Phipps Feeding Fiasco

The experience

Well, it’s another night for me at the hospital so Team Phipps had to plan accordingly.  I picked up Mina from school and Ogre drove to the restaurant with Benji.  We decided on Snuffers, which would be a short drive to work for me after dinner.  Mina asked me what type of food we were having for dinner.  I said, “American.”  She said, “Good, I don’t like Indian food.” On the way to the hospital Mina was singing “Monster Mash.”  She sang, “We did the mash, we did the monster mash.  The monster mash. It was a three non smash.”  I told her that I thought the words were “It was a graveyard smash.”  She told me I was wrong and kept singing it her way.  When we drove up, Benji and Ogre were waiting for us. 

We walked in and the host told us we could sit where we wanted.  Mina saw the largest table I’ve ever seen in my life and she wanted to sit there, of course. We told her no and picked a more appropriately sized table.  She said, “Oh, man!” 

Ogre was taking a picture of Benjamin and me in our scrubs when the waiter showed up.  He was kind of a …weird one.  He took note of our camera and asked us a lot of questions about it and took our drink orders and we ordered some Cheese Fries. 

Ogre brought the Soduko book he bought for Mina and started teaching her how it works.  I’ll be honest, I don’t get Soduko, I don’t think I have the attention span for it, but Mina seemed to get it with her Papa helping her along.  The waiter came back with our drinks and to get our dinner order, but before he got our dinner order, he started asking Ogre about the lens on our camera and then asked us if we wanted to buy one of his lenses.  Uh, no.  Just take our dinner order, please.  So we ordered a Cheeseburger with bacon for Mina, a Blue Cheese Wedge Salad for Ogre and I to share, I ordered a Chicken Sandwich and Ogre ordered the Green Chile Swissburger. 

 

Benjamin remained entertained with his “Are You My Mother Book” and Mina was busy with her Soduko, we just cheered and encouraged her along, she did a great job with it.  The Cheese Fries arrived and we all started to dig in except Mina, she wasn’t interested in the cheese fries and wanted to continue on with the Soduko.  Benji was completely interested, and, particularly, he was interested in the bacon topping. He would take handfuls, dip his hand in the ketchup and put ALL that in his mouth.  Gross. Kept him occupied though.

Next, out came our dinners. Mina tried to eat her huge burger.  She had some difficulty, so we cut up Mina’s burger and gave Benji a quarter of it.  That’s when we noticed that they forgot the bacon on hers.  We tried to wait for our waiter to be in eye’s view, but we never did catch sight of him.  We finally just requested bacon from another waitress who said she’d bring out the bacon topping stuff.  Fair enough.  I also cut up my chicken sandwich into quarters just because that’s how I like to eat my burgers/chicken sandwiches -cuts down on the messiness.  Ogre hands were dripping with burger juice.  Gross.  Benji was wiping the ketchup with his burger and eating it.  Gross.  I think this is why I don’t really like burger joints, it’s just too messy!

 

I gave Mina small amount of the salad to eat.  She had already eaten half of her burger and wanted the remaining quarter.  She started to eat the salad without any prompting.  I asked her if she liked the salad and she said, “no.”  Eh, oh well.

I look over and Benji is throwing the chicken and bread half of the quarter of my sandwich that I gave him at Papa.  Ogre admonishes him.  He goes back to picking up scallions off the table and offers some to Ogre, I think, as a peace offering. 

I look at the clock and it’s about time for me to head to work.  I’d have to leave the kids to Ogre.  I give Benji lots of kisses and sit by Mina who now seems to be pouting.  I ask her what is wrong and she says her tummy hurts.  I don’t know that I believe her.  I tell her she needs to finish up the salad as I think the thought of finishing the salad is what is making her stomach “hurt.”  Hmmm, we’ll see.  I wonder if Ogre let her off the hook.  He tends to be wrapped around her finger.  Note: Her shirt today even says: “Daddy’s Under My Spell.”  Of course, if she ends up with some type of gastroenteritis I’m going to feel pretty bad.

I gave Mina and Ogre kisses as well and headed out.

 

The food

So, I’ve read on other blogs and several foodie sites, that this place makes the best burgers and that they’re cheese fries are super-good.  Ogre agrees…

We ordered the Cheese Fries and made them even more unhealthy with bacon on them.  I thought the fries were too soggy and that the flavors didn’t meld well because the cheese didn’t really stick to the fries or the toppings so the toppings fell off.    The ranch they serve it with is pretty runny.  Ogre said it was “tasty” though.  And Benji liked the bacon.

 

The Blue Cheese Wedge Salad is HUGE!!  Definitely enough for two to share and swimming in dressing.  It has a pretty good blue cheese flavor, but I like my blue cheese dressing to have a very bold blue cheese flavor.  Also, I like my Wedge Salads to have that vinaigrette layer (like at BJ’s) and this one doesn’t have that.  Overall though, it was good.

I ordered the Chicken Sandwich and it was very good!  I ordered mine with the lettuce, red onions, and tomatoes.  The chicken is marinated and juicy.  It didn’t say on the menu what the marinade was, but it reminded me of a mild soy/pineapple marinade.

 

Ogre ordered the Green Chile Swissburger and he thought it was a very good burger.  It was very juicy as evidence by his hands that were dripping with burger juice and it looked to be cooked to perfection.

 

Mina told us she loved her Bacon Cheeseburger, heck, she ate 3/4 of it and that’s quite a bit for her!  The fries that came on the side for Mina were good, also. 

 

The kids menu has burgers, mini corn dogs, quesadillas, or grilled cheese -served with fries for $4.55.

 

The service

Average.  The waiter was a little weird with all that camera talk and trying to sell us something, but I’m not going to ding him for that.  He was somewhat attentive.  They got Mina’s order wrong; the waiter told us that he put it in but the kitchen forgot -I don’t know how I feel about blaming other people for mistakes.  I think the waiter is the restaurant’s representative -in my opinion, just say, “Sorry, we screwed up.  Here’s how we’re going to fix it.”  Food came out at a nice tempo.

 

The kids

Well, golly, it’s LOUD in there!  Great for kids!  There were tons of families in the restaurant, so after a string of not so kid friendly restaurants, this one is great for kids!  They have an appropriate kids menu for this type of restaurant (don’t expect anything healthy!) and they have a fun activity placemant (and we noticed toward the end of the dinner that the placemat had a soduko square on it!).

This place has average to above average food but definitely is kid friendly.  It’d make a great burger night with the family!

They have locations in Dallas, Addison, Southlake, Plano, Highland Village, Rockwall, McKinney, and Park Cities.

The total: I left before we got the bill, hopefully, Ogre will comment when he reads the post.

What did Guidelive say?  Overall star rating is 2 1/2, BUT they do give it a nod for “Best Burgers.”

 

Rants, Raves and Ramblings

Sometimes it’s easier to just let Mina think she is right.  I’ll just keep singing it the right way and hopefully she’ll decide for herself that words really are “It was a graveyard smash”…

Related Fiascos

• Going to Lunch at Genghis Grill
• On the Border of Pukedom
• Kids Eat Free at Applebee’s…but is it worth it?
• Steak and Shake and Sundaes, Too
• Benji’s Lunch at Jason’s Deli