Dave is…
gonna eat himself to death.
I thought I had seen it all. But when it comes to clogging arteries Springfield has just taken it up a dramatic notch. Because I am so speechless (probably due to vocal cords clogged in deep fried fat) I am merely reposting the recent SJ-R article. Cant wait to get home and eat one.
It might be the greasiest, gooiest, cheesiest and most caloric horseshoe this side of Prairie Heart Institute.
I’m talking the Titanic of horseshoe sandwiches, a temptress not to be approached by children, wimps or anyone with a cardiologist’s number programmed into their cell phone. It’s the deep-fried horseshoe at Fieldhouse Pizza & Pub.
“We were skeptical when we first put it on the menu,” said Fieldhouse co-owner Tom Hart, “but people keep coming back for it.”
I had to have one. I ordered the Angus beef variety. But I wanted to know how it was made. So I asked if I could go into the kitchen and watch cook Dustin Lewis prepare it. Permission granted.
He started by tossing two 4-ounce beef patties on the grill. A hefty order of french fries was lowered into the fryer. When the patties were brown, Lewis chopped them into crumbles. Likewise, when the fries were golden, he diced them like a hibachi chef takes on a daikon radish.
The bits of meat and potatoes were mounded onto a 12-inch flour tortilla, then folded — burrito-style — and soundly secured with toothpicks so the screams of the innocent beef and fries were muffled when the deadly beast was plunged into sizzling hot oil.
When it emerged a few minutes later, Lewis held the monster above the fryer while errant oil gushed out. I imagined kidnapped cholesterol suddenly released from the confines of an artery.
The crisp, overstuffed tortilla shell was plated and then ladled with copious amounts of white cheese sauce. The deed was done.
With the help of nutritional-analysis software, I figured the calories on this deep-fried hulk, called a Shoe Burrito on the Fieldhouse menu. It comes in at a whopping 2,710 calories, about the same number of calories in five Big Macs. Other stats: 199 grams of fat, 151 grams of carbohydrate and 5,920 milligrams of sodium.
Good news: If you’re on a high-fiber diet, you can cram in 8 grams of fiber in one sitting.
The sandwich costs $7.75. Meat choices — besides hamburger — are chicken strips, Buffalo chicken, pork tenderloin, Italian beef, bacon-tomato, ham and turkey. There’s also grilled chicken, which would be the choice of healthy eaters, I guess.
Gargantuan entrees at the Fieldhouse, 3211 Sangamon Ave., don’t stop with the deep-fried horseshoe. There’s a 14-foot-long pizza.
“It’s the equivalent of 18 large pizzas,” said Hart. The lanky pie is nearly 2 feet wide.
And there’s something called the Big Game Burger. It’s a cheeseburger of otherworldly proportions: six half-pound beef patties, six slices of cheese and 12 strips of bacon. The super-duper-sized burger is topped with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles, in case you want a side of vegetables with your steer.
“No one’s been able to take it down yet,” said Jade Hart, Tom’s daughter and a server at the Fieldhouse.
I sat at the bar and ate half of the deep-fried horseshoe. I started to feel groggy. I considered calling someone to drive me home, but I toughed it out.
Once home, I felt satiated. I felt sluggish. I felt ashamed.
I slept it off and was glad to wake up to a new day.
Food editor Kathryn Rem can be reached at 788-1520 or kathryn.rem@sj-r.com.