Cow Patties

"It's like that Geico commercial," said Chow, Baby's 12-year-old dining companion at the Purple Cow last week. "You know, the one with the guy who didn't want mayonnaise."

It was because of this lad's soulful-eyed entreaties that Chow, Baby found itself at the Purple Cow at Hulen and I-30 for the second time in less than a month. The first visit was notable for a runny ice cream shake ($3.25) and a blue-cheese burger unworthy of the name or the $5.35 price, as the blue-cheese topping consisted of six slivers the size and thickness of Chow, Baby's little fingernail. Here's a slogan suggestion: No Blue-Cheese Taste in Every Bite!

Chow, Baby's soft spot for handsome young men with undiscriminating tastes yielded to pleas for a return engagement. As before, our server was rarely seen and service was slow as Bosco syrup (though the restaurant wasn't crowded); each of three orders came out wrong; the food turned out to be not worth the wait and aggravation. Most annoying, though, was the handsome lad's father, who ordered a Reuben ($5.95) without sauerkraut. Now as any intelligent person realizes, a Reuben without sauerkraut is not technically a Reuben. It's a pastrami and Swiss on rye. Obviously. Not only did the lad's dad not agree, he started picking on Chow, Baby's order of a patty melt ($5.50) without onions, labeling it a Swissburger on rye. As if. Runny shakes came and went, the vacant-eyed waitress drifted by, and still the argument raged. Chow, Baby will fight this to the end: A Reuben without sauerkraut is not a Reuben. A patty melt without onions is simply a patty melt without onions.

Apparently Purple Cow's cooks are on the wrong side of this debate; when Chow, Baby cut its sandwich in half, grilled onions spilled out like intestines in a war movie. Back to the kitchen went the plate. Back to the table it came, eventually, and the kitchen had even replicated Chow, Baby's signature diagonal cut in the fresh sandwich. Well, no. Instead of wasting money on a new piece of bread and fresh cheese, they left the cold meat, cold rye, and cold fries on the plate. They picked the onions out of the cold grilled cheese, leaving dents of fingernail impressions like pock marks in the remaining scrapes of dried-up Swiss. It was gross. Strong-stomached Chow, Baby was nauseated and -- this is a rare occurrence -- speechless. It was up to the lad to explain to the manager: "You know, where the guy said he didn't want mayonnaise and the waitress scraped it off with the edge of the table." Exactly.

With apologies to Ogden Nash, Chow, Baby would rather be a purple cow than ever set hoof in this place again. Handsome lad can find another chauffeur.