Chili Size is just weird. Why would I want to put loose ground beef on my hamburger?
Chili dogs for my leftover chili, please. Either light on the chili and out of hand, or heavy with a knife and fork.
(I did some experiments after the last chili dog thread. I discovered that both ways are delightful. I am bi-chili-dog.)
Because it’s good!
Perhaps – it does seem at one time Denny’s served “chili size” on their menus. But it does seem to originate in LA and the name seems to only still be best known there or by people from around there, so I’m not sure if that disqualifies it from being an “LA thing.”
I used to get chili burgers when I was at the University of Colorado in the 1970s, but they were just called chili burgers. I’ve heard of “chili size,” but don’t recall ever having run into it on an actual menu (although it’s possible I could have seen it at Denny’s.)
It’s an “LA thing” in that it originated and is best known there, even though the term can be found elsewhere. In most places chili burgers are just called chili burgers.
There does seem to be a difference. Here’s an article where (ETA: which I notice was linked to earlier in the thread by DesertDog), at least where it was developed, the two were different menu items:
So far as I can tell, a “chili size” is open-faced served with a lot of chili on it, meant to be eaten with a knife and fork, but not so for a chili burger. I’m not from there, nor have partook in any chili sizes when I was there, so I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I’ve understood the distinction to be and DesertDog and DrDeth seem to describe. It also seems to me that there may be some leeway into what exactly constitutes a “chili size,” and perhaps some are more like run-of-the-mill chili burgers.
Ah, so that’s why I know what it is.
That, and I’m old. I used to love chili-size and ordered it a few times, but I haven’t seen it on a menu in donkey’s years.
Missed my edit window: I don’t remember getting the bun or the fries, but shredded cheese and lots of chopped onions were de rigueur. So gooooooooooood.
Chili mac is just to stretch chili to feed more people. I associate it with growing up poor, and it brings back back memories – that and I didn’t really like the slimy elbow macaroni in my chili.
Chili and shredded cheese on a baked potato is a wonderful meal. Dab of sour cream and it’s perfect. 
I occasionally make a Frito pie with left over chili. It’s a comfort food from my childhood.
Here’s the local take on it crazy Otto’s version is take a bun and burger about the size of a dinner plate pur about 2 cans of Chilli on it and a half pound f shredded cheese on it…with fries on the side
For a buck or so more thell add the chlli and cheese to the fries
The whole thing takes up a take home tray as all you see is the chll and cheese at first.
The chilli used to be made from scratch I don’t know snce we got a new owner there a while back if it still is …
Maybe that was the original distinction, but as I recall chili burgers were served that way in Colorado: as an open-faced cheeseburger with lots of chili on it, and the top bun cut in half on either side. You had to eat it with a knife and fork; you couldn’t pick it up. However, the cheese was melted on top of the burger like a regular cheeseburger, not shredded and sprinkled on top.
I can’t recall ever seeing a chili burger as DrDeth describes, where it’s just a little bit of chili spread on top of a regular cheeseburger. They’ve always been smothered in chili.
Like a lot of other foods, names and variants seem to have multiplied as it moved away from its place of origin.
There’s a pic of the one I eat all the time as mentioned above
Well, not just a little bit but look at a Tommys (they are famous):
So about a burgers worth, but you can still eat it by hand.
However, they will happily pour on more… then- it gets messy.
That’s what you get at fast food places like weinerschnitzel a normal cheeseburger with about 2 tablespoons of “chilli sauce” on them
But a chain called "Tommy’s " is what popularized them in so cal they used to make “the gut bomb” a triple quarter pound cheeseburger with the chlli and cheese on every Patty no bun in between …with most of the burger fixns included ours went out about 5 years ago …on the last day it was open the high school let everyone go for lunch in mourning
Took so long I got ninjaed…
Oh, c’mon! Nobody gets it like that! That picture is for a menu. The real Tommy’s Chili Burger looks like this.
Crazy Otto’s!
I loved that place!
(And I remember when Otto was alive. 
)
That’s how mine always looked except I got extra cheese on mine ,…Damnit now I want one:smack:
I was going to post a picture of a Tommy’s burger.
But yeah, a chili burger is a burger that has chili on it and is picked up and eaten like… well, like a burger. A chili size is open-faced with lots of chili. Up here in the PNW, a ‘chili burger’ is actually a chili size. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an actual chili burger here.
Here’s the correct menu link… The motto is “if ya leave hungry it ain’t their fault”
Yeah, I worked at the original as Security for a while.
They looked more like what you show, but the cook will add or lessen chili to suit how messy you want it. Great chiliburger.