Much like a well-adorned baked potato, this anime season is loaded. You've got shows like Alya and Too Many Losing Heroines providing the quintessential high school rom-com flick but fine-tuned to the max, Oshi no Ko Season 2 continuing the deep dive into the entertainment industry that took people by storm a year ago, and My Deer Friend Nokotan providing the seasonal deer show. Our internal Fansubbing staff anime club is watching close to 9 shows this season, which is a high water mark for the group. All this anime watching takes a lot out of oneself, though - and so in our eternal quest for good eats, Evan and I ventured out into the neighborhood to one of America's most well-known casual dining establishments: Applebee's.
Arriving at 8:35 on a Wednesday, we were promptly seated after a minute or two. Upon initial inspection of the menu, our eyes were not drawn to the food, but rather the drinks: specifically, the Applebees' exclusive Mountain Dew flavor, Dark Berry Bash. Curious to surf in the "galactic waves of sweetness and refreshment" and fully living the Dew life dew to the FFXIV collab, Evan committed to ordering the concoction. I agreed to my end of the bargain by pledging to order the new Watermelon Lemonade offering.
After settling our drink orders (or so I had thought), our eyes immediately turned to Applebee's 2-for-$26 deal (a region-specific offering: Applebees' official website markets it as a 2-for-$2X deal, which is the sad reality of cost-of-living adjusted pricing), which seemed like the perfect offering for this impromptu dinner date. Unfortunately, the side options offered seemed lackluster (boneless wings, fries, mozzarella sticks, or onion rings), and the mains weren't anything special, so we decided against the offering (though it still seemed like a good value offering for the budget-constrained). Our eyes diverted back to our own menus as both Evan and I scoured the laminated pages for our own entrees - which is when I discovered this.
My eyes could not believe what they were reading. One part burger, one part quesadilla? What unholy combination would this be? What kind of sauce would "Mexi-ranch sauce" be? Pico de gallo on a burger? My mind was blown and my heart was conflicted. I wanted to be aghast, but deep in my heart I knew that this was my meal of choice for the evening. Evan decided to also get a burger, but opting for the Bourbon Street Mushroom Swiss Burger instead. Having declined the opportunity for a bundled appetizer, we decided to also get an order of the beer pub pretzel breadsticks, too.
Our waiter approached at five minutes to the hour (we had spent quite a bit of time discussing random topics before actually opening the menus), so after ordering our drinks (and calling Evan a coward for backing out of the dew at first), when we went to add our appetizer the waiter kindly noted that happy hour was starting in just a couple of minutes, and that they'd be half-off if we waited. Taking the waitstaff's advice, we proceeded to order the entrees first, with the waiter coming back a minute after the hour to grab our appetizers. Falling victim to the prey of capitalism and half price apps, we caved and also tacked on an order of boneless wings in a buffalo sauce, which turned out to be a huge mistake.
Our drinks arrived first.
MTN DEW Dark Berry Bash: This is pretty mid-tier as far as Dew goes. The flavor is strong but it just tastes of blue. With no code to redeem for a FFXIV mount I'd recommend skipping this beverage unless you're short on caffeine for the day.
Watermelon Lemonade: It's definitely a winner for summer seasons, but it's not beating the incumbents of strawberry lemonade and other classic flavors. The closest flavor profile is watermelon starburst, just liquified (and more tart, given that it's a lemonade). It's unfortunately artificial watermelon flavoring, but it pairs well with the tartness and sweetness of the drink. I would order it again, but won't miss it when it leaves.
Water: PNW water clears.
Our order order (heh) resulted in our entrees arriving a couple of minutes before our appetizers. This slightly defeats the point of the appetizer, but slightly understandable given the order in which the kitchen got our orders.
Bourbon Street Mushroom Swiss Burger: It's tried and true, if you like mushrooms this burger will be just fine. Applebee's gives you a fairly large patty and I was not expecting so much burg at this price point, although they could stand to improve their plating to not make it feel like an island of food in an ocean of empty plate.
Fries: Would you believe that these things were actually seasoned pretty well and had a nice crispy texture? Because that's what they were and did. For me (Evan), these fries were the highlight of this dinner.
Quesadilla Burger: Surprisingly, quite good. It does have some inherent structural flaws, given how a flat tortilla is just not a good vessel for containing oils from meat and cheese, but the flavor profile was undeniably a hit. It's not life-changing or anything close to it, but it accurately hit both the notes of a burger and a quesadilla. The pico de gallo was a welcome surprise, both texturally and flavorfully, and did a lot of heavy lifting for the dish. I would have loved to have seen some guacamole available here (and maybe some sour cream), but that might take this dish closer to a standard super quesadilla and away from its burger ancestry.
Four Cheese Mac and Cheese with Bacon: This was a miss, unfortunately. The sauce itself was watery and lacked flavor, and while the melted shredded cheese on top and bacon bits were good for presentation and bursts of flavor, they didn't do enough to save the dish. This is probably not the side dish to choose.
Time for apps!
Brew Pub Pretzels and Beer Cheese Dip: Now these were truly a mixed bag. The pretzels, despite the very dark exterior and concentrated pile of salt, were wonderfully soft and chewy. The cheese (singular) was bad. Its texture was too runny and its flavor was entirely monotone. The uninvited honey mustard was good honey mustard but a strange pairing for pretzels. Ultimately I'd recommend skipping this as the dips are supposed to be the star of this dish.
Boneless Wings w/ Buffalo Sauce: A very disappointing plate of wings. The skin/coating of the wings was too thick and too crisp, which didn't match the more blocky texture of the boneless wings. Sure, boneless wings are inherently going to be worse than their boned counterparts, but this was a complete texture fail. The flavor was also not exactly what we expected, either - we were given the option of regular Buffalo Sauce and Extra Spicy Buffalo Sauce, and what we received was probably spicier than the average buffalo sauce that one would expect for non-spicy wings. The buckets of ranch and blue cheese unfortunately did not do anything for the flavor, and the celery itself wasn't anything to write home about. Would have loved to have seen more vegetables on the side, too - are carrots so hard to find these days?
We weren't able to finish the boneless wings (and not sure if we wanted to, to be honest), and that was also a tell-tale sign that dessert was off the table. It took a bit of time to grab the attention of the waitstaff, but the place was definitely getting more popular and more tables were being filled, so no fault of their own here. Our bill came out to 62 dollars pre-tip: not cheap, but in the grand scheme of things (and with prices being what they are), not unreasonable for two people going out to a sit-down place for an hour. For that price, there's definitely better food out here - but I don't think anyone is going to Applebee's for the food quality. (Do not ask why we bothered writing this.) You go to Applebee's if you want a place to sit down but still not have to dress up; a place where you go for drinks with the crew, but don't want to break the bank. And in that regard, it met its mark - even if it was lackluster in the flavor department.
Verdict: It's more like eating okay in the neighborhood.
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