arts district

Umami Burger x Impossible Foods

~ prachandrasoma ~ Leave a comment

The Place
Umami Burger
738 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

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If you work in a reasonably woke corporate environment (or a not-at-all woke corporate environment doing its best imitation of a woke corporate environment), you’ve probably heard something about implicit social cognition (it’s more commonly referred to as unconscious bias, but I actually prefer the former term.  Anyway).  According to UCSF, these are extra-conscious formed perceptions about groups of people that “stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.”

I admit that this idea is probably most usefully deployed to explain human interactions, but actually, I don’t think it’s cabined to our views about people.  I think these kinds of categorizations apply to our feelings about everything–like food.  It’s why your one friend inexplicably avoids okra in spite of having never eaten it.  Or why your significant other refuses to countenance egg white in his cocktails.  Or why your sister refuses to try the red velvet from that vegan bakery.  Or why your cousin won’t eat at Gracias Madre.

We all have our biases, built over decades, brick by seemingly-unrelated brick.  The sum total of our experiences is a flawed whole, a view of the world through a lens that’s necessarily cracked.  Or convex.  Or smudged.  Or something.  Point is, the very act of being an individual means operating with incomplete information.  Even absent malice, the manner in which we examine the world is informed by our inevitable lack of information.  Or our inevitably incomplete or skewed perspective.  It’s what our venerable former Secretary of Defense termed the “Unknown Unknowns.”

This, I suppose, is why I wouldn’t try a specific Known Unknown, viz., the Impossible Burger at Umami Burger, for so long, despite having been urged to do so by numerous people.  I could never quite articulate a rational reason why I’d never tried it.  Eventually, my refusal to give it a shot was distilled down to a prejudice against meatless burgers.

Sunday afternoon, then, can serve as living proof that the tides of progress are inexorable.  It was then, after all, that I faced up to my prejudice, went to Umami Burger in the Arts District, and tried the Impossible Burger.  The woke architects of my spiritual improvement?  Kelsey and her mother.  Who else?

The Order: The Impossible Burger

The Price: $16

The Burger
Most prejudices are not well-founded.  If, however, you share my (roiling) prejudice against meatless burgers, though, you know this specific prejudice is the exception to that rule.  The essential feature of a great burger is that juxtaposition between charred skin and juicy meat.  It’s the foundation stone for a dish, the central appeal of which is textural contrasts.  Smooth sauces; silky cheese; juicy, explosive meat; crisp, parchment-like lettuce; the burst of juicy tomatoes; and an airy bun all exist together in one unified whole.

The epicenter of that textural mix, the one constant, is the patty.  No matter how many different burgers you try, what makes them all burgers is the presence of that meaty anchor.  It needn’t be beef, but it needs to be charred on the outside and juicy on the inside.  Most meatless patties fail because they don’t provide both of those features.  They may be crisp on the outside, but then they’re lifeless inside.  Or maybe they’re moist inside, but then they can’t offer that grill-crisped shell.

So, if you ever breathlessly have protested, “A meatless burger is not a burger,” then you understand that you aren’t making a crassly presented judgment on the relative values of two objectively coequal members of a category; to the contrary, you’re making a definitional claim, namely, that a burger needs a patty that is charred and juicy.  Meatless patties aren’t charred and juicy (at best, customarily, they’re one or the other).  It would follow a burger built around a meatless patty isn’t a burger at all; it’s just a, like, fried lentil sandwich or something.

Tempting as it is to venture further down the “What is a burger?” rabbit hole, I’ll spare you.  Suffice it to say, the Impossible Burger complicates the calculus a great deal.  The patty is made of a proprietary blend of…well, not-meat things (wheat, coconut oil, and other not-meats; the precise mix is, apparently, a secret).  The idea is that it’s a legitimate alternative to meat (it even looks like beef before you cook it) from a taste and texture standpoint, but without the nasty ecological impact that attends the production of meat.

The flagship ingredient is heme.  Without getting too esoteric, heme is an iron-laden porphyrin (a class of organic molecule).  Its most famous work is in hemoglobin–that stuff in your blood that carries oxygen.  A lesser-known work in its oeuvre is that it’s a big part of what makes meat…meat.  You can find heme in all living things.  You may wonder how such a compound wound up in a “meatless” burger.  The answer is that the heme used in the Impossible Burger is generated by introducing the gene in soybeans that encodes the heme protein into yeast, and–

I can feel myself losing you.  Okay.  I’ll just dish on the burger.

The presentation, I think, is meant to highlight just how meat-like this patty is.  Two Impossible burger patties are smothered in American cheese, caramelized onions, mustard, spread, pickles, lettuce, and tomato.  If that sounds utterly conventional, it is; and that’s precisely the point.  The goal here is to challenge the eater to distinguish this in a meaningful way from what you flipped off a grill with a spatula and slapped between sponge buns with a careless spray of mustard and ketchup and whatever garnishes you could snatch on the way to the cooler to grab a Coke.

To be sure; you will be able to taste the difference.  There are stronger notes of mushroom in this burger than you’d note in a beef patty.  But you also probably won’t dispute that this is, undoubtedly, a burger.  Calling it a “carnivore’s dream” might be something of a stretch, but it’s miles away from being a carnivore’s nightmare.  The impression it leaves is more like a beef burger than a Gardenburger: There is char.  The patty is juicy.  It is flavorful.  And (this is, after all, still Umami Burger) it is overcooked.

And again, because this is Umami Burger, the garnishes are largely uninspired, the miso-mustard tries hard but won’t lay you flat, and the spread lacks piquancy.  The bun is just a hair shy of being too dry for comfort.  The whole thing doesn’t sing; it just kind of murmurs unobtrusively.  But you don’t care about all that.  You know all that.  What you want to know is whether the patty is worth trying.  The answer is a resounding yes.

If you’re anything like me, your aversion to trying this burger is the product of prejudice rather than judgment.  It likely emanates from a feeling that meatless alternatives aren’t alternatives at all; they’re just an aggravating failed imitation from people who have made a reasonable choice to not eat meat, but then show an unreasonable unwillingness to stay in their proverbial lane.  But the Impossible Burger isn’t just the product of vegan FOMO.  It’s the product of an impulse for ecologically responsible consumption.  And vegan FOMO.

Whatever its genesis, the product has some merit and deserves attention.  Is the Impossible Burger as good as a beef patty?  No.  But unlike its meatless forebears, that’s a question worth asking.  Time to get woke.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.50 / 10.00
Freshness: 8.00 / 10.00
Value: 8.10 / 10.00
Efficiency: 9.00 / 10.00
Creativity / Style: 10.00 / 10.00
Bun: 7.80 / 10.00
Patty: 8.70 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.00 / 10.00
Sauce: 8.00 / 10.00
Balance: 8.80 / 10.00

Total: 84.90 / 100.00

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The Top Ten (November 1, 2016)

~ prachandrasoma ~ Leave a comment

The passage of Halloween means that the holidays are upon us.   That means it’s time to engage in behavior that makes you feel deeply guilty at season’s end.  What better way to do that than by checking out the brand new, and thoroughly shaken-up, top ten burgers in Los Angeles?

  1. Petit Trois (95.70 / 100.00)
  2. Burgerlords (93.20 / 100.00)
  3. In-N-Out Burger (93.00 / 100.00
  4. The Bowery (91.90 / 100.00)
  5. Fritzi (91.10 / 100.00)
  6. Plan Check Kitchen + Bar (Bleuprint) (90.70 / 100.00)
  7. Super Burger (90.00 / 100.00)
  8. Plan Check Kitchen + Bar (Plan Check Burger) (89.80 / 100.00)
  9. Dudley Market (88.90 / 100.00)
  10. The Flintridge Proper (88.70 / 100.00)

Get out there – these burgers aren’t going to eat themselves.  And happy holidays.

Manuela

~ prachandrasoma ~ Leave a comment

The Place
Manuela (at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel)
907 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
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Having been a child at one point or another, you probably have at least a glancing familiarity with the indolence of the righteous.  Remember?  It would strike after you raked the leaves in the garden without being asked, you took out the trash sua sponte, you cleaned your plate and excused yourself to wash everyone else’s plates.  In that situation, if you were like a great many of us (I suppose I’m not speaking to the self-anointed paragons of virtue here, but then, I rarely am), you would perform that task with relish.  When your work was done and your good deed was discovered by an authority figure or other beneficiary, you would bask in the inevitable grateful praise was showered upon you.  What a thoughtful thing to have done!

But after that, if you were anything like me, a sense of self-satisfied complacency would set in.  You had done a good deed, and you realized that the performance of such a deed insulated you against criticism for a time.  So you might stretch the rules regarding bedtime, or the brushing of teeth, or the cleaning of one’s room, or one of the other chores or tasks which customarily were expected of you.  And if, say, your mother reminded of these other obligations, you might not say anything, but you would be stunned that more could be expected of you.  You might think, or even grumble under your breath, “That trash didn’t take itself out, you know.”

Sometimes, going above and beyond the call of duty breeds a sense in many children (and an alarmingly high proportion of adults, actually, come to think of it) that they’ve established a line of credit, that they’ve been given a measure of goodwill, which they can use to counterbalance a certain measure of nonfeasance (or even malfeasance, depending on the optimistic boldness of the child in question).  Not, I suppose, unlike the adult who justifies three slices of pizza and a milkshake with twenty minutes at the gym.

I’ll get back to that in a minute.  In the meantime, let’s talk about Manuela.

Manuela is an airy, indoor-outdoor space in the sprawling new Arts District gallery, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, helmed by Soho House luminary Wes Whitsell.  Manuela’s cuisine is a curious blend of cuisines.  If you press me, I’ll tell you Manuela is fundamentally a southern restaurant (the presence of pimiento cheese, biscuits and gravy, grits, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and Carolina gold rice renders that conclusion inescapable), but with heavy touches of Tex-Mex (see, e.g., beet tostada and chilaquiles) and Californian influence (as evidenced by the general seasonally driven, farm-to-table vibe, and the food first / technique second simplicity of the dishes).

For a medium-term denizen of the American Southeast with a strong lingering affection therefor, I was drawn to the menu by its southern flair, which gave me a big-time kick of nostalgia.  But one of the most universally eye-catching items on the menu has got to be the deer burger.  It is that item that ultimately really commanded my attention.  Kelsey and I went to check it out.

The Order: Deer Burger, medium rare

The Price: $16.00

The Burger
The deer burger advertises itself as coming with “all the fixins” (seriously).  That means it’s an all-deer patty with strips of lettuce, beefy and deep-red tomato, and a healthy dollop of a sauce consisting of roughly equal parts mayonnaise and dijon mustard.  On the side are a couple rings of raw red onion and two pieces of pickle which aren’t long enough defensibly to be called “spears,” so think of them as “daggers.”  The burger is served on a milk bun (more on that later).

Right off the bat, there are two pretty remarkable – and unexpected – things in play here.  First, the patty is deer.  That gives it a gamey, richly marbled texture, and a musky, sweet roundness of flavor that beef could never provide.  They recommend it medium-rare, and for a patty of this size, that is the perfect recommendation.  This patty is substantial, pink, bloody enough, and genuinely complex and flavorful.  It is a stellar centerpiece.  I approached this dish with a suspicion that the deer patty may be a gimmick.  It may be, but it is a delicious one.

The second lovely oddity in play here is the bun.  A milk bun is a kind of roll native to Japan (Hokkaido, specifically).  Roux is used as a starter, and these things have the heft of brioche but consistency of cotton candy.  The poppyseed-dusted crust of the thing will look familiar enough, but the gossamer, cloudlike sweetness awaiting you after the first bite will surprise and delight you, I promise.

So, in giving us a succulent deer patty and a delicious and unique bun, Wes Whitsell took out the trash and washed the dishes without being asked.  Sadly, that’s where the virtue of this burger ends.  The sauce, an uninspired mustard-mayo combination, is pedestrian on the tongue.  The tomato is wilted and chewy, rather than fresh and juicy.  The lettuce is merely there, cut into wide strips and arranged thoughtlessly beneath the patty.

It is thus that Manuela’s burger, an offering with so much promise, falls victim to the indolence of the righteous.  By presenting a strong patty and an estimable bun, this burger expects us to forgive its shortcomings in every other respect.  Few would.  The garnishes don’t disappoint in a vacuum; they adversely affect the overall quality of the burger, giving the palate little in the way of evolution or longevity.  Each bite is a stagnant experience, failing to develop or provide the eater with any arc.  You’ll taste bun and meat, and then you’ll be left wondering what might have been if the garnishes were on par with the basics.

Manuela’s burger is a thing of almost staggering potential, but like so many promising but lazy children, it fails to live up to that potential.  Instead, it stands as a stark reminder that overachieving in some areas does not excuse shiftlessness in others.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.10 / 10.00
Freshness / Quality: 8.90 / 10.00
Value: 7.80 / 10.00
Efficiency: 7.80 / 10.00
Creativity / Style: 7.30 / 10.00
Bun: 10.00 / 10.00
Patty: 10.00 / 10.00
Toppings: 6.30 / 10.00
Sauce: 5.90 / 10.00
Balance: 7.60 / 10.00

Total: 79.70 / 100.00

Fritzi

~ prachandrasoma ~ 1 Comment

The Place
Fritzi
814 Traction Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90013

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I remember when Give Up by the Postal Service came out.  I was a sophomore in high school.  It was before winter formal.  That particular winter formal was to be a rare triumph for me in the romance department.  I took one of the prettiest and most popular girls in the freshman class.  Unfortunately, as it turned out 1) I wasn’t very attractive (please indulge my optimistic use of the past tense), 2) she was out of my league, 3) I’m inveterately and painfully awkward, and 4) teenagers are a heartless sort.

The result: she bolted as soon as we arrived, and spent the entire evening with confident, attractive junior alpha males who played sports and got bad grades.  Meanwhile, I, the archetypal beta male, sat on a bench staring into a swimming pool, waiting for high school to end, and playing various tracks from Give Up in my head to pass the time. This admittedly depressing scene was interrupted when I was rescued by my friend David and his date Sara (incidentally, about halfway through “Clark Gable”).

I still wonder why that album came into my head, especially considering my tortured relationship with it.  I hated to like Give Up.  See, some Death Cab for Cutie fans were nervous when Give Up dropped (these were the Sub Pop days, when Death Cab fans were less numerous and more proprietary than today’s breed).  Publicly, we worried side projects portend artistic restlessness, or worse, stagnation, that they threaten to reveal a beloved artist reduced to repackaging old ideas instead of presenting new ones.

Privately though, we’d admit that our real issue wasn’t artistic; it was that side projects have the whiff of infidelity.  Death Cab fans liked to envision Ben Gibbard poring over ragged spiral notebooks scribbling the lyrics to the next “A Lack Of Color,” not seeking new modes of expression.  Him having another band felt like a betrayal.

What an odd feeling. It’s not as if I didn’t love Ben Gibbard just because Give Up came out.  It’s just that the release of Give Up made me face all facets of that love, even the ugly ones: affection, loyalty, fear (of change and of loss), comfort, complacency, possessiveness, jealousy.  The only thing more frightening than watching someone you love change is the prospect of getting left behind somewhere along the way.  So I listened, with layered trepidation.

I find these feelings have survived in me, and they resurfaced again recently when Neal Fraser diverted his attention from Redbird to give Fritzi the full sit-down restaurant treatment.  When Fritzi became something more than a whimsical pop-up or a window at Arts District Brewing, that familiar proprietary jealousy, that envious dogma of mine, was impossible to escape, even though culinary side projects often work out just fine.

The Order: Fritzi Burger

The Price: $11.50

The Burger
Maybe you’ve never heard of Fritzi.  It would be hard to fault you, actually.  It first surfaced as a pop-up, then soft-opened as a practically nameless take-out window nestled in a corner of Arts District Brewing, where everyone from the merely buzzed to the blacked out could partake in some high-class, high-carb hangover prophylaxis.  The only signage to speak of was a large marquee above the window that glowingly admonished all passers-by: “DON’T FORGET TO EAT.”

By the time Fritzi actually opened a dining room directly next door to Arts District Brewing (serviced by the same kitchen as the take-out window; the two spaces are less adjacent than they are interlocked), it would have been easy to not notice.  There was almost no fanfare; besides, we’d been eating off that menu for months.

But Fritzi commands attention.  It is the brainchild of Neal Fraser, who ranks among the most deadly serious chefs in the city.  The fare is fast-food inspired and fundamentally uncomplicated.With quintessentially Arts District pretentiousness (i.e., trying far too hard to project a laid-back, industrial Bohemian charm), Fritzi will tell you they serve “artisanal nosh.”  That means no of-the-moment crudo, no robust and hearty braised goat gemelli, and – sadly – no peri-eponymous (I can’t resist making the epunymous joke) tray of veal.

Nothing here is a signature dish.  This is an off-duty project, a glimpse at what Neal Fraser might make at a cookout – nothing too high-minded…but, well, he’s still Neal Fraser.  As such, expect sophisticated, subtly reimagined classics.

The Fritzi Burger is, for lack of a better term, so Fraser.  Each component of the conventional burger is rethought, elevated.  This burger offers a hybrid patty (Nueske bacon and beef) that is given ample (viz., nine hours) sous vide time; a generous smear of Fontina fondue which offers a gooey, honeyed nuttiness; a sweet Calabrese relish with a whisperingly slow-hot finish; a fresh salve of mild thousand island; and iceberg lettuce to add cooling textural contrast.

The patty is a masterstroke, a subtle, intensely flavorful execution of an idea that sounds excellent in theory but often is butchered grotesquely in practice.  The Nueske bacon imparts a smoky, marbled dimension to the beef, evoking the faintest thoughts of a Texan barbecue pit.  The fondue creates a sumptuous, almost silken coating around the patty, mild and comforting.  Both sauces are excellent, and work well enough in concert with one another.  They offer a few redundant notes, but ultimately elevate the entire experience.  I was glad for the lettuce, if only because it offered a bit of complexity in a burger that otherwise verges on textural monotony.

While Fraser excels in reimagining individual ingredients, he sometimes almost loses sight of the forest for the trees.  It’s fine to reshape each piece of a puzzle, especially if you improve each one; but change them enough, and they won’t fit together.

In the case of the Fritzi Burger, that’s just a distant threat – this burger hangs together well, never veering into incoherence.  But it also is a mildly unsettling dish, because – as a whole – it doesn’t always feel completely intentional.  But existential niggling aside, this burger is stellar, not to be missed, and yet another shining example in a litany of Neal Fraser’s innovative genius.

Ultimately, no matter how rabid a Death Cab fan I was, I listened to Give Up.  I couldn’t help myself.  In my more honest moments, I recognize it as a superior product to solidly (maybe conservatively) 85% of Death Cab for Cutie’s oeuvre.  But even short of that admission, I know I put aside my feelings of betrayal on behalf of Gibbard’s bandmates because I wanted to understand what was compelling enough to divert his creative focus.  I didn’t really listen because I wanted to.  I listened because I had to.

So if you felt similar vicarious betrayal when Chef Fraser took time away from Redbird to launch Fritzi, you probably also feel a similar morbid curiosity regarding what Fritzi is all about.  Succumb to it.  This burger may not be better than 85% of the menu at Redbird, but it is too good to be missed owing to proprietary hipster envy.

The Ratings:
Flavor: 9.60 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 10.00 / 10.00
Value: 9.00 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.40 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 10.00 / 10.00
Bun: 8.40 / 10.00
Patty: 10.00 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.10 / 10.00
Sauce: 8.70 / 10.00
Balance: 8.90 / 10.00

Total: 91.10 / 100.00

The Top Ten (April 12, 2016)

~ prachandrasoma ~ 1 Comment

I haven’t updated this list since October, and there has been considerable shake-up since then.  At the risk of being behind the times, here are the top ten burgers I’ve written about so far.

  1. Burgerlords (93.20 / 100.00)
  2. In-N-Out (93.00 / 100.00)
  3. The Bowery (91.90 / 100.00)
  4. Super Burger (90.00 / 100.00)
  5. Plan Check Kitchen + Bar (89.80 / 100.00)
  6. Dudley Market (88.90 / 100.00)
  7. The Flintridge Proper (88.70 / 100.00)
  8. Republique (88.20 / 100.00)
  9. TIE: ERB and Badmaash (88.10 / 100.00)

Stay tuned, clearly.  More changes are basically a sure thing.  After all, as you may have read on the label of a pair of Volcom Stone pants you had in sixth grade, “The Only Constant Is Change.”

ERB

~ prachandrasoma ~ 1 Comment

The Place
Everson Royce Bar (ERB)
1936 7th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90021

I knew Everson Royce as a liquor store in Pasadena with a pretty good selection of whiskey and (apparently) a considerably better selection of wine. Today, it’s grown up into one of the trendiest bars in one of the trendiest neighborhoods (mine, incidentally – NBD but KBD) in Los Angeles. The façade is spartan: bare neon lights, buzzing, form the word “BAR” in white capitals. To the right of the threshold, a simple goal plaque bears the name of the bar and the year of its establishment — 2015.

Mozzaplex alumnus Matt Molina is the mind behind ERB’s menu. After a weirdly sudden (but evidently, not acrimonious) departure from the Mozza empire, Molina came here, to a scaled down bar-restaurant concept that is much less in the “high cuisine” category. From a tasteful mid-city icon with a voluminous wine list to a buzzing hipster hive with a menu section dedicated to boilermakers? Welcome to L.A.

Anyway, this burger has earned some pretty considerable hype. Nikhil, Bret, Shawn, and I went to give it a try.

The Order: Single Burger

The Price: $10

The Burger
Molina keeps it simple. The bun is buttered brioche. The patty is prime beef chuck overrun by decadent, soupy Tillamook that is something in between a topping and a sauce. There’s a thin film of a bright garlic aioli under the patty. It’s accompanied by a few wedges of dill pickle. All of the ingredients are expertly assembled and beautifully complementary. Operating at the curious nexus of minimalism and decadence, this burger is a surprising and satisfying offering.

The sweetness of the just-browned bun finishes with round notes of toasted butter that sidle up against the milky, sharp cheese before melting into the hardy, uncomplicated savor of the chuck. The aioli peeks out intermittently, not intrusive, but allowing it’s presence to be felt, and adding a subtle spark of creamy sharpness.

This might come as a surprise, but I won’t complain about the lack of toppings. There’s enough complexity in play here to keep your palate occupied from bite to bite. But when you offer a barebones presentation like this, it’s important not to cut corners on quality. Molina’s burger sidesteps the skimping issues that make Eggslut‘s burger a frustrating endeavor. The patty here is substantial enough to satisfy. The problem is in meat quality. For such a meat-centric offering, Molina asks a lot out of straight chuck. A more subtle – and yeah, maybe more indulgent – patty construction would have gone a long way towards making this burger something really special. You know, that or a few orders off the boilermaker menu.

The Ratings
Flavor: 9.60 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 8.80 / 10.00
Value: 8.70 / 10.00
Efficiency: 9.10 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 8.00 / 10.00
Bun: 9.70 / 10.00
Patty: 7.80 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.50 / 10.00
Sauce: 8.60 / 10.00
Balance: 9.30 / 10.00

Total: 88.10 / 100.00

Eggslut

~ prachandrasoma ~ 3 Comments

IMG_3376
Let’s get this out of the way at the outset: You are going to have to get past the fact that Eggslut is kind of an affected and gimmicky name. Do that, and you’ll come to appreciate that it’s a) kind of apt, and b) kind of clever, and c) kind of funny. But more importantly, Alvin Cailan’s egg-centric eatery on the Broadway side of Grand Central Market serves really balanced, carefully conceived dishes.

Some people will sardonically argue that the business plan seems to be, “Hey, we like Iron Chef and eggs, so let’s just combine them.” Strictly speaking, that’s not wrong. But it’s also incomplete. There’s a lot more going on here. Cailan and company strive to serve innovative twists on familiar comfort food. They strive to offer food that is innovative and inclusive. In practice, the innovation generally consists of, “Hey, what stuff might taste good with eggs?” But behind each dish is deceptively thoughtful composition. You’d make a mistake to think this place is just a bunch of hipsters or bros chuckling while they just put eggs on shit that doesn’t normally have eggs on it.

Shanil and I went to check it out. Kevin was supposed to come, but he was busy being disgustingly late. By the time he showed up to order, my food had digested, and they had raised and slaughtered another cow to make his burger.

The Place
Eggslut @ Grand Central Market
317 South Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90013

The Order: Cheeseburger

The Price: $9.00 (before tax)

The Burger
Eggslut’s burger clearly was conceived with lots of love and respect for the institution of the burger. The focus is on high quality ingredients, simplicity, and complementary flavors. The egg is not intended to be the centerpiece of the burger. Prepared over-medium, it’s meant to be runny but not messy, to offer a textural contrast and some delightful, yolky flavor. And, all else being equal, it did that. As an absolute matter, the egg could not have been prepared better.

The real highlight of this burger, though, is the pickles. The interaction between the copious sweet pickle chips and the creamy egg yolk was nothing short of astonishing. It was the single most compelling ingredient pairing I’ve encountered since the Project got started. It completely justifies the spartan collection of ingredients found on this burger. Initially, when I looked at the description of the burger on the menu, I wondered why there wasn’t more going on.

Then, two things happened: First, I saw that you can add bacon and avocado. But given Eggslut’s generally judicious approach to ingredient inclusion, I chose not to. They include what needs to be included; I decided to order it like they suggested, not how they allowed. Second (and more importantly), I took a bite, and understood that the utterly symphonic collaboration between these two ingredients was more than enough to carry the water for this burger. The absence of sauce was not a deficiency, but an exercise in laudable restraint.

So if I’m going to register one complaint (and I am), it’s not really that the egg is scandalously slutty, it’s that the beef is kind of a prude (yes, I’ve tastelessly bought into the coarse foundational metaphor, but the general point holds). The patty is a paper-thin wafer of wagyu beef. High quality stuff, to be sure, but there’s so little of it that it makes not a gustatory dent. In one sense, I get it; there’s no way you could charge nine bucks for a beef with, say, a six-ounce wagyu patty. But the relentless pursuit of value sacrifices too much; this tastes like someone just put one brioche bun on either ear and thought really hard about wagyu beef. My point is that the patty is really small.

So while the complementary ingredients are beautifully – perhaps perfectly – balanced, this dish doesn’t feel like a burger; it feels like a sandwich. Someone forgot about the patty here, and it’s a damn shame, because this burger would be something really special were it a little better balanced. I imagined what it would be like if the egg yolk dripped and soaked into the patty, flirting with well-seasoned, flavorful, juicy beef. What a beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy. But sadly, that’s all it is – a fantasy. What Eggslut has given us is an unfinished, unbalanced symphony, an almost-masterpiece that ends up making an impression more for what it could be than for what it actually is.

The Ratings
Flavor: 9.20 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 9.20 / 10.00
Value: 8.80 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.30 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 9.80 / 10.00
Bun: 9.30 / 10.00
Patty: 6.40 / 10.00
Sauce: 7.60 / 10.00
Toppings: 9.50 / 10.00
Balance: 5.60 / 10.00

Total: 83.70 / 100.00