The Wisdom of the Veggie Patty

I had a slew of new things I wanted to try this week, but they all required more of a financial investment than I could justify, so I give you….

...Burger King.  Not exactly what you had in mind, right?

I’m terrible at bringing my lunch to work.  It bores me.  I’ll have a good streak, and then one day I’ll suddenly decide that if I don’t physically remove myself from the building for at least an hour a day I might self destruct.  The trouble is that there aren’t a whole lot of great options near my office.  I work in an area that I like to call the Industrial Ghetto.  It’s a little piece of no man’s land sandwiched between four intersecting highways, a railroad, and a river.  It is stuffed with warehouses, manufacturing plants, and beaucoups of 18 wheelers that are the bane of my existence.  The neighborhood is all business during the day, but I wouldn’t advise visiting at night.

The location makes it tricky to get in and out of the area if you’re not familiar.  One wrong exit, and you’re stuck in a series of loops that will set you down 10 minutes out of your way and leave you scratching your head wondering how to get back.  I can’t tell you how often people get lost on the way to meetings we’ve scheduled.  All of that to say, getting out for lunch is a hassle.  My lunch of choice would be fast casual – Jason’s Deli, Pei Wei, something like that, but fast food is much more accessible from here, so it becomes the default. 

But here’s a newsflash for you - fast food is kind of gross.  I don’t really like burgers, so chicken is usually the choice, but fast food chicken can go terribly wrong.  And don’t even get me started on most fast food salads, with their droopy wet lettuce and tasteless tomatoes.  Ick.  The exception to this rule is Chick-Fil-A, but everyone knows this, thus the line is easily 20 minutes long in the drive thru, with nary a parking spot to be found. 

Why did I start this post again?  Oh yeah, Burger King.  So I passed a Burger King while on my quest for non-disgusting lunch today, and suddenly remembered that a friend had mentioned that BK had a veggie burger.  I threw caution to the wind and gave it a whirl.  I ordered the veggie burger with apple fries.  The first thing I noticed when I opened the bag was a sort of sickly sweet smell.  It was the burger.  Hmmm.  While the smell was off-putting, I chose to ignore it and took a big bite.  Again, hmmm.  It was a little mushier than I’d like, and it did taste a little sweet, but it wasn’t terrible.  I love black bean burgers, but I’ve never had a straight up veggie burger before, so I don’t really have a good comparison for the quality.  Would I order the burger again?  Maybe.   I think some mustard would have helped, rather than the sweetness of the ketchup and mayo that are the standard, so I’d probably give that a go before writing it off entirely. The apple fries, however, were fantastic.  They were lovely fresh-tasting little slices of apple with a small packet of yummy caramel sauce.  Yes, please.  They far exceeded McDonald’s apple slices.

Did I mention that before eating, I spilled hand sanitizer on my pants and it left a big mark that I’m pretty sure isn’t going to come out?  Or that a random man came up to my car window while I was eating in the middle of a fairly empty parking lot and asked me for a dollar?  And then when I said I didn’t have cash he asked me for change, and then I just felt really bad for not giving it to him, because I did have change, and clearly he needs it more than I do.  But wouldn’t it be a better idea not to approach a woman alone in her car who might be afraid of you?  If I’m rooting around for change in my console, then I can’t be looking at you, and then you could then catch me off guard and try to carjack me.  That’s what’s going through my head.  So wouldn’t it be a safer bet to go with a man, who is statistically less likely to think you might attack him?  It was a weird lunch.  And kind of a weird burger.  I guess we’ve found a theme.

So what have we learned by trying something new today?  Let’s see… At least with fake meat you don’t have any expectations?  Burger King wins the fast food apple war?  Hand sanitizer stains pants?  Panhandlers shouldn’t target women alone in their cars?  That every sentence in a paragraph probably should not end in a question mark???

Who knew you could learn so much just from trying a veggie burger?