We Tried Wallace Shawn’s Inconceivable Burger
Cashing in on the current alternative burger craze, character actor and voiceover artist Wallace Shawn debuted the near-improbable Inconceivable Burger at his new restaurant, The Princess Bride and Grill.
“I figured it was about time to do what everyone else has done and cash in on the one role I’m most famous for,” Shawn, whose acting career has spanned over 40 years, told us over the phone. “Plus, I developed a love of cooking and entertaining when I starred in My Dinner with Andre, so this is a big deal for me.” We asked if My Dinner with Andre was about his Princess Bride costar, Andre the Giant, but Shawn just sighed and shook his head, muttering something to himself.
Based on the menu description at the restaurant (referred to as “The Legend”), the Inconceivable Burger is a well-cooked, meatless hamburger that both carnivores and vegans alike will enjoy. And the chocolate coating makes it go down easier.
Additionally, there’s a minor “challenge” component to the meal. First, your server presents two burgers to you, one of which is an Inconceivable Burger and the other of which is a burger made of meat that is mostly dead, which means it is still slightly alive compared to all-dead. You then must choose between the two burgers, with you eating one and your server eating the other.
All you have to do is divine what you know of your server. Is your server the type of person who would put the burger in front of his own plate or his patron’s? A clever server would put the Inconceivable Burger on his own plate, knowing that a great fool would eat what is in front of him. We are not great fools, so we clearly could not choose the burger in front of our server. But the staff of Wallace Shawn’s Princess Bride and Grill respects its patrons and must have known that we weren’t great fools, so we couldn’t choose the burger in front of us.
Did we make a decision then? Not remotely!
The Princess Bride and Grill used to be an Outback Steakhouse, which—as everyone knows—is Australian-themed, and Australia is entirely populated by criminals. And criminals, especially criminal servers, are used to having customers not trust them, so we clearly could not choose the burger in front of our server. But our server must have suspected we would have known the restaurant’s origin, so we could clearly not choose the burger in front of us.
After much stalling and simple reasoning posed as high intellect, we told our server to look behind him and we switched burgers when his back was turned. We then finally took a bite of the burger after the switch.
We never did find out which burger we ate, but we definitely felt queasy afterwards. Either way, it was still only conceivable. The Iocane Wine was to die for, though.
** ½
Image: Pexels, Buttercup Films
