To Hell and Back at Hell's Kitchen

This has been the longest period of time between blog posts! Anyways, I haven't had much time (same old story) to post stuff, so when all else fails why not just post about the meals I've eaten?

This time around our brunch took place at Hell's Kitchen--no, not that Hell's Kitchen but the one located in Kitsilano in Vancouver. We went there with my brother and his wife and this place is known for its decent grub. However on this day, I have to say they definitely had an off day...

For starters, the place was extremely understaffed (we had to wait a long time for drinks to come, and sugar packets were hard to find for our coffee). Service was not great and the cleanliness of the restaurant (we sat on the patio) was not the greatest. I've worked as a server before and in restaurants all my life--so I'm well aware of the hardships sometimes faced by servers.

On this day I felt like eating a burger so I went with that choice. Now, I know that Hell is supposed to be flaming hot, but who would've thought they would focus this to their burger patties?! When my burger arrived it looked extremely well done. I'm talking dark, charred grill marks. I love my burgers so I decided to take a bite anyways--bad decision! The entire mouthful of beef was bitter because the underside of the patty was just charred black--ouch!

See those "black strips" extending out from my burger? In the words of Ralph Wiggum, "it tastes like burning"...


Honestly though, just what the hell (no pun intended) are kitchen chefs/cooks thinking when they overcook a burger? "Hmm...it looks really black and will taste bitter...I think I'll just flip it over and try to hide it. That was easy (think of the Staples button)!"

So anyways, I let one of the servers know and they ended up making me a brand new burger with some "surprise" fixins'. After watching everyone else eat their meals (which included cold hashbrowns), I finally got my burger. It was good but nothing special. There is a positive side of this story. Hell's Kitchen did apologize for my burnt burger and took care of it on my bill (who would want to pay for a charred black burger?) which was nice.

The replacement burger 20 minutes later...yes, there is a patty underneath...


So that's my story...talk about going to hell and eating brunch with the devil. To top it off, our server's gang of girlfriends decided to occupy the patio and express their nightclub adventures from the night before out loud (quite entertaining). Ahh, the joys of eating in hell...