Boll Weevil

Last weekend before going to Oasis, we had lunch at Boll Weevil located in the strip mall right off the 5 and Palm freeway exit. This strip mall is called Southland Plaza and there used to be a Mervyn's (now gone), Clothestime (OMFG - so 80's! That too was gone a looong time ago; now it's a military recruiting station), Miller's Outpost (also defunct as well), and Wherehouse Records (my sis used to work there; our friends would also give us "free" rentals or save the good movies for us). There is a Vons and CVS, as well as a Carrow's and on the other side, a big Home Depot. One weekend, you can see a lot of day laborers. Pho Anh is also here (blogged about back in February last year and again later that month) and the Mexican place next to it, Las Playitas, is now a Cotija's taco shop (.99 potato tacos baby!).

Back in the late 70's, this whole area was a farm. I remember going here with my mom and siblings and we would pick tomatoes. There was a set fee and you could pick as much tomatoes as you could carry. Southland Plaza was built in the early 80's and I remember going school clothes shopping at Mervyn's in junior high with my mom. For us, this place was closer than going all the way to Plaza Bonita.

Now I don't know about you guys, but I have NEVER eaten at Boll Weevils (same with Del Taco, and Arby's). Since I had a coupon, we figured we'd use it before it expired. Hmmm, Broaster Chicken?

We got to seat ourselves...it wasn't crowded just yet.

Menu:

It was pretty large in here. This is just one side of the restaurant. There's a also a section that had two pool tables. We sat in a booth near a window and also to make sure no one was going to steal our car. Just kidding, this place isn't that ghetto.

Mmmm.onion rings! And ooh, "Frings" - French Fries and Onion Rings combined in a big, shiny, happy, fried lovefest...

The coupon was "buy one lunch entree and get one free". So for our first item, Bert and I planned to share the Mushroom cheesburger (1/3 lb)....Check out the "I.B. on Fire Cheeseburger" - it has jalapenos and habanero peppers with pepper jack cheese! Oooh.....that'll do some internal damage!

and this, the Buffalo Chicken Salad (description below). And since we "saved" moolah on one entree, we got a side order of onion rings (we'll try the Frings next time) and got TC something from the kids' menu.

Every table has a tray chock full of condiments and sides (pickled peppers, sliced red onion rings, pickles, ketchup, some sort of mayo-spread thing, and mustard):

If we didn't get the salad (ordered so we could have something "green"), I could have eaten one of these one my own. Check out the mushrooms and melted swiss cheese on this!  Also, our waitress was really cool and made sure our burgers were already cut in half for us...

That patty was one of the best I've had in awhile...nice and juicy (they were done about medium).  This burger was so good and I was kind of regretting getting the salad now because eating only one half was like a tease.

Here was the Buffalo chicken salad with the ranch dressing and (gross) blue cheese on the side. TC also enjoyed the salad, but not the chicken pieces because she thought they were too spicy. Well for me and Bert, they weren't and like the rest of the food, was gone by the end of lunch.

The salad also came with a side of garlic bread - My only gripe was that the "garlic" was a layer of garlic powder with melted cheese and broiled on top of the bread (looked like an egg based bread). The topping peeled off nicely like a crusty scab, but of course it tasted much much better (not  that I've ever tried eating a scab okay?).  I ended up eating the scabrous topping and the crusty edges.

Here's TC mini cheeseburger with fries...it wasn't miniscule like the version she had at Burger Lounge earlier this year (cough*overhyped*cough). It wasn't as huge as an adult version either. According to her, it was just right.

And our onion rings....while these were all right, I would have preferred that the batter not be as "smooth". I like onion rings with the bread crumb type crust instead, like the kind at Burger King or that frozen shit you buy at the grocery store.

TC made ketchup eyes on her onion ring and insisted that I take a picture of her creation...

So, that was our first visit to Boll Weevil and hopefully we'll have other opportunities to come by and try their other burgers like the Avocado burger and the Three Cheese burger (not sure about the I.B. on Fire one though!)...