After a much hectic season of moving, traveling, house stuff and now Christmas we took a little break from it all to go back to our beloved hamburger eating! Boy do we have a doozey for you today. Bad Apple. It is nothing like it's name says. It is DELICIOUS! First of it was a hike to get to for us but seriously worth it. Bad Apple was listed as #1 by a couple websites but we had never heard of it. There were a few bad reviews which made me leery but decided to give it a go! It's a really cute wooden bar/restaurant with cool modern furniture touches. Decorated for the holidays which always makes you feel pretty homey. There were some old Morningstar employees there which I assumed meant it would be delicious since Mstar people have such good food taste (unless of course they are picking over the old food left in the cafeteria). I digress. Let's start with the starter. Normally I'm not an appetizer kind of lunch eater but they had cheese curds!!! Fried blissful cheese curds. I could not pass up and they did not disappoint! The friedness was fried to perfection, melt in your mouth crunch. They were white cheese which is the only thing I would have changed, I typically prefer a non-white cheddar but didn't bother me too much.
The burgers are hand made with a lot of different options for make your own toppings or original burgers already developed. I went with the Left Coast Burger which has cole slaw, swiss and "secret sauce". There is a peanut butter and bacon burger which sounded like might be just that combo that while sort of disgusting sounding is actually delicious. The DG went with the Slow Burn. My bun was a pretzel bun toasted nicely. The burger came out slightly more rare than I like (or ordered) but it had such a great char and seasoned so well I didn't mind too much that it was a little rare. The toppings added a nice crunch and sauce to my burger. As you know I like both the crunch and the sauce so was basically in heaven. The DG liked his burger although someone near us ordered the pork belly burger and he was slightly jealous of that so I think next time he'll switch his order. The downside to my heavenly lunch...the fries and more important the Ketchup! The fries were ho hom, they were fried unevenly leaving some mushy and some too fried. They were the skin on more rustic variety which are not my favorite but I could have over looked all of this if there wasn't such an issue with the ketchup!! Regardless of how you feel about Presidental Nominee John Kerry or his wife, you have to respect the ketchup she makes. Or even any of the other varieties out there. Ketchup is supposed to taste a certain way and have a consistenancy that is very standard. Bad Apple attempted to make their own. Need I say more? I know it's probably healthier for me and all but come on! This was horrible. It was a juicy watered down tomato juice that they perhaps added a thickner to. This was not ketchup and I was bitter about it touching any part of my food. This did force me to order a side of Ranch which was out of this world btw. For those doz reading (uh hem) it rivaled First Run.
Rating for Bad Apple - my new favorite burger in Chicago. Hate the ketchup with a passion, love the ranch pinch hitter sauce. If you like burgers that are seasoned well with a good crunchy burger and bun this is the place for you!!
