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THE FREE LANCE-STAR
hARD TIMES is no place for a worrywart.
Secondhand smoke? Fatty meats? Calories run rampant? You bet.
This place would send shivers through the Vegan Brotherhood of the Sprout. But for folks who like to walk, eat and play pool on the wild side, Hard Times is a lot of fun.
Fredericksburg's incarnation of this chain restaurant has been around for a few years--long enough for lots of us to acquaint ourselves with its famed chili.
So we'll be brief. There's Cincinnati, with finely ground beef in a cinnamon-spiked tomato base. Terlingua red, a zesty brew with a balanced tomato-beef flavor. Texas, a mix of chunky beef and spices in the meat's seasoned juices. And vegetarian, with soy crumbles for texture and tomato, onion and peppers for flavor.
Each has its devotees, so I will add only that Hard Times doesn't spare the salt in any of it.
The chili itself is only a starting point. You can get it in a bowl, in a bowl over beans, in a bowl over spaghetti, in a bowl over Fritos, on a hot dog, on a footlong hot dog, on a burger, on cornbread, on a baked potato, over a lettuce salad or in a chimichanga. You can add cheese, onions, sour cream, jalapeños or diced tomatoes or (if you live alone) all of the above.
But for a restaurant review, a further exploration of Hard Times' garden of guilty delights was necessary, and this one started with cheese fries ($6).
Here's something I found out: The Center for Science in the Public Interest calls cheese fries "the single worst food ever analyzed."
OK, at Hard Times, we ordered cheese fries with bacon. Lordy.
The fries are skin-on but nondescript, the cheddar a plate-covering blanket, the bacon shredded. There's ranch dressing for those who need a little fat with that.
Tasty though they may be, the other appetizers are only a marginal step up on the wholesome-goodness scale--things like Texas wings ($7), pretty standard and not all that hot; and beer-battered onion rings ($5), a tangle of sweet fried onions in a thin, crispy coating.
Burgers at Hard Times come with fries, but the server was understanding about a request for a side-salad substitution with the cheddar cheeseburger ($7.25).
It was an awesome half-pound of high-quality ground beef, cooked medium and served on a sturdy kaiser roll with pickle and a slice of good tomato.
The salad was lots of chopped iceberg and green leaf lettuce, chunks of celery and cucumber, and diced tomatoes, covered with handfuls of finely shredded cheddar cheese. I suppose it is petty to complain about having to pick out lettuce that is bruised or mushy, and this is so common at so many restaurants that it's not really fair to kvetch about it here. But it does bear mentioning.
The same was true of some lettuce in a "grilled & chilled chicken breast salad" ($7), but the tender strips of citrus-marinated breast meat more than made up for it. The the chicken was so flavorful and the cheddar sprinkles so plentiful the salad didn't even need dressing.
There is a higher-priced side of the menu, dinners of steaks and shrimp ($8.50 to $17.90).
The top sirloin ($8.50 and $13.50 by size) wasn't bad or particularly good; despite marinating, it was plenty tough though tasty. It's served with a potato and salad.
Carolina crunchy shrimp ($14.30) are big and butterflied, then fried in the same sweet beer batter as Hard Times' onion rings. The effect isn't as good; the batter overshadows the flavor of the shrimp. Still, you won't kick them off the plate. And if you're not going to taste the meat of the shrimp anyway, you might as well dip these crispy creatures in some spicy "Mexi-Ranch" dressing.
Hard Times serves desserts ($3.30 and $3.50), so no one has to go home feeling frail. But except for the root beer float, the pies and cheesecake aren't made on the premises, which was our excuse for passing them up.
A note about that secondhand smoke: On one visit, it was quite a cloud. Though there are many nonsmoking tables, several sit between the bar and the pool room, where customers light up with reckless abandon.
The pool side, by the way, looks and sounds like a party at night. It was full of jolly guys one recent evening, drinking, smoking and joking. And when they missed their shots, they gave each other hard times.
To reach LAURA MOYER: 540/374-5417 lmoyer@freelancestar.com