free bird was playing like real aggressive 80s rock. I was thinking kind of a loud rock vibe But then it switched over and we got like jazzy vibraphone and very tropical. So it was a blood

It was a mix of a few things. I didn't mind either like I liked both of those Musically speaking, I know that you probably felt Free Bird was a little much for you. I was okay with Free Bird. Some of the other stuff was a little loud, but when they go back to, I guess I expected, again, Michael, I wasn't sure about the whole Jimmy Buffett connection, so I really expected that kind of music. I thought there was one. When we were there, I thought there was one, and I were there, when we were there, I thought there was one and I was surprised

at the lack of any Jimmy Buffett references. And it wasn't until I got home and then started preparing Eat Deets for part one. I was like, oh, oh, yeah. So, yeah, I, it's a natural assumption. But then again, we did mention in Eat Deets that Jimmy Buffett did have his own unaffiliated Schubert and Paradise Fast Casual Chain for a while. Last one closed in 2020. So anyways, if I have to rate this atmosphere, objectively speaking, it's not good.

It's not bad. It's just there. But I had a view of the Pacific Ocean the entire time and it was very pretty. So I can't go less than one thumb up for the atmosphere at the Waikiki Txb Paradise location. I'm actually gonna agree for a different reason. The atmosphere included to me the setting, even though I, you know, the fans, the wall decor, the vintage old Hawaii feel I enjoyed. So one thumb up for me as well. Oh, okay.

Service. We had a server who I'm not going to his name because you know I don't I'm never trying to put anyone on blast. He was just fine. He seemed a little preoccupied maybe? I was gonna say the same thing. Like his head wasn't in the game but also as we mentioned employee Christmas party you get off at 4. We went at 11 a.m. so they'd already been open a few hours. They open at 7 a.m. and serve breakfast and then switch over to lunch at 11. So we experienced the lunch menu. He'd already been there a while. He's halfway through his day. Whatever. I'm not using

it to justify, but I'm using it to try and get in his headspace and maybe figure out why we got the service that we got I kind of felt a little bit like we needed to flag him down when we were ready almost every time for Ordering or another drink to be fair bring the sweet and low the first time he came by We weren't ready like there was a time where he came to take our order and we weren't ready and we asked him to come back and Like there was a time where he came to take our order and we weren't ready and we asked him to come back and Sometimes you lose the flow of service you lose the momentum that you have with your server And you know they have certain beats that they want to hit and then when you're not ready when you can't meet them Where they are with your order it definitely is like okay, well do I come back in five minutes, but

We were slow in the decision-making so I do get it. Also, this guy, he had like a southern accent and then said he was from Indiana, which I just find interesting. Well, you know, Hawaii is south. The deep, deep south. Well, it's, I don't know how far it is north of the equator. I mean we could compare latitude. Why? It's

more south than Indiana. Well yeah, I mean it's more south than California. I know that it's more south because there's a Pokemon in Pokemon Go that you can only catch under a certain latitude line Interesting. And it does show up. Okay, let's look that up. What is the latitude in Hawaii?

Alright. Hawaii is further south than Key West. Oh, okay. By quite a bit. Okay. It's 19.9 degrees latitude versus 24.5. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah. Isn't it?

Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if that's where he you know itself But he's from Indiana like you don't get your you don't get your accent from where you move to as an adult Yeah, I don't really actually that's not entirely well. I don't know you've lived in Texas 25 years and you don't have a text an accent. I say y'all But y'all is just a very practical word. It really is. If you're not saying y'all. It's an all encompassing. It's like a loa. There's people who still make fun of y'all and I don't understand that. So there's actually sentences that I use y'all y'all double y'all. Can you think of a

sentence where you would do? Well, there's like y'all all. Right., and then y'all yeah, I'm talking to all of you right. Yeah. Yeah, we're full on Hicks at this point They were very napkin stingy very napkin stingy we asked for you know well one my dad has like Very little patience So he'll ask for napkins and the guy will walk away and like another table will ask him something And then my dad will flag him down again and be like where are those napkins? He's like sir. I have only stepped away from your table four feet for 30 seconds I physically cannot have them yet. He didn't say that but like I was basically telling dad body language Why don't you let him disappear out of sight for a second?

And then come back. Unless he has napkins on his person, like he's like, you know, the mom of a toddler and you're just always like, ah, you've got sticky fingers and you're, you know, well equipped. But he wasn't. Right. Although serving us may as well been the mom of a toddler. Yeah, but also the straw incident from the Yelp review. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I get three straws? Here's one. No, here's one. Can we get two more? Here's one more. So yeah, a bit stingy on the utensils. But eventually, so we ordered some appetizers. We ordered some dishes, drinks, water plus.

You got a boat drink. I did get a boat drink. And we just had a lot of empties on our table. This is true. Now, one waitress came by and dropped off. I think it was the coconut shrimp. I think she was delivering from the kitchen appetizers to us. And you just asked, could you please take this away? There were some empties on the table. Which

is one of the most normal requests a customer can make. And she looks at you and she goes, ma'am, I'm not going to do that. And she left. She did. And I want to say that is way too much. This is way too much. The audacity to just deny that kind of simple part of the job request. She did say, ma'am, I can't help you. She did. But it was just like the audacity is unlike anything I've ever seen.

And it is, in fact, way too much. But I want to know more than just what happened. I want to speculate why this happened. I have no idea what's going through her head and it makes me wonder mom, what's going on over there? What's going on over there? What's going on over there? Should I wear it?

Should I damn? What is going on over there? So, Michael, what do you think was going on with that? That's not the name of the segment. What's going on with that? So, Michael, what's going on over there? Oh my gosh. You listen to every episode. Well, you know my memory is suffering just a bit. Um, I do have a theory though. is suffering just to fit. Um, I do have a theory though. If you listen to the Eat Deets episode, there was a moment where a friend of Jimmy Buffett's

went to one of the restaurants in disguise to kind of scope things out. And I think since the passing of Jimmy Buffett, we have another close personal friend of Jimmy Buffett who went in and decided to take this company down from the inside. Oh, a sepateur? A sepateur. Is that what we're going with? I don't know. I'm speculating. Do you have any better ideas? Not really. I was actually in shock all these years at a restaurant, you know. Oh, would you mind taking this? Right.

No, ma'am. I can't do that. Not I can't do that. She had the capability. She did. She did not have the willpower. She did not. It's what Jimmy would have wanted. Ma'am, I am not going to do that.

Wild. Wild. Crazy. I think she's sabotaging it. No, I know she's sabotaging it. We have figured it out factually without a doubt. That is, what's going on over there? What is going on over there? Yeah, so I think when you put all of those factors together, the napkin stinginess, the

lack of attentiveness, even if we disoriented the flow of the waiting experience, it wasn't pleasant. Like I just didn't enjoy the service that I got here. And when you're in a touristy spot, you kind of expect a little bit of like a performative server, not in terms of like they're singing and dancing, but just in terms of charismatic energy. And we didn't get it. No, we didn't.

We didn't get it. So I have one thumb down on the service. One thumb down for me. I agree that there was a lot of room for improvement. That I don't think they really wanted to give. Like, I don't think that they're... I don't think they care. Given the party upbeat atmosphere I associate with Sh**Burger in Paradise, it is not what I expected.

Yeah. Food. Yum, yummy! Let's start with the boat drink. Yeah, I ordered a piña colada. Food. Yum, yummy. Let's start with the boat drink. Yeah. I ordered a piña colada, a little memory of my mom in Hawaii. Waikiki was her favorite destination in the Hawaiian islands. And my mom loved piña coladas.

It typically is not the first. She was a boozy lady. She had a problem. No. I'm kidding. But she liked to have a good time. And when she went to Hawaii, she would love a pina colada. And so, in memory of mom, I ordered a pina colada.

And how was it? What all was in it? So. Was it pretty standard? It's a coconut rum drink with either an umbrella or a cherry or some type of fruit on top. And it delivered. It was everything I expected of a piña colada and not more. So it was just a piña colada. It was. Okay. It was good. How do you score a pina colada? I gave it a 7.5, which I think is a really decent score for a pina colada. I think in, if you're preparing boat drinks, I think you have to be good at them if you're sitting across the I don't bother. The street from the beach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was good.

So I got a raspberry smoothie. Okay. And I thought it was also very tasty. It came with like a pineapple slice that was like spiral in terms of how it was like sliced and propped into the glass. So great presentation. Had one of the little umbrellas with a cherry on it. Cherry was delicious. The raspberry smoothie itself cherry on it. Cherry was delicious the raspberry smoothie itself

I liked it was good. It was a good time nice sugary drink a nice beverage for the day after a marathon where I'm just trying to get as many like replenishing sugars and salt like electrolytes and stuff like that rehydrating and just trying to get something in my system. So very refreshing, raspberry smoothie. I want seven out of ten on it. Okay. We got two starters.

One of which my dad kind of made his entree because he wasn't super hungry. He got the teriyaki chicken wing wings. They don't serve you just one. Just one wing. I had just one But my dad's assessment was a more severe version of my assessment because he thought that like it was these adjectives to an extreme He thought it was way too sugary of a sauce. I thought it was sweet You know, it almost had like a little bit of like a candied like when you brown sugar a little bit Yeah, a little crisp a little bit, but the texture of the chicken itself was tough. So overcooked. The sauce and the

sweetness isn't what bugged me. That said, these weren't good wings because of the quality of chicken four out of 10. Ooh, okay. I did not taste those. You didn't try them. Okay. So the other appetizer we got was the coconut shrimp. I thought the sauce that was tossed in was pretty good. Actually, that was probably the best bite that I had that day. They had the sauce already on the coconut shrimp, the coconut. Didn't we do the luau that night? Okay. The best bite at that, established that. Didn't we do the luau that night? Okay.

The best bite at that establishment. At that meal. I'm sorry. We had much better food later. That's a whole different. Yeah. At that establishment. At that establishment.

I would say. That was my favorite bite. I would say almost everything at the luau was better than everything in sh** paradise. Yeah. The luau was good food. But that's not what we're here to review. Yeah, the coconut shrimp was my highest rating of the things

that I ate at Shepard and Paradise. I had one other thing that came close, but it had a wetness to it that wasn't like too soaking or too greasy or anything. It was just like, it was a wet sauce, basically. It was just a thin sauce. It was like a Thai chili sauce, I a thin sauce. It was a was it like a tight chili sauce I want something like that yeah but delicious and it was the right amount of sauce

and it was the right amount of shrimp they were good size nice and hefty I went for yeah seven and a half out of ten for me I went an eight you went an eight that was my favorite bite for that meal for that meal. For that meal. Yeah. I guess before we go into appetizers, I mean, y'all can probably presume what we got. We're at burger in paradise. So, you know, we got some burgers, but they came with some sides. And you and I had differing opinions on the fries. We did. I liked them.

I thought that they did have a seasoning that was It was like the the taste the seasoning that you put on a curly fry normally, but they were straight fries They had a little bit of that going for them Good crisp. I like the texture of them. I went six and a half out of ten on these fries I thought they were a little bit above average. Yeah, I still now I've only been your guest a couple times on this. I've still got Dave's hot chicken fries in my head. Dave's hot chicken is transcendent food. It's very good. For me, that's kind of my bar. But not your bar of mediocrity, it's your high bar. That is my high bar. Right. But of which for these, they could have used a little more crunch for me. Yeah.

So I didn't go quite as high as you. I did give it a 5.5, which is decent. A little better. A little above average, technically. Above average, but not quite as high as yours. Then there were onion rings. I thought these were very average. They were kind of like the bread, the bread

crummy sort of. It is like a panko. I just felt that there was too much breading to the amount of onions. I like onion rings when you have the big thick onions in them instead of the thinner ones. These were not the thick ones. I honestly, I mean, I don't think these were great onion rings by any means, but on principle, that doesn't bug me. Like I'm okay with a thin onion if the breading is extra tasty. If the breading isn't extra tasty, then... Or if the ratio is, you know, half onion, half breading kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah. But this one to me had too much breading. I went right in the middle on these. I went five out of 10. Oh, that's interesting because I ended up with a 5.5. But you liked them less. Do you thought, would you call these below average food? No, they were, 5.5 is still considered average. Then, yeah.

I mean, to me, they were like, they were just right in the middle. I could have done without them, but I'm yeah to me. They were very middling Yeah, like I said, I don't hate the idea of these like this type of onion ring can be executed at a very high level These just weren't it. Okay. I'm gonna make us wait for burgers one more step because Joyce ordered the loco moco Which is a traditional Hawaiian dish. It's like egg with ground burger meat over rice with a gravy. And boy, did I not know what else was in there because it just looked like a bowl of gravy.

It looked like a bowl of mush. It was a bowl of brown. And she was a trooper. Her rating off the record. She related it to jar gravy. Oh, no. And she gave it a 1.5. She hated this dish.

It was inedible. Bless her heart. Here's the thing. I tried it. Now she did kind of scoop the gravy out of the way for me a little bit. So I had a primarily rice and egg bite. Okay. I didn't even have much of the burger because, you know, it's not super high quality burger

meat. And mine wasn't as slathered as hers was. I thought it was an interesting taste. I went five out of ten on it. I went pretty pretty average and you didn't taste the loco moco, right? I did not. Okay. All right. So let's talk about the burgers in paradise. Okay. You got the one called the sh** burger in paradise.

I did. Did it feel like a paradise sh** burger to you? I had a burger in paradise, i.e. Hawaii for sure. They never said anything about guaranteeing the quality of said burger. Yeah, I actually it was a good burger. Yeah, it wasn't a great burger. It delivered.

Mine was overcooked a little bit. And you tend to like stuff on the. I usually say medium plus I'm afraid of medium well because you lose flavor you can totally burn it Yeah, and it was probably just a hair over cooked but all the goodies that are on the burger You thought salvage did a little bit salvage. I like the combination of all the tastes. I know you when you- So what else was in there? Colby Jack,

Chesmeo, Lettuce, Tomato, and Onion. I like all of the stuff on the burger as much as I actually, you know, delve into the actual burger, the way that you- Yeah, I tend to be, is your meat good? That's the starting point for me.

And then like, I'll, I usually get way fewer toppings on my burgers. Yeah, I tend to be, is your meat good? That's the starting point for me. And then like I'll, I usually get way fewer toppings on my burgers. Yeah. I'll have a few, but I do want to be tasting the meat and the bun primarily. But I enjoyed the brioche bun. Yeah. It was not dry. And I can understand that if you have a dry burger bun, it would ruin the whole experience. Unless you have something slathered in gravy like the Locomoco to give you some moisture

to balance it out. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it was better than average. Would you score it? I scored it at a 6.2. So it was a decent burger. 6.2.

I got the barbecue bacon burger. It was very thick on the sauce and it was actually Presented plated in a way to where the top bun was off. Okay, so you see a burger one onion ring in the middle and just like a pool of barbecue sauce on top of it and I like me a barbecue burger as I had no problem with the the taste of this sauce So the quantity of it didn't really bug me. The ingredients blended well. I mean, it was basically just lettuce, giant onion ring, barbecue sauce, burger bun. You know, pretty simple, just five things. And it did work for me. How was it cooked?

Medium rare is typically how I order. I don't remember, but I think it was within the realm of medium rare. Usually I order medium rare and if it comes on the rare side or the slightly overcooked more towards medium side, I'm happy with anything in that range. So medium rare is usually my safe place. So you saw a little pink in there. Saw a little pink and. So you saw a little pink in there? Saw a little pink and

Yeah, it what's interesting is Psychologically and in hindsight, it's the Jimmy Buffett official locations of Chishogsburger and Paradise the fast casual chain that partnered with Outback Steakhouse. Oh so this one, I went in thinking was made with Outback ingredients or whatever. I re like, my go-to order at Outback is their burger. I love the Bloomin' Burger. You put Bloomin' Onion pedals and bloom sauce on top of a burger at Outback, and I am a happy little boy.

You're making me hungry. So I had Outback in my mind and I feel like, you know how sometimes if you smell something and taste something, the smell impacts like how you taste it. Yes. To me, I'm thinking about outback and I think that like it made me taste outback. So I think I got a little psychological boost from this being a

thing that I know I already like even though it wasn't That's interesting because I did taste some similarities. It definitely was like, yeah, this definitely isn't exactly the Outback burger But I liked it. I went seven out of ten. Oh, that's a good burger. Yeah, I would eat it again The service experience is really what's dragging down burger in paradise. And then obviously, you know, the the wings not great. Coconut shrimp was good. Drink was good.

I'm just going to go a flat no thumbs on the food at burger in paradise. And what you might notice, dear listener or viewer, depending on if you're on YouTube, we're cutting off talking about food here. What about dessert? They don't have dessert. No dessert.

I think that's crazy. I don't know if I've ever been to a sit-down restaurant that didn't have any dessert offerings. A candy? I asked the way to a candy. We've got a half-eaten Twix. I found something out recently Twix. Mm-hmm. Do you know what it stands for? I? Don't twin sticks. Oh Okay, it comes with two little a left bar and a right bar, okay, they're identical okay and win sticks

Okay, and And that just falls into dessert category. I mean, you brought up candy. You brought up candy. Anyways, I think it's crazy to not order dessert. They did have, in their breakfast, they have like little mini cinnamon roll bites. And when I asked our waiter about dessert, he said, well, if you came for breakfast, you could have gotten this. And that's the closest thing we have for dessert. Well, just given that most people have that Jimmy Buffett correlation, correlation, I was thinking there'd be some type of one of those volcano desserts where it's got the ooey gooey inside and ice cream. I just that was an assumption that right and they could have got a lot of it but there wasn't a Jimmy Buffett affiliation.

Right. I think it'd be very bold to be serving more Jimmy Buffett themed items at this place that's already getting away with murder. Right. Right. Yeah. But yeah, overall zero thumbs on the food for me. I think I have to go one thumb down on the food. Yeah. I like the coconut shrimp. And that was about it. As far as like what you would go back for maybe. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Final rating. Final Rating

We've talked about the atmosphere we've talked about the service we've talked about the food What does it all mean? What does it all mean if we don't put it together into a number to throw up on the Chachki of mediocrity that I will affix to it when I get back home to California? Because I don't have the Chachki with me right now. But we got to know. Where does it fall? Is this the perfect 5.00? Is it less than mediocre? Is it more than mediocre? Mom, I'll let you take the floor. Well, it fell a little short of mediocre for me. I have it at a 4.85. The service and the food pulled it down, but to me, that atmosphere still held it a little bit.

You know, we open air is awesome when you have beautiful weather outside and being able to people watch, you know, all of that combined. Very unique to have a few folks walk by wearing their floaties heading to the beach. And they happen to be my cousins. We happen to know. Yeah. And Sir Ford's walking by, you know, I think the atmosphere for me pulled it up. Yeah. And I would say the same thing. The food wasn't as bad as I think I make it sound. But it still wasn't something where like, I will never say you've got to go to this place. You don't. You flat out do not need to go to this place. Our service experience, not great atmosphere. I mean, you're looking at the ocean. It's beautiful, but literally any other restaurant on that same street is

going to have the same situation. So, yeah, you know, if you're in the area, this isn't the spot you got to go. I'm going to go a little bit lower than you. I'm going with a 4.5 3 okay, this place just wasn't cutting it for me. I I don't need to go back. I've eaten it great Moving on so that means that this will go up on the Chachki of mediocrity at 4.6 9 4.6 4.69 You know what that means mom This is decisively less than mediocre

And because it's less than mediocre, that means we gotta keep looking. We gotta keep the search going to try and find out where is the most mediocre. I gotta try a different spot next week. Which means that we need to play a little game, mom. We gotta play the headline game! The rules of the headline game are as follows. Michael will present three headlines to his co-host that include this week's restaurant. They can be made up, or they can be actual headlines. If the co-host can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake, they will get to select next week's

restaurant. However, if Michael stumps them, he'll select again. Are you ready to play, you two? I'm ready. Okay, first headline, and I'm going to preface this with, when I'm looking up headlines, a lot of them came up regarding the Jimmy Buffett official fast casual one that is in the mainland and not just Hawaii. Okay. Shizburger with pair of dice. Chain restaurant to add games of chance to New Jersey location. Okay, we lived in New Jersey a little bit and as I'm thinking about Atlantic City, big gaming center on the east coast, I'm going to go true. True.

Okay. B**chburger in Paradise, offering limited weekend, all you can eat, Buffit Buffay, in honor of upcoming visit from songwriter and licensor. I absolutely think they would tie that into the promotion of him coming to visit. So I'm going to say true. True. All right. And lastly, Maui, Schibert, burger in paradise, eatery ordered to close because it doesn't have hot water.

I that can happen. I think at any restaurant at any given time, I think, at any restaurant at any given time. I'm gonna go true. You're gonna go true. All right, going back through them. Shizburger with pair of dice, chain restaurant to add games of chance

to New Jersey location. You said true, I made that one up. Oh! I came up with a pair of dice pun. I like that! And... It's too bad, maybe they... Gotcha, mom!

Yeah, they could have monopolized on that one, Michael. And, I mean, still can. Sh**burger and Paradise offering limited weekend all-you-can-eat buffet on their upcoming visit from songwriter and licensor. You fell for that one too. That was an even worse pun for me. But I think you told me that your mom is so gullible and here we're proving it for all to hear. And lastly, Maui Ch**burger in Paradise, eatery ordered to close because it doesn't have hot water.

You said true. That one is true. That is the thing that happened. But kind of gross. The dishwashers did not have hot water and there was no alternative for washing and degreasing kitchenware. Ooh. The inspection was conducted after a complaint. Meaning that they- Ooh. They went forth and were still serving customers.

Yeah, they're plates lit off the table. Without washing the dishes. Oh, so gross. So you got one out of three correct, which means I win the headline game. I get to choose where I'm going next time for episode 50. Wow, that's a big one. Episode 50 of the show.

And whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, hold on there dear YouTube viewer. The video just cut out. It's intentional because I recorded this and then I decided I'm not gonna do the thing that I did pick and I'm not going to tell you what that place was. That doesn't sound fair. But hold it's because I'm in Texas. I'm here visiting you. I've got episode 50 next time and I have a policy that I've abided by and broken the rule one time in the first 50 episodes. And that was, it has to be a full service sit down restaurant. Right. There

was a beef to settle that caused me to go to Cinnabon. But other than that, I haven't done fast food for the proper show on Patreon. Sure. Plenty of fast food because I want to do different types of pics for that. But I want to open the floodgates and I want to announce that from 50 episodes moving forward in perpetuity, fast food is on the table. Fast casual is on the table. Anything that is a national chain eatery. Okay. And you know, national if it's all over even a state, I'll take that. I want to do something that is a staple of Texas fast food. Okay. So for episode 50, Whataburger. Whataburger. Wow. That's a great one. Well, thanks so much. We didn't find the most mediocre restaurant in America. The search does, in fact, continue. Follow me on social media, Instagram, TikTok, at Find Dining Podcast.

We're now on YouTube. You can watch these episodes. I'm posting YouTube shorts. There is a Patreon, patreon.com, slash Find Dining Podcast. You get an exclusive episode every single month. Another new spot that I haven't done before that you can only hear there. Extended Yelp from Strangers segments. You can download the songs from the musical, the Olive Garden episode.

Love it. But yeah, we didn't find the most mediocre restaurant. Search continues. Have a fine day. The search continues. We still need the perfect fire. The search continues. Have a fine day! Mother Earth and Search continues Rattas and iTunes review And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars?

Come on! Follow us on TikTok The same on Instagram All the socials At Find Dining Podcast We have a website Find Dining Podcast.com Buy our t-shirts Then put them on And don't forget, you can always suggest where we go next.

Okay! We're going to find it. Mediocrity. The search continues. See you next week! Cough, cough, cough, cough. Ah, hurt my throat a little. Have a fine day.