Unlikely stop at Guy Fieri’s delivers
“Never say never” is a maxim I try to live by as a food writer. That’s how I ended up eating a preposterously tall burger at Guy Fieri’s Kitchen in the Cancun International Airport recently — and, to my great surprise, liking it.
Let me back up a little. I had spent just four days in Tulum, eating at Rene Redzepi’s Noma Mexico pop-up and at the magnificent Hartwood, the acclaimed live-fire restaurant right near the Noma site.
After nonstop ingestion of ant eggs, grasshoppers, beach greens, seaweeds, chiles, mamey seeds, tropical fruits and manifold Caribbean shellfish in forms raw and cooked, my traveling companion and I had reached that classic stage well-known to American tourists: by the time we made it back to Cancun for our flight home, we craved a burger.
We stood in front of the wall menu at Johnny Rockets, one of the many, many chain choices available in the airport’s vast Terminal 3. Uh-uh, we decided. Then my friend Misha spotted the Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar nearby, and we were overcome with the impish urge to try the TV megastar’s wares — the fruits of his travels across America for “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” his Food Network show.
Like many of the foodobsessed, we had read New York Times critic Pete Wells’ epic takedown of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in
Times Square. That was the November 2012 review that opened with a question (“Guy Fieri, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square?”) and continued with question after question until the bitter end, at which point the queries had devolved into “Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?” and “Did you taste that blue drink?”
It was a rhetorical tour de force, and unforgettable. Now, we had the chance to experience for ourselves the thrills and spills of Fieri’s vaunted “Flavortown!”
We had 25 minutes until boarding. Our droll waiter (“I’m the supervisor here,” he deadpanned) informed us we could do it. He was right: our burgers came out promptly, towering high, spilling forth shredded iceberg, rashers of bacon, elbow macaroni and rivulets of the chef’s infamous Donkey Sauce.
Donkey Sauce turns out to be an amalgam of mayonnaise, Worcestershire, mustard and oh, you don’t really want to know what all. As Wells so memorably inquired, “When we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the Donkey are we supposed to think about?”
My cheeseburger, which lacked the overthe-top bacon and macand-cheese components of the one across from me, turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. The smashed-down beef patty had nice frizzly edges and a tight sear. Its texture was crumbly, not overly compacted. It dripped juice and, let’s be honest here, yummy grease in a highly satisfying way.
The yellow cheese was every bit as melty as the florid menu had promised. A big, crunchy onion ring contributed some extra texture. I even liked the buttery, grilled brioche bun. The Donkey Sauce did its job. I scarfed the whole burger in record time, pausing only to extract the usual pallid tomato slice (a curious sin in the land of gloriously red tomatoes).
OK, I was not enthralled by the fourcount-’em-four species of differently cut fries, each somehow less thrilling than the last. I have never eaten a really good french fry in an airport, and I honestly don’t expect to. I fished out the big flaps of fried potato and skipped the waffle cuts, the matchsticks and the meshlike nests.
But I was happy. Happy enough that when Misha bolted for the gate, I stayed behind for a few last burger bites and a sip of my perfectly decent frozen margarita.
“I’m going to steal my coaster,” I informed our waiter as I paid our bill, which came to a not inconsiderable 40 bucks, American.
“Just a moment,” he said, and returned with a stack of them.
So now I own a bunch of official Guy Fieri skull coasters. I’m keeping them around as reminder to never say never.