Corey's Catsup and Mustard
623 Main Street
Manchester, CT 06040
catsupandmustard.com
My wife and I sat steely-eyed across from one another at a table at Corey’s Catsup and Mustard, a Triple D featured burger joint outside of Hartford. We had placed our order thirty minutes earlier and Alicia was getting antsy. Having a long drive back to Boston, she wanted to get home to our kids. I wanted to get home, too, but only after eating the delicious burger I knew would soon arrive.
As her frustration mounted, I tried channeling a Zen state, but Zen states are hard to channel when your wife is exclaiming, “I haven’t seen our waitress in ten minutes" and “That table being served ordered after us."
Om...Om...Um...?
I knew my burger would be delicious because I'd eaten at Corey’s once before (alone at the bar, I might add) and my cheeseburger was amazing. This was before Happy Burger began featuring regional fare (posts # 7 and # 9) so instead of writing about the experience, I filed it away.
Since that time, the excellence of that Corey’s burger has nagged at me to where it has taken on mythical proportions in my mind. I had ordered something called The Rodeo, topped with fried shoestring onions, BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, bacon, ranch dressing and served on a sesame seed bun. The combination of flavors and textures made for a truly burgasmic eating experience; but was The Rodeo as perfect in reality as it was in my memory?
Sidekick Scott
was out of town, so here I sat across from a woman who is gluten free, anxious to get home to the kids and not a burger enthusiast to begin with. As my wife's patience neared it's peak... “Another minute and I'm having it packed to go!"...I focused hard on Zen and the Art of Marital Stability.
“Are you positive this place was on Triple D?!?"
623 Main Street
Manchester, CT 06040
catsupandmustard.com
My wife and I sat steely-eyed across from one another at a table at Corey’s Catsup and Mustard, a Triple D featured burger joint outside of Hartford. We had placed our order thirty minutes earlier and Alicia was getting antsy. Having a long drive back to Boston, she wanted to get home to our kids. I wanted to get home, too, but only after eating the delicious burger I knew would soon arrive.
As her frustration mounted, I tried channeling a Zen state, but Zen states are hard to channel when your wife is exclaiming, “I haven’t seen our waitress in ten minutes" and “That table being served ordered after us."
Om...Om...Um...?
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| Triple D approved: Corey's C&M |
Since that time, the excellence of that Corey’s burger has nagged at me to where it has taken on mythical proportions in my mind. I had ordered something called The Rodeo, topped with fried shoestring onions, BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, bacon, ranch dressing and served on a sesame seed bun. The combination of flavors and textures made for a truly burgasmic eating experience; but was The Rodeo as perfect in reality as it was in my memory?
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| The evocative Rodeo Burger |
“Are you positive this place was on Triple D?!?"
Om...Om...Om...
"It's cold in here!"
Om...Om...Om...
When our food finally arrived, Alicia took a first bite, and asked, “Is your burger hot? My bun-less sliders are room temperature. Which means they're freezing.”
OOOMMM...OOOMMM...OOOMMM...
I tried to imagine that my burger was hot. I tried to visualize it being cooked to perfection as the first had been. I tried envisioning myself sitting alone at the bar. But even in a Zen state I couldn't pretend that my wife wasn't right. The six ounce, 80/20 Angus patty was barely warm. Worse, it had been flat griddled to an unsatisfactory medium-well instead of "on the way to medium" as ordered. The fact that Corey's beef is trucked in twice daily from a local source (a tidbit gleaned from a hostess during our ample wait) was only a sad footnote.
Still, even tepid and overcooked, The Rodeo rivaled many we've featured in Happy Burger. The combination of fresh, seasoned meat, salty bacon and sweet BBQ sauce made for a lively tap dance on my taste buds. The mellow yellow gooey deliciousness of the cheese was complimented by the tangy ranch dressing. The bun's thin crusty outer shell and crispy shoestring onions contrasted nicely with the bun's doughy soft interior. No doubt the combination of textures and flavors had been tinkered with meticulously by talented chefs until they thought the perfect amalgamation had been reached.
And it had. Only this time the execution was off.
On the road home to the kids two things were readily apparent: a recipe is only as good as its implementation, and, while a good wife is right an annoyingly high percentage of the time, a good husband is one who learns ways to deal with it.
And it had. Only this time the execution was off.
On the road home to the kids two things were readily apparent: a recipe is only as good as its implementation, and, while a good wife is right an annoyingly high percentage of the time, a good husband is one who learns ways to deal with it.
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| Om...Om...Om... |
The score below reflects the average of both Corey’s experiences.
Score: 8.75 out of 10 napkins
(Since this writing I've visited Corey's a third time, again alone, and I am still in search of that elusive burger. It was better than the last burger but worse than the first. A 9.1 on its own.)
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