Mocha Java Chiller

Sonic opened its first drive-in in the Chicagoland area last Tuesday. See my earlier posts to recognize that both my cooking partner and I are familiar with these outlets.

Of course my cooking partner wanted to go on opening day, and, to be honest, so did a little part of me. Fortunately, it was my night for dinner, so I got to make the call, and the wiser part of me won the day. I had already put over a hundred miles on my car on Tuesday; I wasn't about to do another fifty and wait in what I knew would be a ridiculously long line on a weeknight.

Although I knew this weekend would be crazy busy at Sonic, I also knew how much my partner wanted to go, so I suggested we go on Saturday. (You must recognize that this was a bit of a sacrifice for me because I absolutely detest waiting in lines, especially at restaurants...often if there's a wait at a restaurant, I turn right around and head out the door.) So we went. On the first Saturday. And it was beyond crazy busy.

Mind you, we waited to leave the house until 9:15 P.M., figuring to arrive around ten (yes, I am sometimes crazy) and thereby miss the worst of the dinner rush. At 10:02, I turned in from Farnsworth just past the drive-in, immediately turned right again on the little mall road, but could not turn right into the Sonic parking lot. They had a guy directing traffic and he waved us over to the big mall parking lot, and then we saw them: four, I kid you not, four lines of cars with a guy at the head of each directing lucky diners to take their turns at the most fabulous of restaurants ever to have been known in the history of the world. Or, at least that's what you’d have thought if you’d been visiting from a foreign country.

Had we lived within ten miles, I would have done some hard in-car negotiation for a reprieve, but, since we had driven three-quarters of an hour to get there, I wasn't going to leave without having had some jalapeño poppers.

I actually had a bit more. Ahem. Knowing that we would not be back to this neck of the woods for some time, we each ordered a sandwich and two sides. And, of course the Java Chillers.

If you have never been to a Sonic, I will say this despite all the controversy and vitriol its opening seemed to stir up on the comments pages in the Chicago Tribune: all the arguments over the food are to be dismissed out of hand. You go to Sonic for its extensive drinks menu. (I don't know why they don't list all of the standard drinks on their Website.) Additionally, they are amenable to mixing any of their drink bases and flavors to create your own custom blend, although I'm not quite that high maintenance. Their most popular is the cherry limeade. You have to try it at least once.

I must say that the Java Chillers in Aurora weren't quite as good as those we had in Nevada, but, let's just say they're the best ones we've had since we got back from that trip. I do have some very strong coffee in my ice cube trays right now, so we're probably going to have some fun coming up with our own frappamoochillerinos.