Pro-Portional Designs Meets the Thurman Burger

Fridays dinner attempt left me still craving something more. Something better. Something good to eat.

Our mission was to find something reasonably affordable, new, and nommy. Since we had already visited one of the local eatery's featured on the recently re-aired Columbus edition of Man VS. Food. Why not another?

The chosen spot? The Thurman Cafe, where some of you who have seen the show, may remember Adam Richman taking on the Thurman burger. The Thurman burger is 3/4 pound burger "overloaded" with ham, mozzarella and American cheese, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, sautéed onions, pickle, peppers and mayo with kettle chips and a pickle spear. Some of you may have noticed I'm completely cray-cray for burgers so this wasn't a hard choice to make. Hubby and I got ourselves ready at home, grabbed a buddy of ours and headed to German Village.

Street parking is rarely anyone's favourite option but it really wasn't too hard to find a spot. We parked on the same block and could see our car from the benches in front of the resto. However, on these benches we saw quite a few people waiting. I sent hubby in ahead to give them our names for the wait that was obviously ahead and grabbed a bench with our pal.

We waited about an hour to an hour and half before being seated. Our wait didn't end up being as agonizing as it could have been because before out name was called they called about four others that were parties that bailed.

The inside of Thurmans is pretty tiny, more like a bar than a resto. and it seems to be have a light coating of dollar bills that have been decorated everywhere. Behind the bar, dollars hang like drying meat.

Service was relatively speedy about taking our order. Chicken cor don bleu balls and chicken strips were our chosen appetizers. Two Thurman burgers and a bacon burger were the entrees.

In the beginning the drinks came on pace with when we needed more, but by the third drink our first bartender took an order and then went AWOL. Thankfully, another lovely bartender questioned where the drinks we told her we had ordered were, and made sure we got them right away.

My first bite of chicken cor don bleu balls wasn't a total disappointment but I did manage to burn my finger when some totally unexpected hotness dripped out onto my finger. The chicken strips tasted like chicken strips, not particularly moist, not too dry, and not of any degree of crunchiness that set them apart. On the plate with the "bleu balls" (as the staff seems to enjoy saying to you) Thurmans chosen sauce is honey mustard, it wasn't a terrible combo. The sauce on the plate for the chicken strips was another story. I'm not certain what it was supposed to be but after tasting it I realized it was cocktail sauce.

Finally our burgers arrive and the Thurman is not quite as daunting as it may have come across on television. However, our friend was turned off by what he felt was a sickening and unnecessary, thick layer of ham. Before sinking my teeth in I did remember the waitress from Man VS Food who mentioned she liked to see how people chose to eat it. I chose to eat it like I would any other burger and our friend chose to eat it with knife and fork. Choosing to pick up this burger and eat it like any other did prove to be just as messy as our friend feared but it didn't bother me in the least.



The flavours of the burger did not always meld together. There were times where a bite would taste more like ham, mushroom, or onion (instead of burger.) Autonomously these tastes were fine. The mushrooms were very pleasantly buttery. But together you barely noticed they were there and the burger patty was not one to write home about.

Keep in mind, I had a few of the appetizers before taking on the Thurman. I managed to eat all but three bites of my burger and really wanted to finish it, but something told me that to do so would be . . . unwise. We were unable to have the waitstaff take our payment as quickly as we were able to get our bill; and then needed to hail them one last time to get a box for the remainder of the Thurman and the bleu balls. The final total of our meal was not a price I would recommend to any poor college students. Each burger at the Thurman cafe averages a nine dollar price tag.

I finished the last three bites of the Thurman only about an hour and a half later and decided I liked the cold leftovers (much) better than I had the hot burger while still at Thurmans.

My own star rating for this resto. would come in at three stars. I really enjoyed the "blue balls", all of the waitstaff was pleasant and friendly, and the menu was one I could consider coming back to try once more.

All photos of our adventure can be found here in the Om Nom Nom Studios Flickr stream.

The Ohio Deli Home of The Dagwood & Its Challenge

For any fans of the Travel Channel show Man VS Food, you may have seen the Columbus (Ohio) episode, and hearing about the Ohio Deli and it's famous Dagwood sandwich.

Named for Dagwood Bumstead, from the comic strip Blondie, this 2 1/2 pound sandwich contains ham, turkey, roast beef, lettuce, tomato, onion, both American and Swiss cheese served on a giant bun with a coating of garlic mayo. The Ohio Deli has what is known as "the Dagwood Challenge" where you need to eat this behemoth of a sandwich, the fries, and your pickle spear in thirty minutes or less. The current record is 3 minutes and 12 seconds. What do you get if you win? Your picture on the wall and a shirt stating that you defeated the Dagwood. If you lose you always have the option of to get the "The Dagwood Kicked My *%#@" shirt. The urge to try this sandwich (not the challenge) was incredible.

Before heading out for the evening I did some light internet snooping about the restaurant and the sandwich itself. Reviews I saw here made me wonder exactly what I would end up with. What stood out the most were the remarks about the slow service and someone referring to it as "the dirty deli."


The restaurant itself definitely falls under the category of "hole in the wall" (and I don't mean this as any sort of slur), had I not been looking for it I may not have paid much attention and even then, had I seen it I may not have given it a second look.

The inside is fairly small but I was happy with that, I'd been worried that it being a Friday night I may have a problem with seating or a wait. The wait was very short to be seated and once seated I made sure to see if my table was sticky as one reviewer said theirs was (it wasn't.)

We were given three menus a lunch, a dinner, and a special menu. I was really there for a good sandwich so the dinner menu wasn't really what I wanted and nothing of the special menu jumped out at me except the all-you-can-eat fried fish.

I ended up choosing not to order the Dagwood with the intention of coming back with my father when next he visits and splitting it with him.

Three sections of the menu (the perfect match, 11 reasons you cannot forget us, and deli originals) all seemed so tasty that I couldn't decide what to order if the Dagwood was not to be. Finally I chose the Manhattan (hot pastrami, corned beef, Swiss cheese, served on deli rye with lettuce & tomato) and my husband chose a hot open faced sandwich (the countryside: hot veal cutlet served open face on white bread & covered with beef gravy.)
To drink we ordered from the section called "Ohio Deli Bottled Soda", I ordered the "Sour Apple Soda" and my husband ordered the "Blue Raspberry Soda." As you can see when they came it turns out it should probably say "Wild Apple Soda." The drinks were fine, his tasted like a blue freeze-e pop and mine was more sweet than sour.

The service was indeed slow (but still polite) so it took a moment until we learned they were out of veal - so my husband had the roast beef open faced sandwich instead.

Here is a photo of me right after receiving my sammich - little did I know this face would be how I felt in a short while. The sandwich was on the lower scale of okay, it was definitely nothing I would feel a craving for that warranted an immediate trip to the Ohio Deli. I was only able to eat one of the flakey fries, after that I had no desire to try another.

Mediocre food or not I was enjoying spending time with my husband. Then from behind me the little girl (I believe is visible in the picture) saw a black man walking up to come in and said "look daddy, n*****s!" I stopped. I half-turned. I answered my husbands question when he saw the look on my face. And lost my appetite. I put down what remained of my Manhattan. We paid. And left.

Now I realize this was not the restaurants fault but that of the parent and grandparents who were there with her said nothing and kept on eating.

If I had to give this restaurant a star rating I'd give it 2 to 2 1/2 stars, meaning I've had much better but I've had much worse.

For the rest of the pictures from dinner you can see them here in the Om Nom Nom Studios Flickr stream.

If you're interested in a home-made Dagwood of your own there is a recipe here. And if you just want to look as some food porn of someone's home-made Dagwood you can see one here on Scanwiches.