Last weekend was pretty much a blur for me due to the fact that our schedule was jam packed the entire time. Friday evening we had a wedding, Saturday morning we had a funeral, Saturday evening we had an engagement party, Sunday early afternoon we had lunch plans and Sunday night we had dinner plans. It was go, go, go starting at about noon on Friday and it didn’t stop until about 9PM on Sunday. But during all of this commotion we managed to check out a new restaurant in the West Loop area of Chicago called Kaiser Tiger.
Kaiser Tiger advertises itself as being a Bacon, Beer and Sausage bar, but honestly I didn’t really try any of those things. I had some bacon on my cheeseburger, but outside of that, it was mainly just fries. I don’t even think that anyone in my family ordered any sort of sausage, but there was definitely beer and bacon on the table.
The atmosphere at Kaiser Tiger was perfect for a late lunch on a Sunday afternoon. We sat on the patio in the back which is pretty large and filled with 4 top tables as well as longer picnic tables along the fence. On the other end of the patio there were bocce ball courts for people to play at, and they were full of bros the entire time we were there. I did not get the “bro” vibe from the rest of the place, at least at the time we were there, but they seemed to be attracted to bocce ball, yet they clearly weren’t any good at it. As we were getting up to leave our table, which is on the opposite end of the bocce ball court, a bocce ball as well as the little while ball (no clue what it’s called, maybe a marker?), came rolling pretty quickly towards our table. I had just set our daughter (who’s still a toddler) down on the ground so I could get ready to strap her into her stroller, and this bocce ball sent her running like Indiana Jones running from the boulder after stealing the statue… The ball slammed up against the chair of the table next to us and the girl sitting there returned it to it’s rightful owner, but I’m still extremely confused as to how a bocce ball, which is mean to be rolled fairly slow (especially when the courts aren’t full size), ended up rolling at us with such force… It became apparent that the bros playing had no clue what they were doing when it came to the game and were just looking for a reason to high five each other while they drank beer and looked “cool”.
But despite that little oddity, the patio at Kaiser Tiger is definitely a place I would hang out on a weekend for lunch and some drinks.
Kaiser Royale Burger, Fries, Bacon Wrapped Dates
As far as the food goes, I was going to go with either the Chicken Sammich, which is grilled chicken breast, cracked-pepper bacon, swiss cheese and chipotle mayo, or the Bomb Sandwich, which is spicy beef and pork sasuage stuffed with pepper bacon and wrapped in a brown sugar bacon weave with pepper jack cheese, bbq sauce, lettuce, tomato and onion, but I decided to go with the cheeseburger instead.
The Kaiser Royale cheeseburger is a house made double cheese burger with mature Irish cheddar cheese, smoked applewood bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onion. The burgers are thinner patties similar to Au Cheval or Edzo’s, and seeing as how Kaiser Tiger is just down the street from Au Cheval I figured that maybe they were trying to compete with that burger, and it would be pretty solid.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when the menu said mature Irish Cheddar, but I don’t think I was expecting a meltier, white, cheddar cheese. It was gooey and meltier (I don’t know how else to describe it), than the normal cheddar cheese that my picky ass is used to, but it wasn’t terrible. It definitely isn’t my favorite cheese in the world, but it didn’t keep me from eating the burger. The burger patties themselves were probably more disappointing than the cheese for some reason. I’m not sure what it was about the patties that made me not like them very much, but it was almost a deal breaker had I not been so damn hungry… Maybe it was the cheese that I didn’t like and it had just seeped into the burger and coated everything, but I’m not sure. I still ate the whole thing and it was fine, I think my expectations were just a little higher than what I got.
Outside of the burger I ate some french fries which were pretty damn good, much better than the burger itself, so that was good. They were cooked and salted perfectly, you can’t ask for anything more in a french fry.
As for The Bomb Sandwich, my parents ended up ordering this to share and, while I didn’t take a bite, they said it was good, but a little spicier than they were expecting, so keep that in mind if you plan to order it. My wife ordered the bacon wrapped dates that were stuffed with Argentinian chorizo and wrapped in brown sugar jowl bacon, and she loved them. My brother and his fiance ordered the Bacon Quesadilla and seemed to enjoy it, and my other brother’s girlfriend got the jumbo bavarian pretzel which you can’t go wrong with.
So while I wasn’t super impressed with my cheeseburger, the bacon on the burger was delicious, everyone else seemed to enjoy their food outside of a bit of spiciness from The Bomb Sandwich, and the atmosphere was perfect. I would definitely recommend checking out Kaiser Tiger if you’re looking for some low-key Sunday Funday action, or maybe some bocce ball. It was also totally fine for a toddler to hang out at, the patio made it seem very much like hanging out in someone’s backyard at a picnic table, and the service was on point as well.
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