Eat This Blog

Cousin's Burgers

Location: 24341 Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia
Type of food: Burgers, sandwiches, salads

The closest burger place that's less than a five minute walk from my place of work is Johnny Rocket's. I stay away from that place now because of their extremely slow service and overpriced food. I was introduced to Cousins' Burgers last month, by my friend Aaron, when he claimed I was following him during lunch. As much as he might be happy to think I was stalking him, I just happened to be using my 90 minute lunch privilege that day to walk over to Target across the street and he was walking that same direction too. I'm happy he introuduced me to this place as the place is a much better alternative to Johnny Rocket's.I've been there about three times so far, and I try something different each time. For this review, I decided to use their Frisco Burger:

The Frisco Burger is their version of a patty melt- a 6 oz. burger with swiss cheese sandwiched between sourdough bread slices. I believe the burger itself is under $6, but if you pay $2 more, you can get a combo that will include fries and a soda (Pepsi products). I LOVE the fries here, they're seasoned well and crispy. While I usually try to finish my fries anytime I order them, I wasn't able to finish these ones as they were really generous with their portion here.

If you want a plain burger without all the frills, you can choose between a 4 oz., 5 oz., 6 oz., and I believe it goes up to 8 or 9. They have a station to put your own choice of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, relish, and onions, and loads of different sauces like horseradish, honey mustard, ranch, spicy mustard.

If you're not in the mood for typical fast food burgers, this is a great, little place to go. The service is good (I'd give 'em a 7 of 10) and the place is clean. I would just try to avoid it at exactly 12:00 time as it's prime lunch time and it's when the mall moms from Target drag their kids over there.

Olive Garden

Location: 27003 McBean Parkway, Valencia

I know everybody goes to the Olive Garden and it doesn't really need to be reviewed because it's either you hate it or you love it, but have you had dessert there?

I know I don't usually make it to dessert, but for this visit, I couldn't pick a big meal as Megan and I had already eaten lunch at work during a co-worker's farewell luau party. We decided to eat a bit lighter and have dessert instead.

I ordered the tiramisu because I always have to get tiramisu- it's what I grab at buffets and my favorite flavor for gelato. It's $5.95 at OG and it's alright. It's very light and fluffy, but not enough of that rich espresso flavor I always crave for. I've had better tiramisu at other restaurants.

Megan ordered chocolate gelato:

It's about three heaping scoops with chocolate flakes spread all over it. It's sweet, chocolatey, and all sorts of yummy. It was almost perfect except for one VERY BIG MISTAKE from the staff. While Nevvie was helping Megan finish it off, she ended up biting into about an inch long piece of rectangular, jagged plastic. It still baffles me how it got in there, but our waitress took it back and comped it for us.

This particular Olive Garden from the 3 of 4 times I've been there has been excellent with their service, I would give them a 9 out of 10- but this visit was extremely different from any of my previous times. This young, blond waitress we had was unfriendly, aloof, and really, really stupid. She was slow with our refills, neglected to ask us how we were doing during our meal, and she didn't even show the slightest bit of concern after Nevvie had bitten into that piece of plastic. And what really annoyed me was with her not understanding that when you provide cash and a credit card for a bill, that means you put cash towards the bill and charge whatever's left on the bill on the card. She understood it as taking the $9 for herself and the whole bill on my card. Stupid bitch. (And actually just writing that out made me go to the Olive Garden's website and fill out a guest comment form there.) Oh if I didn't love their soup and salad combo so much, I would put this on my shit list. – Renee

UPDATE: On May 19, I received a $30 gift certificate for Olive Garden. Another case in point- if you get shitty service, complain, and you might get compensation for it.