After Crescat, we went to the Hilton Sports Club. Marlene has a pass – she pays monthly and she can take herself and her two daughters – plus a guest or two when she wants. They have a pool, workout equipment, an outside bar and restaurant. Things like that.
We went there and the two daughters immediately jump in the pool. Who can blame them? Marlene and I sat at a covered restaurant table overlooking the pool.
I ordered a pop (soda for you Americans), and I gotta tell you, it was expensive, even by North American standards. Something like 5 oz of liquid for 100 Rupees, or close to $1 US. A while later, we decided to have lunch. I ordered The Burger (430 Rupees, or around $4.30 US). Not great. Edible, sure, but the meat was dry and flavorless. Damn, but I hadn’t had a burger in months, and this is the best The Hilton can do? Ya gotta be kidding me!
The Burger was a little odd. All I wanted was an ordinary cheeseburger – that’s it. But at the Hilton, they only had three specialty burgers. Of the other two burgers, one was a chili burger. Not for me. No good reason other than just not appealing.
Whatever.
I wanted a cheeseburger. The closest they had was The Burger. It had beef, it had lettuce and tomato, it had cheese – and it also had an egg. Sunnyside up.
Where I come from, that’s a little odd. Not quite my cup of tea. But I was willing to give it a try. Dammit, I wanted a burger!
It arrived, and you know how fancy restaurants sometimes serve these things – the two halves of the burger open on the plate. That’s how this was. Only, this was for far more practical reasons.
The bun wasn’t a standard hamburger bun – it was a much more rounded version of a bun – like a dinner roll. Smaller in circumference than a hamburger bun and taller. Well, I think you get the drift.
And the hamburger patty was also smaller in circumference and thicker than standard hamburger patties in, say, McDonalds in Canada and the US. Add to that the rest of the stuff, and if I’d put the top on the bottom, it’d be pretty tall – far taller than anything I’m comfortable wrapping my teeth around in public.
And there were no condiments on it.
The only reason I got ketchup at all was because I asked for it. Apparently, it’s not standard to serve ketchup with french fries here. So I put ketchup on it, but that was it.
Let’s just say that, considering the name is Hilton, this sure wasn’t the least bit impressive. On a five star scale, I’d probably give this two stars – and a lot of that alone is for atmosphere and nothing else.
It’s very likely that other items on the menu are good or even excellent. I’ll grant you, this opinion is from one menu item alone. Too bad.
Marlene’s daughters ended up having some friends show up, so they wanted to stay for a few more hours – I wanted to go home. I’d been out long enough, played long enough. I missed my crazy hairy man. So I headed home and Marlene and her daughters stayed.
