last weekend

K worked on Saturday and Youngest was out with friends all day.
Middle and I did the grocery shopping and came home and made paper snow flakes for the dining room. (Note to me: take a picture!) That night, Oldest went to a concert that was pretty far away and, though he has a car, was anxious about getting there and back. A friend volunteered to drive him and I offered to bring him back home. I drove, very late at night, through a mini snowstorm, to fetch him.

Sunday, as you know, was Middle's birthday. We gave him his lens adapter and a fabulous card that Youngest had found.



(It's gigantic and plays the theme from Star Wars. Middle is a serious SW geek.)

He was pretty cute, our Middle, and we had secret plans for him for the evening. But first we took a family trip to Target. Youngest and I needed to choose gifts to send to our friends in Japan, I wanted the boys to see if there was anything suitable for stocking gifts for each other and I wanted to see if there were any party dresses for me. We did well with everything but the party dress (my first office party) and went home to hang the paper snow flakes, do laundry and play wii, or guitar or drums - depending.
We teased Middle all day, telling him there would be giraffes, advising him to wear protective gloves to our secret evening activity and pretending to drop false hints.
Each of my kids gets to choose dinner on his birthday and we cook or go out. Middle asked for a cheeseburger and lemon cake and, while I'd have been thrilled to make those two things for him, K decided that we needed to do something special as it was a milestone birthday so I researched to find the best burger in the city...and I found it.

Our plan was: drive into town and go to the camera store for a couple of accessories that Middle had asked for, spirit him away to the burger joint and then go downtown for a Christmas tree.
With the camera things procured, we headed uptown for the meal and got a terrific parking spot. A FREE parking spot.
We had no idea what to expect and trekked a few blocks in stinging cold to the hotel where the restaurant was.
It was very posh, the hotel, and Middle was getting more confused by the minute.
We had to walk through a tea room to get to the other side of the lobby and he got anxious...while I would have loved to snuggle into one of the gorgeous velvet couches, Middle could not imagine what the heck we were doing.
We finally found the lobby, which was flanked by 25 foot tall curtains, and K asked where the restaurant was and the desk clerk pointed behind the curtains.

Down a long dark corridor we walked toward a small neon light of a burger...



we turned a corner and found ourselves in a funky little room. At the far end there was a pass-through to a grill.




The walls featured several different types of paneling - the cheap kind of paneling one sees in basements that need renovation. Posters were taped up, somewhat haphazardly and cardboard, cut from boxes, featured handwritten signs in magic marker. Bags of supermarket burger buns were piled high on the counter. No waitstaff, no utensils, no plates.



Walk to the window and tell the guy (with just a little attitude) at the cash register that you want a burger. A strip of cardboard listed the items for sale: a burger, a cheeseburger, a pickle, fries, Sam Adams on tap, milkshakes (vanilla or chocolate) and soda. Oh, you could have a brownie too. We told the guy what we wanted, he took our name, we sat down at a booth near the wall people had written all over.



There were, probably, 15 tables and the place was pretty packed. Shortly after shouting for us, over the funky music, another guy shouted that they had run out of beer.
Our food was handed over in paper bags. Our beer (lucky us!) was in tall plastic cups - everything was disposable.



The atmosphere was a mix of hanging out in someones basement rec room and surprise at having this swingy, odd, very groovy place hidden in the lobby of an upscale hotel. None of the decor seemed especially staged - it looked as though the place had been there for years. A well kept secret.




I had read that they served the best burger in town and that there isn't a table to be had at lunchtime. The reviewer had mentioned that the line to get in at certain hours can move very slowly and the wait can be exasperating. But we were there early and, luckily, got a table right away.
The burgers were sublime. Big, but not overwhelming, juicy, messy, and cooked just right: seasoned and brown on the outside and tender and good on the inside. The fries tasted like potato (not always true). We sat grinning and looking around, amazed at our good fortune.



Middle was suitably impressed. He was worried that we were bringing him someplace chic for his 18th and he's not especially impressed with chic.
But this place was perfect. Rock and blues and funk floated through the air, the food was great and the whole idea of it being a set up like a speakeasy thrilled him. He even had a second burger.
We didn't have brownies (birthday cake awaited us at home). We finished up, threw out our bags and dozens of napkins (juicy burgers) and took lots of pictures, still amazed that the place existed, that we had found it, that it was so good.
We took a last look, went back through the dark hallway, and found ourselves, again, in the austere, silent, elegant lobby of the hotel.
We walked back to the car in a stiff cold wind and felt like we had woken from a dream.
It was just about perfect.