Beyond Delicious Crown Burgers- SLC

SLC has quite a few good burgers around, but when I think quintessential SLC Burger it's Crown Burgers that always comes to mind. Prepare yourself for mouthwatering meat on meat madness. Take a regular Utah style cheeseburger -think burger, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and thousand island dressing in a bun and add a 2x-the-burger size hand-full of tender pastrami. Now you have a Crown Burger! Approaching a Crown Burger is delectable in itself- you can smell it before you can see it! That's not to say the burger isn't pretty. I included so many photos because you can definitely taste it with your eyes. Eating this mound of a burger is a gastronomical experience. The hamburger balances the strong pastrami taste, the thousand island adds a bit of tang. At least for me the bun usually gets pretty mangled cupped around so much meat but it's a small price to pay for so much savory goodness! Eaten with their steak cut fries this is a lunch that can't go wrong. DO ask for fry sauce. Theirs is the relish included style and strikes me as a little less sweet and a little more sour on the fry sauce spectrum. Have you ever accidentally tried to order fry sauce not in Utah? Be prepared for odd looks and loads of ketchup. It's too bad fry sauce isn't available EVERYWHERE. At least I think it should be..

Besides their Crown Burger (and Jr Crown Burger for those who can't get through a whole regular one) this joint has some awesome not typical burger spot fare. If you want something more Greek try a gyro or a souvlaki stick! They also have some pretty awesome sandwiches like patty melts and french dips. Order a classic shake or baklava if you have any room left in your stuffed tummy.

The only thing I always wish I could have with my burger is an ice cold beer. That's
why I tend to do takeout/drive-thru when I can't stop myself from a pastrami fix. Unfortunately this means I miss out on the awesome decor. They must be the only fast food restaurant with a chandelier and fireplace!

Crown Burgers is family owned, even with all the different area locations. This is what they say about that on their website:

"In all of the Crown Burger locations you will always find 1 to 5 family members working along side of our employees. Some of the restaurants may differ with 1-2 different items or different prices, but you will always find the Best, freshest food and friendliest service in all of our Crown Burger locations."

No wonder they have consistently awesome food.

The deserted stale coffee shop: Rovico's Coffee House-Draper

I'm on the job hunt and I've discovered a jolt of espresso and the white noise of a coffee shop is exactly what I need to bang out 20 job applications in a few hours. I guess I've been spoiled in CA with good independent coffee shops in walking distance from everywhere I ever lived. I've been really disappointed that my options here seem to be Starbucks or Beans and Brew (a Utah franchise that does at least roast it's own coffee..but I'm trying to stay local local.)I was stoked to find Rovico's Coffee is considerably closer than the drive I've been making to Sunset Coffee (to be reviewed soon!). Saturday I took the chance and lugged my laptop and note books over to 123rd.

First impressions were good. They have free wifi (no time limit). The place looked clean enough. It seems odd that there is a huge rack of flip flop/ casual sandals for sale by the cash register but I'm going with it... Of course I have some standby drinks I like to order, but I wanted experience 'Rovico's Flavor' so I ordered from their signature menu. This is a good time to note despite their menu listing lots of pastries and coffee shop eats the only thing available when I got there at 1:45 on a Saturday was one biscotti in a glass jar. I'm glad I wasn't counting on any food! After looking over the menu I finally choose the "nuts about you" signature latte. It has hazelnut, praline and chocolate syrups. I take it hot because it was kinda cold and windy outside. I have to admit I was annoyed by their starbucks style sizes (tall, venti etc) but their biggest drink size Vasto made me laugh. I looked up the definition and apparently it means vast in Italian (go figure). Hahaha. For some reason "Can I have a vast size coffee please?" just seems so wrong to me.

I get my coffee and hunt around for a chair near an outlet. This is a big coffee house test. There were only 2 outlets reasonably near seats that I could find without looking like a weirdo pacing the perimeter of the room. The big upholstered chairs aren't situated for laptop/writing use with their uber low coffee table so I went with the extra tall table with tall chairs. So this is the beginning of the mehness. The chairs are made of metal and it's really difficult to push them far enough in that you can set you laptop down and comfortably type and comfortably sit at the same time. I get off my chair more than once to pick it up and scoot it in closer to the table because this is impossible to do while sitting in it. I swear it weighs a million pounds and the table has legs that just won't get out of the way!! All the trouble was a mistake because actually leaning back in the metal bar chair is just really not that comfortable. I gave the place another look over to see if something else might be better and was frustrated to see my only other option besides the upholstered chairs were tables that had backless stools. No good for typing for hours on end. This place seriously gets an F for seating. It's almost more mean to entice your patrons to stay on your torture chairs for free wifi than to just not have any chairs or wifi at all. Then I would have had the sense to stick with the drive through like the only other patrons I saw all afternoon. I was there for 4 hours on a Saturday and only one couple came in to pick up drinks!!! To be fair there were newspapers strewn about the tables, so theoretically someone was there earlier in the day...or at least at some point? Luckily the teenage employee didn't seem to mind I was there..even if we could hear every move each other made including her personal phone calls about, "OMG! OMG! New Facebook photos! OMG!" So much for white noise :(

Now onto the coffee. To their credit the 'nuts about you' wasn't too sweet which is my common complaint about coffee shop specialty drinks. It had a good nutty flavor with a creamy chocolaty base. It was rather wet for a latte (there was 0 foam left when I opened it) but hey I didn't order a cappuccino so why complain. The bad was the weird off flavor I got with every sip. I finally came to the word 'dust' to explain the weird aftertaste of this cup o'joe. I'm pretty sure they were either using stale coffee beans or their espresso machine is in serious need of a cleaning. Have you ever had a cup of coffee from a carafe that's been sitting on the hot plate all day and all night? That's the taste I'm talking about.

Check out their seriously not updated/error ridden website or if your favorite coffee flavor is OLD please take my seat-I don't plan on coming back. Just want to get some free wifi? Prearrange a back massage for recovery, order a tea, and bring your own sandwich.

Janbo Express-Draper

Janbo is the epitome of “hole in the wall” especially right now with all the Fresh Market construction going on next door. While the restaurant might not have the ambiance of other Asian style fooderys in town nothing tastes quite as satisfying as fast inexpensive Chinese food. Don’t be scared away by the usually unsmiling teenager manning the cash register, the cooks are friendly and care about the quality of their food. They are always happy to meet special requests.. We ordered inside and it was ready in about 10 mins.

In true American chinese this-isn't-vaguely-authentic take out style I ordered the General Tao’s Chicken. The sauce actually has real spiciness (maybe a 6 on a 10 scale which is pretty impressive compared to the typical whitewasheria happening to most the ethnic food in town) and it isn’t too watery or too thick and gooey. The tender chicken seems to be white meat and has a medium crispy breading, a little heavier than tempura but this isn’t any KFC crisp. The ham fried rice actually has a decent amount of ham and isn’t too oily. My combination dinner also included 2 fried prawns and 2 cream cheese wontons. With all this food it easily lasts 2 meals and only costs $7.25!

If you want take-out or delivery or you just want something FAST I wouldn’t overlook this little place. It’s all you could need from Chinese take-out; they cook your food to order and they offer lots more choices than the chain Chinese express option on 123^rd.

My only personal critique is that I hate hate hate Styrofoam containers and their combo dinners always come in them. You can’t reheat them. You can’t recycle them. They aren’t sturdy. It’s time to move up. I’ll happily pay an extra $0.50 for a recyclable container and even brag on your greenness.

MMMMM! Copper Cone Pale Ale- Epic Brewing Company SLC

Ok so this isn’t really an “eat” per se, but who doesn’t want to drink their grains anyway??? Epic Brewing Company makes beers that are sooo delicious they sell out in just a few days! Tonight (after a day of not so awesome job interviews) I am unwinding with my favorite from their Elevated Series – Copper Cone Pale Ale. This pale ale is not whimpy so if you’re looking for something to soothe your American Water Lager Palate (that’s right, your AWLP and it’s as unattractive as it sounds) this beer is probably not for you.

True to it’s name the color is warm copper and the head is just off white with beautiful lacing. The aroma is strong, think California IPA with a lot of citrusy notes. The flavor packs a punch, hop heads you are going to LOVE this beer. To me the taste is grapefruity, with a piney background and caramel finish. I can’t say I have had a hoppier tasting beer EVER! At 6.8% alc/vol this beer is way too easy to drink! The malts balance out the IBUs perfectly. I disagree with those who say this is an IPA. It has a lot of hop flavor and is on the high side for pale ale IBUs but the malty mouthfeel and sweetness takes it back to APA status.

Epic Brewing is new in town, not that they haven’t made a name for themselves already. Specializing in “strong” beers you’ll need to drop by their Brewery on State St. to pick up most of what they have to offer. Currently they are selling 4 beers through the state stores and to be honest I haven’t had a chance to try them yet. Go to their website to check out all the awesome places in town that are serving Epic beers. Lastly, if you become addicted (like me) then save your bottles to be recycled at Cali’s Natural foods (details here), or find a local home brewer (like me) who always need more 22ozers!