Appetite, Interrupted

Who has not tasted the salty anticlimax of an appetite unfulfilled? General consensus would answer this question with ‘the loyal clients of Lindy’s Red Lion’ in Foggy Bottom. But is it true? I ventured to test the hypothesis with an afternoon burger.

The bar and upstairs has the usual ‘best burger’ propaganda and signed photos that are required by law at all burger joints, and the chairs and tables are reassuringly cramped. In fact, it has all the hallmarks of a great food find: sprawls of yuppies toasting the weekend with cheap beer, tough world-hardened waitresses, and highschoolers from Minnesota who have wandered in by mistake.

What it doesn’t have is good burgers. When my defeated-looking basket arrived, the tiny meat patty reminded me of the Midwestern highschoolers, cold, thin, and greasy. The dusty sponge of a bun flopped limply on the side, and my guacamole had been forgotten by an overworked kitchen.

Now, it’s true that I was hungry as only great expectations can make you. So imagine my unhappiness when on top of taste issue, I then spent the next half hour at a Starbucks table trying not to be ill. Man, I leave the city for one year and look what happens.