Fast Food Review: Chili Cheese Fries Burrito and Jalapeno Poppers at Wienerschnitzel

Wienerschnitzel is one of those places you always hear about, but never actually go to.

I’ve seen the ads on TV; who hasn’t? But until my girl went to one for the first time last week, I don’t think I’ve even known anybody who’s eaten there.

In part, this may be because I’ve only recently re-learned to like hot dogs, or any kind of sausage. Growing up in Ireland, eating the disgusting excuses for wieners that they call bangers, I got grossed out by the tubular meats. I don’t care much for pepperoni either. But as with many things, I learned to re-eat hot dogs by being cold, drunk, and hungry at a backyard barbecue.

It isn’t just my prior sausage-phobia that has kept me away, however, but also the fact that Wienerschnitzel actually manages to make its food look worse in their ads than it actually is. You know how most companies stunt-cast their food for commercials and such, using glue instead of milk in cereal bowls, for example? I think Wienerschnitzel actually shows their real food up close. And one thing you never want to do with hot dogs is look too closely.

On second thought, no, can’t be their real food. I just checked their website, and they show chili cheese dogs made with grated cheese, whereas the one I had sported a processed slice of American cheese. Not the same thing. But we ain’t here to talk about the dogs, folks (I wouldn’t have much to say on that topic – fairly generic chili dogs, though of course I did order the cheapest one and not the fancier wiener).

No, we’re here because of...Hey wait, did you know Wienerschnitzel serves BEER? Seriously. Three kinds of Budweiser, plus their own “Wiener Brew.” I’m guessing it might put my wiener to sleep, and besides, when I stopped in, it was too early in the day for beer (I may be a drinker, but I got rules, y’all). So yeah, hooray beer. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Four words no-one ever thought to put together before: CHILI CHEESE FRIES BURRITO. For those of you who just hate the Atkins diet, and every other diet.

It’s the skinniest damn burrito I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. When you order a hot dog and a burrito, generically speaking, and two wrapped things show up on your tray, any educated guesser would assume the fatter one is the burrito. Nope. This is barely a burrito; it’s like a soft taquito on steroids.

Biting into it delivers a nostalgic flavor, bringing back memories of Taco Bell’s long-lost, late-lamented Chilito, which was ultimately renamed “Chili Cheese Burrito” before being dropped altogether sometime in the early aughts. Bits of beef probably culled from hamburgers that were sitting out too long, a meat-flavored sauce, and processed cheese...here with the addition of crispy fries, which actually work okay in context, unlike Taco Bell’s ashy potato chunks of today. The small size also works, because anything bigger and you’d get tired of it before reaching the end.

I also ordered three jalapeno poppers, because Jack-in-the-Box’s versions are among my favorite things ever, plus terrible for my health. What surprised me is just how drastically different Wienerschnitzel’s are. Your standard jalapeno popper is a pepper hollowed out, filled with cheese (cheddar or cream), breaded and fried. The hazard of the Jack in the Box version is that sometimes if you bite into the pepper, your teeth end up pulling the whole pepper out of the breading, leaving cheese behind. Wienerschnitzel doesn’t have this problem, because theirs don’t contain whole peppers, just chopped peppers in plasticy, processed cheese. There’s something kinda nice about that, and also something kinda fake, but still beats cream cheese versions, I’d say. The good thing is you really only need 3, unlike at JitB, where I frequently succumb to the temptation of ordering 7.

I will be returning to this place to try more things. Count on it.

 

More LYT Fast Food Reviews may be found at this link