Thursday, March 27, 2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

California Burger and Deli. . . in Utah

Don't get confused. Yes, this restaurant is called California Burger & Deli and yes, it is in north Salt Lake. Not in California. I wouldn't have such an exotic flare if this place actually existed in California now would it? And yes, California is exotic to us Utahns.
I have heard good things about this restaurant and decided to take my wife there. By the way, she is great, she follows me around and, because burgers is what I do, she almost always lets me choose the places we eat. Fair? Maybe not, but to be fair to me,  she has never complained and I really don't see it happening anytime soon either because she loves burgers about as much as I do now.
California Burgers & Deli is in a weird spot nowhere near any other businesses that I could see. However, West High School is directly across the street and I suspect all the students there are making the owners of this establishment rich.
Yes, I know, this is from Subway. I just found this picture somewhere
and it is not the actual sign that I mentioned, but it was a lot like this
 sign only there were at least three of them posted on their soda machine.
At first I couldn't understand why there were so many signs up on the soda machine written in sharpie that said "ONLY 1 REFILL!" or "2nd REFILL IS 50 CENTS" or "SERIOUSLY, QUIT STEALING MY DAMN SODA". Ok I get it, you love your soda and don't want to share, sheesh. But then I Realized that the poor owners are dealing with teenagers 90% of the time. I now approve of the signs. I can't imagine the hell they have had to go through that eventually lead to the necessity of such signs. Those poor owners, they have a great locations that blesses/curses them.
It's a little restaurant and the vibe was a bit weird. It was eerily quiet in there, no music at all for some reason. You don't realize how important background music is in a restaurant setting until there is none to be had. Definitely needed some California-themed music to go with the environment. Without the music, rather than give off a Beach Boy vibe it gave off an Escape From L.A. (A movie which stars my man-crush Kurt Russell. He's my boy!) However, the restaurant itself was very very clean though, dang near spotless. The owner scurried past us a few times as he wiped down tables and windows and swept the floor.
As for food, my wife got a cheeseburger and I got their signature California Burger with a basket of fries, which come with two onion rings as well. Count em, two. The California Burger is a pastrami and swiss burger that also has bacon on it. Yeah, I know. Needless to say, it was pretty good. However, in the end, the bacon over powered the pastrami. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like much of a problem for a guy who's mistress is bacon. But, I think a good pastrami burger needs no upstaging, and that's what the bacon did.
But, lest I be misunderstood, it was good burger and it was big, juicy, and above average. My wife liked it better than Crown Burger's pastrami burger, buuuuut I'm on the fence about that.
The fries seemed to be fresh cut but were just ok. Not a whole lot of flavor. The onion rings were much better and had a good crispity crunch to them, just the way I like 'em.
So if you're looking for an 'exotic' burger option, I give my approval. Head on downtown to California Burger & Deli and tell them to turn the music up.