Blimpy Burger

I still feel full. And we ate Blimpy Burgers yesterday for lunch. What's a Blimpy Burger you ask? It's an Ann Arbor tradition, that I'm sad to say Stein and I had not tried until yesterday. We were missing out in the meantime.

Now it's not something that I could eat every week, or every month, for that matter. But it is an experience that you have to try if you live here or visit here. They have their own system of ordering and getting your food, and in a soup-Nazi kind of way, if you don't follow along, you'll be harassed. Knowing this, Stein and I did a bit of research on what we needed to do before going. We even practiced (yes, we're dorks like that) and hoped that someone would be in front of us in line. When we got there, we were relieved. There were people in front of us. Make that a lot of people in line in front of us.

As we snaked our way in line throughout the restaurant, we were able to get the lay of the land and understand exactly how the system works. You pick up a drink, pick up a tray, order your fried stuff first (onion rings, fries, mushrooms, veggies), then you get to the grill. This is where the intimidation starts. You order the meat in quantities of patties. All of their meat is ground daily and put into little scoops. You order the amount of scoops you want, followed by grilled stuff (onions, mushrooms, eggs, bacon) and what type of bun you want. As the woman behind the grill (the main interrogator) is grilling your burger, she then will ask you what type of cheese you want. After this is all grilled, then the person at the cash register asks what you want on the burger. And then you're free to sit down (don't you dare sit down while you're waiting in line!).

We put an hour's worth of change in the meter before getting into the place. When I went out to the meter again when we sat down at the table, the hour was up. Yes, we waited an hour for 2 burgers, fries and onion rings. This obviously isn't fast food. But it is entertaining, it is Ann Arbor, and it is darn good food.