If you’re like me, the first question you ask when you move into a new community is, “Where is the nearest Skyline Chili?” Lucky for us, we have our own bastion of heartburn right next door, strategically located on High Street between the Import House and Puff and Stuff. If you’re unfamiliar with Skyline’s tasty menu or its distasteful aftereffects, read on.

Skyline’s menu revolves around its two best selling items, the cheese Coney and the 3-Way.

The Coney consists of a wiener smothered in chili sauce, doused with mustard and diced onions, and then topped with a mound of mild cheddar cheese. While they look appealing at first, after the slightest handling, these little chili-manifestations begin falling apart, disintegrating back to their original form: brown lumpy goo. They’re ugly and small, but they’re the best two bites you’ll take this week.

Co-masticator John agreed, “The Coneys may be sloppy now, but I assure you they’ll be sloppier later. That doesn’t mean they aren’t tasty.”

Readers, a moment of seriousness if you will; someday you or someone you love will be dared to consume an entire cheese Coney in one bite. Who could perform such a Herculean feat? I can, and I’ll tell you how. A fresh virgin Coney appears much larger than it actually is. Once you stuff the Coney into your mouth, it doesn’t take long for the bun and cheese to collapse, giving you room to maneuver. After biting off small, swallow-able pieces, finish by standing up and taking a bow for your applauding fans.

The large 3-Way is a formidable beast. A large plateful of spaghetti, topped with chili and mild cheddar cheese. While the large 3-Way is already more than enough material for a novice food critic, I knew that my readers deserved more. I took my artery-clogging a step further and added two extra “Ways,” adding beans and onions to my chili monstrosity. It’s delicious. The enigmatic chili is a secret mixture of beef, brown, a little chocolate and a lot of love. It’s not spicy, just a flavorful match for the spaghetti noodles and cheddar cheese. Cincinnati-native Todd complained, “The original 3-Ways have juicier chili. This is a bit too dry. I need my chili moist and lubricated.”

During my culinary inquiries, I like to bring intelligent help along for their opinions and company. Unfortunately, sometimes these otherwise academic friends leave me with descriptions like this by Co-masticator Josh, “Good 5-Ways. Good Coneys. Probably good beer.” This is unacceptable. With a little arm-twisting, Josh has endeavored to express his feelings in Haiku form. “Go Skyline Chili! It tastes good and delicious. Chili tastes so good.” 

While the food here may get a green light, the service is awful. I’ve had some bad waitresses in my years as a masticator, but I’ve never seen such blatant disregard for the customer as I did here. Our waitress first mistook my order of Hawaiian Punch with pink lemonade. While forgivable, it took her another ten minutes to remember to come back with the punch. Maybe I’m just being mean; after all, she was probably busy with her utter lack of other customers. Perhaps it was the engrossing television program she watched while our poor empty glasses went unfilled.

Finally, be prepared to have your dinner courses served to you in the French-style, as my unremarkable side salad was brought out after my entrée. I’d expect a fine-dining experience like Skyline Chili to carry bleu cheese salad dressing, but alas, like-minded masticators will have to make due with little packets of ranch.

Halfway through our meal, our waitress informed us that she was leaving to get dinner and that we could get refills ourselves. I can now speak from experience that the offer did NOT tacitly include beer. The always-adventurous Brian already had his glass under the tap when an observant cook came out of the back to direct him back to the Pepsi products.

One final note of interest: When the waitress brought us our checks, we were surprised to note that the totals were all rounded up to the nearest dollar. The subtotals were tallied correctly, but then a little fudging with the tax made for a convenient, though illegal, round number. It appears that our young waitress is a graduate of the “BJ” Schuerger School of Accounting too. Worry not; you’ll walk out spending less than eight bucks, including the tax markup.

Hank Mylander is a junior majoring in Information Systems. He wonder’s what review his readers would prefer reading: Mitchell’s Steakhouse with Co-Masticator “BJ” Schuerger, or Steak and Shake with a Co-Masticator from Campus Partners? As always, your thoughts and suggestions can be e-mailed to The Masticator at [email protected].