Place: Del Taco
Lunch (no, Breakfast): Bacon & Egg Quesadilla (with green sauce), hash brown sticks, watered down Coke
Del Taco is supposed to put green sauce on the bacon & egg quesadilla, but some locations choose not to, so I always specify. The Coke syrup-to-soda water mix was on the lean side this morning which, for whatever reason, actually made it taste better.
EARLIER AT THE MOTEL...Kid is waiting for elevator. We get in after a long wait. "What floor, sir?" he asks.
"Four, please."
"What?"
"Four."
He pushes '4'. He doesn't push any other floors. "Are you on four too?", I ask.
"No, I'm on two. But I can wait for you."
"You don't have to do that!"
"It's okay."
I thank him and get off on four. A family of like a half dozen or so, with luggage, are waiting to get on. As I walk down the hallway, I hear the kid ask them if they're going to the first floor.
THIS is why I love Utah.
As you are probably aware from my annual Auto Show posts and the fact I have a three-year old car with 160,000 miles on it, I like cars. I like to drive them, I like to read about them, I like to keep up with information about new models and technologies. So it takes quite a bit to throw me for a loop when it comes to cars, which is exactly what Hertz did last night when they handed me the keys to a 2012 Chevrolet Captiva.
A what?
EXACTLY.
(Remember when 'exactly' was Hertz's marketing slogan? I didn't intend for it to be a pun.)
Anyway, here it is.
You're thinking "That's just a Saturn Vue with a Chevy bowtie".
That's about right.
Still, it's better looking than the Equinox.
The Captiva name has adorned small CUV's outside of North America under the Chevrolet brand and its various international subsidiaries for several years. When the second generation Saturn Vue (itself a re-branded Opel Antara) hit our shores, Chevy also produced this Captiva-branded version for South American markets, and continued to do so even after the Saturn brand died. That made this vehicle a simple solution for GM's US fleet division dilemma caused by the discontinuation of the HHR, which was a poor seller with consumers but popular with fleets. It's not available to consumers...only fleets...but GM also claimed it wasn't available to rental companies, and Hertz had a crap ton of them anyway.
It's not exactly a barebones vehicle either. Mine has leather seats, a sunroof, SiriusXM, a backup camera built into the rear view mirror, OnStar, auto headlights, and a built-in garage door opener. It also has a Hertz "NeverLost" navigation system, which if you ask me should be re-branded "EverLost". I once rented a vehicle in Las Vegas that had this, and it couldn't correctly find its way back to the Hertz rental center. And that was at their old long-time facility, not the new central rental garage.
It also has no practical place to store sunglasses. The space where that would normally be is where they put the garage door buttons. There's a small space under the center stack, but mine don't fit there.
Stupid GM.
It also has "Eco" mode. There's a button poorly placed (no...cleverly hidden) behind the shifter that says "eco". Press it, and a green "eco" light shows up on the instrument cluster. It apparently changes the shifting pattern of the automatic transmission to improve fuel economy. Maybe by a mile a gallon, from what I read on the matter.
Anyway, you can't buy one at your Chevrolet dealer (and I have to wonder why...do they think it will cannibalize sales of the more profitable Equinox?), but you can probably buy a used one at your local Hertz Car Sales in a couple of years. Actually, Chevy dealerships will probably have used ones too.
I'm SO glad I flew out this year instead of making the long drive. As beat as I was just at Denver after a simple flight last night, I don't think I would have made it.
Happy Thanksgiving. Don't eat too much.
(I'm kidding. Eat WAY too much.)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
New to Us
Place: Burger King
Lunch: BK Chef's Choice Burger, BK Mushroom Swiss Topper, BK Deluxe Cheeseburger Topper, Dr Pepper
Elderly Counter Guy (who is, by far, the most professional looking person I've ever seen manning the counter at any area BK) takes my order. "I assume this is to go?" he asks.
"No, here," I reply.
He replies with a look of bemusement.
I'm not really going to eat three burgers, especially when one of them has a 5.5 ounce patty. I'm just going to sample them. They're new, I don't come here much, and I'm in the mood for veriety. Stop looking at me like that, elderly counter guy.
The BK Toppers have 3.2 ounce beef patties and are available in Mushroom & Swiss, Western BBQ, and Deluxe Cheeseburger varieties. The Western BBQ is basically the old Rodeo Cheeseburger with a thicker patty. The Mushroom & Swiss is just what you're thinking. The Deluxe Cheeseburger is topped the same way the Big King was (BK's Big Mac ripoff).
Or, at least, it's supposed to be topped that way.
Mine didn't have the thousand island dressing. It had mayo. And you know what? It totally worked that way.
So thanks for screwing that up for me, BK. You may have unintentionally made a better sandwich.
The Mushroom & Swiss was just dreadful. BK's new energy efficient charbroilers have a side effect of making their burgers taste TOO charbroiled, and the burger toppings here only emphasised that. It also gave me the impression that BK is actually seasoning their patties with a whole lot of sodium. Maybe the new charbroiling takes AWAY flavor and they're compensating?
The BK Chef's Choice is a 5.5 ounce thick patty they claim is "made with USDA certified ground chuck seasoned with salt and pepper" (other burgers just say "seasoned beef") and topped with "a thick slice of American cheese, naturally-smoked thick cut bacon, Fresh cut romaine lettuce, red onions and ripe tomatoes, (and) our original grill sauce on an artisan bun."
Jeepers.
I'll give BK credit, it actually comes off as a premium burger and it's pretty good. And that slice of cheese IS thicker. But for $4.99, couldn't you have used a nice thick slice of cheddar?
We're finally getting a Whole Foods Market in town. It's a small one going into part of an old Best Buy space. Best Buy built a new smaller store in the other part of their existing space and some neighboring empty space. The Whole Foods construction is an extreme makeover...they gutted the remaining space and demolished the front and side walls. The new side wall framing is up and things appear to be progressing nicely.
We are also finally getting a Noodles & Company. We must be the last area on the planet to get them.
Five Guys, who have also built every Midwestern community around us in recent years (even ones half the size), was supposedly coming too, but the "coming soon" information on their website store locator has been removed, and the address they previously had listed is otherwise occupied with a tenant who doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
I'm not really a Five Guys fan anyway.
But I would love a Which Wich.
Lunch: BK Chef's Choice Burger, BK Mushroom Swiss Topper, BK Deluxe Cheeseburger Topper, Dr Pepper
Elderly Counter Guy (who is, by far, the most professional looking person I've ever seen manning the counter at any area BK) takes my order. "I assume this is to go?" he asks.
"No, here," I reply.
He replies with a look of bemusement.
I'm not really going to eat three burgers, especially when one of them has a 5.5 ounce patty. I'm just going to sample them. They're new, I don't come here much, and I'm in the mood for veriety. Stop looking at me like that, elderly counter guy.
The BK Toppers have 3.2 ounce beef patties and are available in Mushroom & Swiss, Western BBQ, and Deluxe Cheeseburger varieties. The Western BBQ is basically the old Rodeo Cheeseburger with a thicker patty. The Mushroom & Swiss is just what you're thinking. The Deluxe Cheeseburger is topped the same way the Big King was (BK's Big Mac ripoff).
Or, at least, it's supposed to be topped that way.
Mine didn't have the thousand island dressing. It had mayo. And you know what? It totally worked that way.
So thanks for screwing that up for me, BK. You may have unintentionally made a better sandwich.
The Mushroom & Swiss was just dreadful. BK's new energy efficient charbroilers have a side effect of making their burgers taste TOO charbroiled, and the burger toppings here only emphasised that. It also gave me the impression that BK is actually seasoning their patties with a whole lot of sodium. Maybe the new charbroiling takes AWAY flavor and they're compensating?
The BK Chef's Choice is a 5.5 ounce thick patty they claim is "made with USDA certified ground chuck seasoned with salt and pepper" (other burgers just say "seasoned beef") and topped with "a thick slice of American cheese, naturally-smoked thick cut bacon, Fresh cut romaine lettuce, red onions and ripe tomatoes, (and) our original grill sauce on an artisan bun."
Jeepers.
I'll give BK credit, it actually comes off as a premium burger and it's pretty good. And that slice of cheese IS thicker. But for $4.99, couldn't you have used a nice thick slice of cheddar?
We're finally getting a Whole Foods Market in town. It's a small one going into part of an old Best Buy space. Best Buy built a new smaller store in the other part of their existing space and some neighboring empty space. The Whole Foods construction is an extreme makeover...they gutted the remaining space and demolished the front and side walls. The new side wall framing is up and things appear to be progressing nicely.
We are also finally getting a Noodles & Company. We must be the last area on the planet to get them.
Five Guys, who have also built every Midwestern community around us in recent years (even ones half the size), was supposedly coming too, but the "coming soon" information on their website store locator has been removed, and the address they previously had listed is otherwise occupied with a tenant who doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
I'm not really a Five Guys fan anyway.
But I would love a Which Wich.
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