Red Robin, Bend Oregon

I try not to go to Red Robin as much as possible but every now and then, I get roped into it. There are a couple of dishes that are doable and I do enjoy them when I finally give in to go there. I can only take the birthday singers so many times. Is there not a better place to celebrate your birthday in this town? Is it worth the $68 bill to get your free sunday?

Since I have been reviewing the Buffalo Wings available in Bend lately I thought it only fitting to get a half order of the Buzzard Wings at Red Robin.

The wings are actually pretty good for being all drummettes. I think we know my position on the drummettes so I’ll refrain from going into any detail. The wing sauce was your standard hot wing sauce and it wasn’t too hot or too mild. Just right.

I decided to mix it up from my normal chicken breast salad or BLTA Croissant and go with the Chili Chili Cheeseburger:

If you don’t already know, the Red Robin Chili is not good. I don’t know what I was thinking. The chili was really bland. I don’t know what would have made it better even. Oh wait, I know, if it was made by someone else who knows how to make chili. I guess that would work. Baldy’s has good chili. Where else?

Our waitress was awesome! Of course I don’t remember her name but she said she’s been there long enough so she hopes she’s good. We let her know that we thought she rocked. Anyway, she asked if I wanted a little pink or no pink on the burger. I decided no pink when I normally would have said pink. I made another poor decision. No pink is well done which was dry. Even smothered with chili and the large amount of Tabasco I used, it was still dry.

The wife had this new item that was on that insanely large table display. You know the display that you put on the neighboring table as soon as you sit down. Their crap on the table is getting out of hand. It’s just too much. Put that crap in the menu and call it good. I get your point, you want me to order a speciality drink and get dessert all within 5 minutes so you can shuffle in the next birthday party. Annoying.

Oh so the wife’s dish was this Buzzard wing Zesty Wrap thingy. It was hot wing chicken breast slices in a jalapeno wrap with a zesty sauce, blue cheese dressing, and blue cheese crumbles:

It was great. She only ate half so I got the second half which was perfect since I didn’t eat all of my “burger”. Her’s was good and I’d recommend it. The wrap was rather spicy and the flavors blended perfectly together. I’d get that again.

One thing I do like about the birthday songs (if you can actually like something about them) is the speed in which they are wrapped up. Quick and to the point. I can’t stand the traditional happy birthday song. It’s painful. It reminds me of Office Space when they had to sing to Bill Lumbergh.

Red Robin
www.redrobin.com
625 SW Powerhouse Dr
Bend, OR 97702
(541) 382-9234

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Baltazar’s Bend, Oregon

I received a few comments on an earlier post about Baltazar’s in Bend Oregon which didn’t sit well with me. I decided not to publish the posts on my blog mainly due to the length of the posts (aside from yours eMusings which I accidentally deleted while deleting the multiple copies of the comments posted by Yvette and Tom…apologies) as well as the topic. I don’t mind publishing posts with people’s opinions and short stories of their experience, but this one was a bit more than the normal “I didn’t like it” type comments.

You can read the entire post at Mom2Mom Bend, Oregon.

There are a few places in Bend that I would NOT recommend taking your kids to and obviously Baltazar’s is one of them. I side with restaurants that do not welcome kids. I think it’s a good thing to set your business model to go after the clientele that you wish to attract. It’s your right and if that’s what makes you happy, you will enjoy your work.

Places like Baltazar’s, BlackSmith, Merenda, Mars, Zydeco, Staccato, Scanlon’s, Han’s, Cork, Giuseppe’s, Blue Fish Bistro, Robby J’s, and many more are not (in my opinion) kid friendly. I’m not saying that all of these places don’t provide high chairs or will be rude to you if you bring your kid(s), I’m just saying that I wouldn’t take my kid(s) there if I had a choice in the matter.

These places are not fun for children. They don’t have menu items for kids. It’s obvious that they are not catering to kids. It’s their business, it’s their choice and they have every right to refuse service to anyone or to do whatever they want with their business.

Having said that, being rude to someone with a child after you have seated them in your establishment, cursing at a customer with a complaint on the service they received, child or not, is absolutely not acceptable. I enjoyed my experience at Baltazar’s and have been back with the same results. I have never been there with children though so I can not comment on an experience there with kids.

I intend to notify Baltazar’s of the comments made in order to allow them the opportunity to respond. I’m curious to hear their side of the story or to see how they react in general. If I had a restaurant that was not really kid friendly, I’d stand by that point but I wouldn’t go to these lengths to get my point across. I’d do something like have a kids menu that was three times the price of the adult menu. An extra plate so you could share your rice with your kid would be $10. I’d gladly provide any of these services with a smile, that way you can complain about my policy but you couldn’t complain about my service.

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Bend Oregon Restaurants Reviewed