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I have the day off! Ooooooooff.

So I got up, I went to storage, I sorted for a bit, I came home. This afternoon I have a doctor's appointment, which is actually the reason for my day off; it's easier for me to take a day and have a temp come in than try to find someone who can sit at my desk for the last three hours of my workday. One of the few disadvantages of my job is that it's very hard to get time off without everyone knowing and everyone remarking on it.

Couple of links for you -- a cafe member is running a marathon to raise money for farming and nutrition research and could use sponsors; another is looking for Gluten-Free recipes. (As much as I love my gluten-free homies, please post recipes there, not here.)

Also, someone asked me for links when I mentioned male fashion blogs. Directly after I answered it, Get Kempt linked to a Styleite post that lists the best male-fashion bloggers across a variety of genres.

I don't actually read many of the blogs anymore, though I used to read A Suitable Wardrobe and a few others listed there. I began to develop some issues with the way they approached style and appearance; I learned a lot, but I also felt like they could be teaching without being dickwads about people who enjoyed casual dress as well. Sometimes I just want to wear a t-shirt, and I don't think that makes me declasse.

So I read Get Kempt because it links to all the really vital stuff and also frequently to pictures of naked women, which is nice.

(no subject)

Apparently my doctor's office is down a tech and cancelled me fiercely...and without telling me. Argh.

But, as all my medical care is at Northwestern Medical Center, that did put me in a prime position to have a late lunch at Mburger, the new "fast food" place by the executive chef of fancy Chicago restaurant Tru, located around the corner.

I am baffled by Mburger.

I kind of get the concept. High-end chef opens fast-food joint around the corner from his super-gourmet, super-expensive restaurant. He offers high-quality cheap food quickly, which I'm sure is a huge draw to the staff of the hospital nearby. It's had tons of buzz in the Near North, especially since during its first few days it regularly had to close down because they'd run out of food. It only has eight seats (one counter and two two-seat tables) so it's mostly for take-away. I definitely get the eight-seats thing; scarcity causes interest. I think it wants to be like Mighty Fine Burgers or Five Guys Burgers, high-quality comfort food served without frills. The problem is, it's just not very good.

I came in during a down-period, so it's not like there were a lot of people there; I even got a seat after I placed my order. The service was super-friendly but the actual food service was really too slow to be considered proper fast food. The service-and-dining area is about the size of my kitchen, and the music was WAY too loud for such a small space; the cashier couldn't actually hear my order, and I couldn't hear her response. I almost missed my number being called when my food was ready because Counting Crows was screaming at me.

The food wasn't really an improvement. For eight dollars I got a small, dry fried burger on a wonderbun, bland lukewarm fries, and a sort of average chocolate shake -- Hershey's syrup blended into vanilla ice cream. I could get a better hamburger, much better fries, and a soda for that at Byron's and still get change.

Mburger is too small to be a good diner (and closes too early for the lateness of the hour to excuse the quality of the food) and too hostile to leisurely dining to be a lunch joint. Thinking about it, the whole place reminds me of a burger stand at an amusement park -- mediocre food that you have to eat because there's nothing else around. The thing is, this is Chicago. There is food everywhere. Mburger is literally across the street from Elephant & Castle, where for eight bucks you can get a grilled burger and fresh fries and probably not wait as long, if you go during Mburger's peak hours.

The best way to put it is that no one part of the experience makes up for any other part. If the food were better, the service were faster, or the ambience less annoying, one could excuse the rest of it, and you'd actually get the feeling of knowing some awesome secret lunch place that's somehow "authentic". But it's just not, which is not really to the credit of the chef and owners of Tru, who gave up their pastry kitchen to install it.

And Elephant & Castle is right there.