The "Gourmet" Burger?

I met up with some of my poker buddies for our usual lunch at Wetherspoon's yesterday. It's difficult to find an establishment within a 10 minutes walk from each of our respective offices. However, a year ago we all settled on the local Wetherspoons and continued to visit their regularly. If you think our choice of location was bad, we continue to order the same meal and sit at the same table (if vacant).

I know most of you reading this with be shuddering at the thought of dining in a Wetherspoon's. Who could blame you? You're usually greeted at the entrance by the groupie of smokers sat outside but yesterday there was a big waft of weed lingering in the air. It was considerably more populated than usual too, perhaps everyone had collected their benefits that morning? Anyway enough about the surroundings and those occupying the space and on to the so-called fine dining experience.

The meal arrived after a 30 minute wait, surely it doesn't take that long to defrost and grill a burger right? The burger itself was slightly dry and definitely didn't warrant the gourmet tag, maybe I should consider trying the regular in future to compare. The chips and onion rings can never be faulted but we all know we've had better...and worse.

Now gourmet is defined as a connoisseur of food and drink but this word seems to be appended to far too many products to add value to it nowadays. What makes this burger a gourmet burger? Is it the 2 extra onion rings within it? A stick pierced through the burger? Rashers of bacon? The fact it's served on a rectangular dish as opposed to a round one? Maybe it's for the more pretentious folk like myself who can't or won't go to GBK but need some form of substitute? OK, maybe they got me there!

Despite my criticism, it's still a step up from Mcdonald's. However, it must only be a matter of time until we're seeing the McGourmet on billboards and television adverts. I know that I'll probably end up ordering this again next time.