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We chose to visit erwin (2925 N Halsted) for the second round of the hamburger challenge. This place seemed like erwin was a no brainer, as it received the top spot for classic hamburgers in TimeOut Chicago a few weeks ago.

Boy were we wrong…

Let me tell you, erwin doesn’t even hold a candle to the Grafton. First off, erwin’s burger was smaller than the size of the bun, much smaller in fact. I ordered my burger cooked medium rare, with white cheddar cheese. The burger comes standard with fries and horseradish coleslaw. The fries were pretty tasty, although slightly cold. The coleslaw was fine. The burger was trapped in this weird state between raw and medium rare, and it didn’t have a ton of flavor to it. Bummer…we had pretty high expectations for this place given it’s excellent service and high ratings.

Except for a few days when we’re traveling, Erin and I have dinner with her family every Sunday. Whether it’s going out to try new new restaurants, or staying in to try some new recipes…we are a family that loves to eat. Tonight we decided to hit The Grafton (4530 N Lincoln), a great Irish pub in our neighborhood. If you ever get a chance to go there, do yourself a favor and have one of their burgers, complete with a fried egg, cheese and bacon on top. They also serve their fries with curry sauce. Yum.

So all this hamburger goodness, combined with the recent issue of Time Out got us thinking that it would make sense to hit a hamburger joint every Sunday for the next four weeks. Any suggestions?

It’s also worth noting that the Grafton was awarded second best bar hamburger in the city of Chicago.

Comfortable relief…

That’s what I felt as I stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare early Friday morning. I had just spent six days in Las Vegas, and I was completely wiped out.

What could I been doing in Las Vegas for so long, you say? A lot of my friends and family know this already, but I’ve spent the past six months helping fire up a new company called Interactive Mediums, and we’ve been building a bunch of products that will help businesses promote themselves and communicate more closely with their customers via mobile phone. We’re launching our first product, Textme for Business, this month and thought it would be a good idea to attend the annual Bar and Nightclub Convention in Las Vegas to start showing off our products. The trip was a huge success, with over 200 businesses expressing interest in either using our products, or partnering up with us. Now it is all about follow-up and hardcore execution. March is going to be a great month :)

A big thank you to the IM team (Chris, Dave, Tyler, Erin and Erika) and all of the other folks who have helped us make our company a reality, our first product solid, and the trip to Las Vegas a wild success.