cheeseburgers

Umami Burger (Pasadena)

~ prachandrasoma ~ Leave a comment

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Umami Burger is, for better and worse, an institution.

The better: This place is pretty much entirely responsible for the revitalization and elevation of burgers. Before Umami Burger, the words “cheeseburgers” and “high cuisine” couldn’t really be used in the same sentence. Well, unless the sentence was, “Cheeseburgers are not high cuisine.” Then, Adam Fleischman had an inspired, Double Double-induced moment of clarity, went to Mitsuwa Marketplace, and opened up a shop on La Brea.

The focus was simple: complex burgers that explored the interplay between different savory foods. Obsessively high quality (American Wagyu) beef. Weblike crisps of ossified parmesan. Slow-hot roasted hatch chiles. Juicy, salty cubes of bacon lardon. Sweet, pliant brioche (emblazoned with that signature “U”). That weird, kinda sweet ketchup. Umami was totally “L.A.” On Friday nights, it would buzz with activity; flannel-clad hipsters would wait an eternity to sink their teeth into one of Fleischman’s brainchildren while they pretended to really like – and really get – Bitte Orca.

From those humble roots, the Umami empire spread north (to the Bay Area) and then east (to Miami and New York). Now, you don’t have to be a Silver Lake hipster to get an Umami Burger. You can be a hipster in Greenwich Village or Brooklyn too. Three cheers!

The worse: The restaurant’s expansion has been a double-edged sword. The growth of the Umami brand has been concomitant with the increasing prominence of burgers, and the culinary credibility they’ve accumulated over the years. On the other hand, it’s shown what can happen when a once great outfit spreads itself too thin. So now, Umami is better for what it represents than for what it actually is.

Janak and I went with Shanil and a couple of Shanil’s friends to the Umami Burger in Old Town Pasadena. After running into Silva and Shant – Pasadena’s preeminent power couple – outside the place, the five of us sat down to get to work.

The Place
Umami Burger
49 E Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, CA 91105

The Order: Hatch Burger

The Price: $10.50 (before tax)

The Burger
In light of the foregoing, I may well be criticized for being a little cynical. Some among you may suspect that I’m unfairly subjecting Umami Burger to the Death Cab for Cutie treatment – you know, being all shitty about their getting famous. But here’s the thing about Umami Burger (and about Death Cab, for that matter): it kind of sucks now, and it didn’t used to.

The patty is still – allegedly – six ounces of American Wagyu. But if we’re being real, it tastes like the good stuff has been diluted a bit with some more conventional chuck. These patties, quite simply, are not what they used to be. The burger was still pretty well-cooked, though: a competently executed medium rare, glistening on the outside and a delicate pink inside. It was also really juicy; the coarse grind of the beef probably helps in that regard. But while the preparation is still skillful, the meat itself just isn’t as good, and at bottom, that’s kind of a deal-breaker. It’s kind of like…I don’t care how wonderful her personality is: I’m not dating a Celtics fan.

Anyway. The Hatch burger features roasted Hatch chiles, cali cheese, and roasted garlic aioli on that sweet, familiar bun – think of it as a demi-brioche. This is a different version of the Hatch than I’ve eaten previously. The earlier version featured slow roasted chiles; this iteration is slathered in a tendril-hued roasted chile relish-like substance. It’s got less heat, less flavor, and less texture. Basically, it’s a bunch of not-hot slop gracelessly spattered like a bad Jackson Pollock knockoff all over the almost too-melty (and awkwardly flavorless) cheese. The aioli was all over the lower bun, spilling out from beneath the patty with every bite.

Everything about this burger was messy. The patty dripped juices. The aioli oozed out with every bite like cream when you squeeze a Twinkie. The chile slaw was all over the place. The cheese was strange and almost soupy – think hopelessly insipid fondue. While previously, Umami Burger’s menu showcased nuanced, counter-intuitive collaborations between distinctive flavors and textures – all bound by the common thread of being savory – now, it leans too heavily on a) its reputation/laurels, and b) the fact that the patties have some Wagyu beef in them, maybe. The ingredients are largely flavorless and don’t interact very well together at all. The bun is by far the most interesting thing that this burger has to offer, unless you’re interested in insipid meat and chunky chile sauce.

The worst thing I can say about this burger was that it was uninteresting. It is damning evidence of the marked decline of a once-iconic, once-credible, once-awesome burger place. Umami Burger has done us all a great service: It set the table (sorry, that’s a disgraceful pun) for the Plan Checks and the Father’s Offices of the world not only to take Los Angeles’ culinary scene by storm, but also gain that culinary credibility that eluded burger joints for so long. Beyond that, though, I’m surprised to say that I think Umami Burger has kind of outlived its utility.

You might come away from this thinking I’m being too hard on Umami simply because of some proprietary rage about the restaurant I loved before it was mainstream. I can’t really deny that, though I don’t think it played much of a role. Besides, I love lots of famous, mainstream things. Like this. Or this. Or this. Or this. No, I don’t think my problem with Umami Burger is that it’s growing and successful. I think my problem with Umami Burger is that it’s just nowhere near as good as it used to be.

On the bright side, it’s still the best burger in New York.

The Ratings
Flavor: 7.20 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 7.80 / 10.00
Value: 7.00 / 10.00
Efficiency: 7.20 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 6.90 / 10.00
Bun: 8.00 / 10.00
Patty: 6.30 / 10.00
Toppings: 6.00 / 10.00
Sauce: 4.00 / 10.00
Balance: 6.00 / 10.00

Total: 66.40 / 100.00

Meat District Co.

~ prachandrasoma ~ 2 Comments

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Pasadena is blooming. During my lifetime, Colorado Boulevard has morphed from a “hide yo kids, hide yo wife” zone into a charming little hipster-free facsimile of Silver Lake. A sprawling Intelligentsia Coffee anchors it, abutted by Indiana Colony, home to Cool Haus, Pressed Juicery, the Pie Hole, this one place that sells tea and spices and shit, and this one place that sells flowers and shit. One of the finest restaurants in Los Angeles (seriously, it’s world-rockingly good), Union, just opened up on – you guessed it – Union Street. Oh, and there’s an Umami Burger too. And while those spots do attract their share of carefully (almost convincingly) disheveled beautiful people, it’s nothing like, say, Venice.

Umami Burger, however, isn’t the only burger place that’s made its way into Old Town. Meat District Co. came all the way from Sydney to open up a location just down the block from Slater’s 50/50 (another burger spot). Intrigued by the carnivorous focus and urban-chic décor, Kevin and I went on a romantic little lunch date there. Kevin ordered for me, we split a garden salad…it was kind of adorable. Don’t hate us ’cause you ain’t us.

Anyway, our server was quick to a) conclude that Kevin and I were the cutest couple in the place, and b) tell us that this burger had been named the second best burger in Pasadena this year. And while Pasadena is a fine city with many a fine burger, bragging about that accolade (totally sua sponte, by the way) just felt a little pathetic. It’s kind of like the girl who tells you on the second date how into sports she is. It’s like, I get it. Just watch a Laker game with me, and I think you’ll prove the point. And plus, when a girl talks about being “into sports,” she really means she’s into posting Instagram photos of herself wearing child size jerseys and impossibly short shorts. The point is this: girls who are really into sports don’t talk about it.

Besides, who brags about second place, right? Anyway.

The Place
Meat District Co.
69 N Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91103

The Order: Cheese Burger and fries

The Price: $9.95 for the burger (lunch special) and $2.00 extra for the fries (yeah, I know – stupid)

The Burger
While I maintain it is still thoroughly lame for our server to have bragged about their micro-regional silver medal, I’ll happily concede (and report) that Meat District Co. makes a good burger. The patty is a half pound of Harris Ranch chuck and short rib. The chuck gives it a grill-ravaged hardiness, while the short rib keeps things tender and subtle. The bun is a well-toasted brioche with a honeyed roundness to it. It holds up well to all the toppings, which cling to it without soaking in. The aged cheddar is nutty, mellow, and substantial. The little gem and the tomato add a breezy freshness. The pickles, however, are insipid, and the house sauce – whatever it is – is overused and too heavy on mayonnaise. Worse still, the caramelized onions get lost in the monsoon of sauce, so their sassy sweetness – of which I caught just glimpses – is muted.

That last criticism is a little misleading, though. While the sauce is a bit overdone, this burger actually is quite well-balanced. In fact, the loss of the caramelized onions might actually have been a good thing, because they might have seemed a little out of their element here. See, this is fundamentally a traditional burger (raw onions would have worked well, adding the sharpness that the pickles didn’t quite bring). Caramelized onions would have stood out for the wrong reasons. So sure, the balance of this burger probably is accidental, but it makes for a happy accident.

At $9.95, Meat District Co. is a pretty good lunch option. I wouldn’t feel as comfortable paying $13 for it (which is the dinner rate), and the $2.00 extra for fries is un peu ridiculous (parenthetically, the fries were excellent). But coming out with a burger of this size and caliber for less than ten bucks is an unequivocal win. The lunch special is great value for money. The fries aren’t, but that’s a conversation they can have on the Los Angeles French Fry Project.

(On that note, a brief aside: some readers have pointed out that I don’t write about French fries enough. Leaving aside the fact that you should know by now that I respond horribly to criticism of any variety, I feel like only people from Idaho really care about potatoes enough to wax poetic about them and last I checked, I’m not Jack O’Connor.)

Anyway, where was I?

Whatever. Here’s the bottom line. This burger gets a lot of the big things right: the patty and cheese interface well together. The garnishes are thoroughly serviceable. The sauce is overbearing, but luckily ends up masking what otherwise might have been an unpleasant oddity. Things sort of fall into place and work themselves out, in spite of the apparent lack of much intentionality. That may not inspire confidence in the creative or culinary chops on display here, but the end product tasted good enough that I don’t care too much.

There are a lot of great places to get a meal in Old Town. There are a few places to get a burger, including the now national titan Umami Burger (when did that happen, by the way?). In spite of the abundance of options,  though, I’ll consider going to Meat District Co. for lunch again. But I’ll skip the fries. They just dampened the mood.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.40 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 8.80 / 10.00
Value: 9.60 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.90 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 7.00 / 10.00
Bun: 8.00 / 10.00
Patty: 8.40 / 10.00
Toppings: 7.80 / 10.00
Sauce: 6.90 / 10.00
Balance: 8.60 / 10.00

Total: 82.40 / 100.00

Ox & Son

~ prachandrasoma ~ Leave a comment

IMG_3290Admittedly, I’ve been pretty tough on Santa Monica. But dammit, when this many places are ripping off Father’s Office, it’s kind of hard not to talk a little shit. Anyway, Ox & Son is another Bradley Miller spot. The name is a sentimental tip of the cap to his dad Gary (a butcher nicknamed “Ox”) who taught young Brad to dismember animals before the lad was old enough to drive. Which is, well, you know.

Anyway, Ox & Son is one of an ever-swelling multitude of farm-to-table spots in Santa Monica (and Los Angeles more generally, actually). The menu is adventurous but hit or miss. The yellowtail crudo is worth a second look. The sticky pig cheeks are insipid. But the burger gets a fair amount of love from the locals.

I feel like I say that – “the locals love it!” – every time I write about a burger I eat in Santa Monica. And I think part of that has to do with the love affair that people who live in Santa Monica have with Santa Monica. While I appreciate how lovely it is to love where you live, there’s a whole city out there, y’all. And I promise you, it’s awesome. You should, like, go to Hollywood sometime. They have burgers there too. Some of them don’t mismanage arugula.

But anyway. I’ll spare you another trip down that particular rabbit hole – nobody needs me getting all self-righteously analytical about Santa Monica again. Let’s talk about this burger. We celebrated twenty-some years of Tessa with Scott, Kevin, Deb, Silva, Shant, and (eventually) Greg. I took the opportunity to try out a new burger.

The Place
Ox & Son
1534 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90403

The Order: O&S Burger

The Price: $20 (before tax)

The Burger
I don’t know, y’all. Part of me feels like a hater. But this is another Santa Monica burger at a new-ish Santa Monica restaurant that presents as original a burger with fancy cheese (raclette here, which is a smooth, creamy number you might have encountered if you’ve ever eaten fondue), arugula, and caramelized onions. Like, honestly, we’ve all been to Father’s Office. We get it. That burger is popular. Now make something of your own.

The O&S Burger, then, is ultimately little more than an overpriced facsimile of what they make at Father’s Office. The patty is a chuck/short rib mix made with beef from the Central Coast (they wouldn’t get more specific than that). It’s tender and reasonably flavorful, but at $20, it damn well better be. The raclette is a distraction. It’s like someone spilled fondue on your burger. The result is a messy, overpowering cheese presence. Raclette is a weird choice, honestly. It’s melty but doesn’t give much in the way of distinctive flavor. It doesn’t meld well with the beef, which means the gooey shitshow decidedly is not worth it.

The arugula is there. And it’s arugula. And it’s on a burger. And given that Ox & Son is like the fourth restaurant in its zip code to put arugula on a burger and then drop the mic, it’s no longer surprising or praiseworthy; it’s now a meme. It’s got a bitter, peppery snap to it. It was fresh enough not to bother, but wilted a little in the pit of hot raclette quicksand in which it was embedded. The onions were zeroes on the palate. I couldn’t tell you anything about them. The truffle aioli sounds way better than it is – gasping notes of truffle submerged beneath a tsunami of mayonnaise. It’s the best, most original idea on the burger, but the execution honestly is kind of ham-fisted.

Most people can’t really articulate what makes Father’s Office so good. They like it because it’s the best burger many people know about in Santa Monica. Because overzealous and pretentious foodies gushed about it on Yelp. But the reason Father’s Office is good is because they took risks with skill. They were the first to incorporate arugula in a serious way. They took a different approach to patty construction. They use rolls instead of buns.

But all that stuff is kind of beside the point. The reason Father’s Office is good is because their risks are all calculated. They are purposeful in their deviations. I got the impression that the folks at Ox & Son realized, “Oh shit, this burger might be too similar to the Father’s Office burger, mightn’t it?” In response, they used a meltier cheese and tweaked the aioli a bit. In the main, that’s not enough of a change to fool anyone who’s paying a scintilla of attention. But more to the point, it compromised the burger. The raclette masked the flavor of the beef. The aioli went to war with the arugula, and in that fog of war, the onions got lost.

Ox & Son undoubtedly is vying for the crown of Best Burger in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, they aren’t even really presenting serious competition for the crown of Best Burger on Montana Avenue.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.10 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 8.40 / 10.00
Value: 5.00 / 10.00
Efficiency: 6.00 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 5.90 / 10.00
Bun: 7.50 / 10.00
Patty: 8.30 / 10.00
Toppings: 7.60 / 10.00
Sauce: 6.90 / 10.00
Balance: 6.20 / 10.00

Total: 69.90 / 100.00

Super Burger

~ prachandrasoma ~ 4 Comments

IMG_3289To our wild and crazy generation, Hidden in Plain View describes a (very intense, vaguely scary, definitely bad) post-hardcore band from New Jersey. But in the age of Yelp and Urbanspoon and countless food blogs purveyed by narcissistic, self-obsessed foodies screaming ignored into the aether of the interwebs (WHO NEEDS THEM, AM I RIGHT), the phrase has kind of lost its currency in the culinary world.

One thing that kind of sucks about the electronic age is that the thrill of discovery is blunted by its inevitability. It’s refreshing, then, when a truly magnificent place slips through the e-cracks and manages to escape your attention. Then, you hear about it from an actual human being, you go there and discover a place to which you know you will return countless times in the future, and it feels pretty remarkable. It’s nice to actually find something, rather than just passively accumulating and half-processing information.

My friend Andy told me about Super Burger. His experience there left him pleasantly shocked. Because here’s the thing: This place has been around forever – like, seriously, decades – but has managed to escape the detection of anyone in our social circle (and my friends and I are not disinterested in burgers, in case you’d not noticed). I was skeptical going in; between the internet grapevine and my own deep roots in Pasadena, it was nothing short of inconceivable that I would have failed to hear about a place this good.

So we went. I got an avocado bacon cheeseburger. We agreed that Serena Williams is a) the finest individual athlete in America who isn’t named Michael Phelps, b) that she makes it nearly impossible to like her in spite of that fact, and c) lots of people who don’t like her are probably just uncomfortable seeing a minority succeed at what has so traditionally been a “white sport.” And we also agreed that the writing about her heading into the U.S. Open is going to be insufferable. Because ESPN. And we also agreed that Bill Simmons seems dangerously close to becoming a citizen (or at least a permanent resident) of Whiny Bitch Victim Complex Town.

What can I say? It was a productive lunch.

The Place
Super Burger
458 N Altadena Drive
Pasadena, CA 91107

The Order: Avocado Bacon Cheeseburger, Coke.

The Price: $8.95 (approximately)

The Burger
After my first bite, the thought that occurred to me was, “How the hell did I miss this?”

There are lots of different ways to categorize burgers, but patty size is a useful way. Some places – In-N-Out pops to mind – feature thin patties. They maximize surface area and season their meat really well. Then, there are what I think of as pub-style burgers, with thicker patties that depend more heavily on the flavor of the meat and the grill.

In-N-Out sets the bar for the thin patty burger. It’s a benchmark. Now, I haven’t eaten at Super Burger enough to be conclusive about this, but let me tell you one thing. This is the best short-order burger I have eaten at any place not called In-N-Out. I think the most telling thing here is that I would frame this review by comparing this place to In-N-Out.

The patty is a roughshod, hand-packed monster, probably weighing in at no less than a half-pound. There’s no short rib or brisket anywhere near this thing – it’s a budget burger – but somehow, it manages to be juicy, intensely flavorful, and delicious. The bun is wholesale. The lettuce and tomato are throwaways, the Thousand Island adds a necessary tangy punch but is otherwise unremarkable. The onions are just fine but should probably have been grilled (I’d imagine they’d have done this had I asked). The cheese is firmly B-plus stuff. The action happens with the four massive wedges of astonishingly fresh, firm, flavorful avocado and the perfectly crisp, sumptuously undulating strips of bacon. The interplay between this and the ever surprising beef is nothing short of astounding. Seriously.

Another point: Conventional wisdom will direct you to get the teriyaki burger. I have it on good authority that you should ignore the conventional wisdom. I can tell you that the avocado bacon cheeseburger is, by fast food standards, revelatory. Sure, it’s not a gourmet, grass-fed, organic, dry-aged situation. But over the decades that Super Burger has sat on that corner, leaning into a residential neighborhood, they apparently have perfected their craft. If In-N-Out sets the bar for the thin patty burger, Super Burger may well set the bar for the pub style burger.

I could wax superlative about this place for a while. I could tell you how you have to haul ass to Pasadena (and then keep driving east once you get to the cool part). I could Come Full Circle and tell you how this burger reminded me how good it feels to really discover a new place without the crutch of the Internet, or how this burger is like the Serena Williams of pub-style burgers, only without the shitty attitude (or reactionary racist blowback). And all that is true. But in all honesty, this is just a completely delicious burger that you should eat whenever you have a chance but are short on time.

The Ratings
Flavor: 9.60 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 8.50 / 10.00
Value: 9.70 / 10.00
Efficiency: 9.80 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 8.20 / 10.00
Bun: 8.00 / 10.00
Patty: 9.60 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.20 / 10.00
Sauce: 8.60 / 10.00
Balance: 9.80 / 10.00

Total: 90.00 / 100.00

Where it all started

~ prachandrasoma ~ 3 Comments
The Chandrasoma Burger
The Chandrasoma Burger

Let’s be perfectly frank. It’s a little weird for one guy to be this obsessed with hamburgers. When I tell people about this site, many of them immediately want to know how I came to fall for burgers.

Like so many other obsessions, this one traces back to my childhood. My mother always has been the most gifted chef I know. She has an unparalleled culinary instinct. Her dishes, while consistently executed with surgical precision, have not lost their unstudied charm. She understands how flavors and textures interact, and this familiarity with food and spice has matured over years of cooking.

When I was a young pup, before my (now hard-charging) taste for Sri Lankan food had fully developed, my mother’s hamburgers were the ne plus ultra of culinary indulgence. I used to anticipate them with drooling eagerness. They were my first request whenever I was given the chance to choose what we ate for dinner. I would scarf them down as if I hadn’t seen food for weeks.

As time wore on, my appreciation for my mother’s Sri Lankan food deepened. I loved her complex biriyani. I could subsist for days on her simple, sweet-and-fiery pork curry, plated with creamy parippu (lentils) and potato curry. Her cashew curry remains the finest dish I have ever eaten. Between that and her decision to stop eating beef, we ate burgers less frequently.

Recently, however, my mother discovered ground bison, and returned to making burgers. And as I ate one last week, I realized that her burgers, in my mind, are the benchmark against which I judge all others. My mother’s burgers were the sparkplug for my love affair with the burger, and they’re still my favorite burger in Los Angeles (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Am I biased? Shit yes.

But make no mistake, this is a face-meltingly delicious burger. The bison patty is thick and pan-grilled, with chopped Serrano chiles packed into the meat like flavorful little land mines. Left to ruminate in its own juices as it cooks, the patty absorbs them and spits them back out to sizzle and surge back in. The meat takes on a powerful and crackling flavor that is enchanting and complex, but anchored by the tender sweetness of the bison. Atop the patty is crumbled pungent blue cheese hidden beneath a blanket of smooth melted cheddar.

Blades of incendiary red onion come next, just a few, just to add a little sharpness into the mix. On top of that is a massive solitary disc of green tomato that is alive with calm, sunny sweetness. Then there is avocado, perfectly fried bacon, hot pickles, a solitary pickled red chile, and – her signature – a copse of cilantro. All the vegetables are drizzled in salt, pepper, and sugar that has been suspended in a tart matrix of lemon juice. Oh, and house-made apple chutney. Yeah, I know. That’s a lot of delicious shit sandwiched between two jalapeño buns that she barely glazes with honey dijon mustard. And it works beautifully.

C’est ci bon.

The fact that I was raised on burgers like this should shed some light onto a) my abiding love of burgers, and b) my nefariously exacting standards regarding the same. I have my mother to thank for introducing me to this remarkable food, and for teaching me what it should taste like. You have her to thank for being subjected to the meandering and incoherent ramblings of the man she turned into an astonishingly narcissistic culinary sociopath.

My mother asked me not to rate this burger. But how could I not?

The Ratings
Flavor: 10.00 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 10.00 / 10.00
Value: 10.00 / 10.00
Efficiency: 10.00 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 10.00 / 10.00
Bun: 10.00 / 10.00
Patty: 10.00 / 10.00
Toppings: 10.00 / 10.00
Sauce: 10.00 / 10.00
Balance: 10.00 / 10.00

Total: 100.00 / 100.00

Yeah, I love the shit out of my mom. Get over it.

Black Hogg

~ prachandrasoma ~ 1 Comment

IMG_3248Eric Park doesn’t care what kind of food you like. He doesn’t care what you’re in the mood for. He doesn’t care whether that basmati rice is too fragrant. He doesn’t care if the red sauce is too spicy. He doesn’t care if you don’t know how to approach his offering of charred street corn with a salty dusting of crumbly cotija cheese and rich marrow (though, admittedly, his wait staff does). He lives in a world without borders, a world where wagyu makes brilliant asada, where tacos totally can sit on the table right next to fragrant cauliflower chana masala, where he makes weird bacon popcorn with silky maple crema and serves it like it’s as normal as bread and butter (it’s not – it’s also way more delicious).

Eric Park, as it happens, doesn’t really give a shit about you. He gives a shit about food. Black Hogg, an innocuous hole in the wall on Sunset in Silver Lake, is that rare place where the idiosyncratic feels natural and unforced, where all the food’s quirky personality emanates from the honest joy the chef takes in experimenting, not from some gross culinary exhibitionism.

Eric Park, incidentally, is also pretty into bone marrow. At least, it’s a centerpiece of two of the most popular dishes on the menu – the aforementioned street corn and the so-called marrow burger. I went with Kevin, my impossibly cool parents, my cousin, and her husband to give this burger a whirl. We walked in after a day at the beach, sunstroked and languid, withstood an avalanche of leering judgment from the assembled hipsters, and ordered up.

The Place
Black Hogg
2852 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026

The Order: Marrow burger, medium rare

The Price: $18 (before tax)

The Burger
This is a cool burger. It’s not conventional. The flavor profile is unbalanced and it hits hard on the palate. There are two different kinds of onions – a bundle of pink-pickled scythes and a tangle of stewy caramelized strips, the latter of which evokes French onion. Underneath it all, there is a bosk of bitter watercress.

Let’s talk about the marrow first, because you’re probably wondering. The burger comes out brash: there’s a fat bone right next to it, full of gelatinous marrow. It’s not immediately obvious how the two go together, so the best thing you can do is wing it. Scoop out the marrow with a spoon, and sort of smear it on the inside of the top bun. I thought of the marrow the sauce, rather than a topping. This is primarily because there is no other sauce, but also because the marrow really just forms a thin film on the bun. It’s not present enough to think of it as a topping.

The patty is Black Hogg’s “secret house burger blend” (whatever that means). The chef recommends medium rare, which comes out stoutly charred and dark pink on the inside. While I don’t know what the secret blend is, I can report that it’s a solid slab of meat, flavorful, juicy, and full of personality. The bitterness of the charred exterior gives way to a rich interior, but it all kind of tussles with the onions and the watercress. Then the brioche steps in, sweet and wonderful, to soak everything up.

Ultimately, the problem is one of balance. There’s a little too much sharpness and bitterness in this burger, without enough offsetting mellowness. Bitterness (watercress) follows sharpness (onions) follows bitterness (the patty). There is no calming cheese, there is no sauce to soothe the cut of the char or the onions or the watercress. There are only traces of the fatty marrow on the burger, which is about the closest thing this burger has to “sauce.” Nor is there any cheese to blunt the harsher elements of the flavor profile.

It’s a funny thing: while there is a lot going on in this burger, there’s also a lot missing. What is there truly is fascinating, complex, and compelling. But the burger could stand to be rounded out by some other flavors. Cheese and a creamy sauce would do a lot to counteract the otherwise predominantly bitter toppings, and would amplify the presence of the marrow a bit. As it is, this burger is an interesting experiment, but sort of self-defeating. It overshadows its strengths with a unidimensional collection of toppings. Rather than offsetting the toppings, the patty contributes still more to the bitter dimension.

I want to stop for a second. This burger wasn’t transcendent, but it was just about the only thing on the menu that wasn’t. This restaurant is shit-kickingly good. Every single other thing we had was conceived and executed to perfection. You absolutely will not regret going to Black Hogg. Basically, this is an unforgettable restaurant that happens to serve a, well, not-unforgettable burger. But don’t let that deter you. You have to go check this place out, even if you don’t really have to try the burger.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.00 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 9.60 / 10.00
Value: 6.90 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.80 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 9.80 / 10.00
Bun: 9.00 / 10.00
Patty: 8.10 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.40 / 10.00
Sauce: 4.70 / 10.00
Balance: 7.80 / 10.00

Total: 81.10 / 100.00

The Flintridge Proper

~ prachandrasoma ~ 5 Comments

IMG_3237When Courtney texted me today and asked me if I wanted to go to Flintridge Proper to help her put off packing for a bit (she’s moving to Pasadena, the genius), I thought it would just be a good opportunity to hang out with her, grab a drink, and unwind after a long (half) week of studying. Little did I know, it would bring out the most judgmental iterations of both of us. Out of consideration for her (and okay fine, myself), I’ll refrain from relating many of our reactions to the people around us at The Proper. Instead, I’ll limit my discussion to their excellent burger.

About an hour later, Courtney and I were sitting in the lounge area at Flintridge Proper, backs to the window on a long leather bench, looking across at chairs upholstered in some unidentifiable dusty tangerine colored fabric, and in the midst of a pretty interesting group of people.

To our left: the late-thirties couples clinging desperately to the gasping remnants of their social lives. One couple brought their kid, a blonde thing, creepier than he was cute. The men, clad in pre-torn jeans and sporting goatees that haven’t been okay since 1993, spoke far too loudly about nothing in particular. The women gulped sauvignon blanc with the obvious relish of the exhausted La Cañada working mom.

To our right, an Asian-American couple with their two children (whose penchant for straddling one another really creeped Courtney and me out). They were a pair of holy terrors, two boys who had brought half their toy box and all of their insane, high-volume energy. When they weren’t busy breaking glasses and crowing like roosters (I swear to you, none of that is lies), they were running barefoot back and forth on the seat of the booth, while their father straightened his fedora and drained his martini.

Faced with this scene, we ordered some stiff cocktails (who wouldn’t?), settled in for a long couple hours, and split a burger.

The Place
The Flintridge Proper
464 Foothill Boulevard
La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011

The Order: Proper Burger with added bacon and avocado

The Price: $20 (before tax)

The Burger
Given our surroundings, this burger must have been pretty damn good, because I left The Proper wondering when I could come back and eat it again.

Honestly, the burger is kind of a basic bitch, but it’s really emblematic of the modern trend: an upscaled (and yeah, absurdly expensive) iteration of a familiar classic. This is not a hamburger restaurant. It’s a bar that happens to serve a hamburger. And that’s important to bear in mind; this certainly is not a place that advertises itself as a hamburger place (like, say, Cassell’s, despite the fact that the culinary philosophy behind their respective burgers is similar in some ways).

By now, you’re almost certainly wondering what drove me to call a cheeseburger a “basic bitch.” Well, let’s just say this: it’s the perfect burger to eat the week of the Fourth of July. In a lot of ways, it’s a classic American burger: The patty is a monster – half a pound of sizzling beef blanketed with sweet, bubbly housemade American cheese (The Proper makes a lot of things in house: cheese, gin, bitters, ginger beer – it’s quite something, if you’re into that sort of thing, which, well yeah, I totally am). There’s cool shards of shredded lettuce and (utterly outstanding) Thousand Island. Then there’s succulent, curly bacon, crisp and crimson at the center, the edges fried to a peppery black, embedded in slender, silken half-moons of avocado. The bun was a golden brioche, rich but not heavy, sweet but not overpowering.

Give me a second here to gush about that thin, piquant glaze of Thousand Island on the top brioche bun. I’m not at all sure what went into this. It was present without being unobtrusive. Smooth but not runny. Tangy, but with enough creamy bitterness to give it some distinctive personality. Like I said, I don’t know what the hell went into this stuff, but I wanted more of it. As subtle as it was, it was a highlight of this already very excellent burger.

If I’m complaining about something, it’ll be price. This is a $20 burger. I don’t remember the last time I’ve spent that much on a burger. But, if I’m being frank, I honestly don’t much care. While I won’t say that it’s unequivocally worth $20, I can say that I don’t feel all that terrible about spending that money. Maybe the best way to put it is this: I will be back to The Proper for another burger. Hopefully without the side order of noisy toddlers.

The Ratings
Flavor: 9.40 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 9.00 / 10.00
Value: 7.90 / 10.00
Efficiency: 9.10 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 7.50 / 10.00
Bun: 8.90 / 10.00
Patty: 9.20 / 10.00
Toppings: 9.00 / 10.00
Sauce: 9.30 / 10.00
Balance: 9.40 / 10.00

Total: 88.70 / 100.00

Ashland Hill

~ prachandrasoma ~ 2 Comments

IMG_3219Two things will occur to you immediately when you walk into Ashland Hill. First, you likely will think something to the effect of, “How am I going to get a seat at this place?” Seating at Ashland Hill approaches Father’s Official levels of maddening awkwardness. After hovering like a stalker for twenty to thirty minutes around a group of hipster-y, Venice-y surf nerds (who, parenthetically, are engaging in a troubling amount of PDA), you eventually notice another group of people get up, and you bolt over to grab their vacated table like it’s the golden snitch.

The next thing you note is a mural over the far end of the patio. It appears to be Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Next to Humphrey and Lauren is a Raymond Chandler quote: “It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.” Egregious hanging prepositions aside (Shame on you, Ray; and shame on you, Ashland Hill, for memorializing such deviant grammatical practices on your walls), it isn’t immediately (or subsequently) clear whether that’s a tip of the cap to Santa Monica, or an oblique indication that going to Ashland Hill is the brand of bad habit to which Santa Monica is so happily conducive. But I guess that’s neither here nor there.

Otherwise, Bradley Miller’s spot is pretty much what you’d expect. It’s appropriately trendy for a beer garden located in that soft space where Santa Monica starts to melt into Venice. The hostess is sweet but superfluous (she doesn’t seat you; she merely explains the fact that sitting and eating at that restaurant is a logistical clustercuss). The service is competent and unobtrusive. The food comes out fast. The staff are friendly enough that you have a perfectly pleasant experience, but not so friendly as to allow you to forget that they’re way cooler than you. The clientele oozes practiced quirkiness.

Regardless of all that ballyhoo, this much is certain: There are many places in Santa Monica the Project is slated to try. Ashland Hill generated more excitement among the locals than most of them. So on Wolf’s last night in town, he, Alexandra, Rumi, Megan, and I went to see what all the fuss was about.

The Place
Ashland Hill
2807 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405

The Order: Ashland Hill Burger, medium rare (herb and parmesan fries included)

The Price: $17 (before tax)

The Burger
It seems pretty clear that Ashland Hill was looking to do something a bit different here. There are a lot of singular flavors here, and they interact in novel ways. The best way to understand it, I think, will be for me to describe the individual pieces, and then talk about one interaction that stuck with me.

First, there’s the meat. Ashland Hill employs a strange pressing technique. I don’t know what it is, but the patty is texturally and structurally distinct from any other burger I’ve ever had. In the first place, it’s coarse. But more notably (and kind of relatedly, actually), the patty seems to fall apart – not melt, but actually crumble – as you eat it. And that seems intentional.

It’s weird, but it works. You bite into the burger, and the patty kind of fragments in your mouth as you eat. It’s very strange, but it also exposes a larger surface area of meat to your mouth, which can never be a bad thing. The result? You really taste the beef, even through all the other ingredients. The patty is topped with a thick melted slab of what is advertised as sharp white cheddar cheese (but which is, in point of fact, quite mild-mannered indeed), and it sits atop a bed of cool watercress, leafy and distantly peppery.

Next, there is the paprika aioli. It is a bright, burnt orange, adding a nice burst of color. The sunny, dusty, spicy flavor of paprika is very present, even through the eggy base of the sauce. Though it isn’t half bad, the aioli is probably the most confusing part of the burger, if I’m being honest. But more on that in a hot minute.

I suspect Ashland Hill is proudest of the bacon and red onion jam that coats the patty (or they should be). It’s titanic. Chunks of bacon and onion hang suspended in a sweet, vaguely fruity matrix. Internally, this jam plays on the sweet-savory contrast, and serves a similar role within the context of the entire burger (on balance it’s sweet, so in its capacity as a topping, it complements the other savory components). It also adds an interesting textural subtlety to the burger.

Yeah, this is some rococo shit.

By far the most important interaction in the burger is that between the jam and the aioli. While I’m hesitant to call it a flaw, I conclusively can say the decision to include both didn’t make a ton of sense to me. The flavors butted heads, because the paprika couldn’t coexist peacefully with the sweet little ropes of onion or the bricks of bacon. It’s not entirely clear why the aioli needed to be a paprika aioli as opposed to…anything else.

Using multiple sauces – or sauce analogues, like jams or relishes – is a risky proposition. It demands careful balancing and perfect proportioning. While the sauces on this burger seem to have been conceived really carefully, it’s less clear that the decision to put them together was as well thought-out. Ultimately, they get in each others’ way. For my money, I’d ditch the aioli altogether. Luckily, that’s an option; modifications are welcome, and they’ll happily hold the aioli.

That minor balancing gripe aside, this is a good burger. The beef is good and well-assembled. The ingredients are fresh and well prepared. The bun is eggy, rich, and hardy. It holds up well to the substantial slab of meat it’s tasked to contain, and supplies its share of flavor without being too intrusive. The only other complaint, then, is that it’s really expensive. At seventeen bucks, it’ll put a dent in your wallet. That said, it’s a huge meal. I came hungry and ate half of mine (for reference, Wolf came feeling normal and demolished his inside of ten minutes. For further reference, he’s very manly and I am less manly). And it comes with (decent but thoroughly uninspiring) herb and parmesan fries. So it’s expensive, but not utterly unjustifiable.

All told, if you don’t mind braving the seating nightmare, taking the financial hit, and holding the aioli, Ashland Hill has a pretty good, if slightly baroque, burger for you.

The Ratings
Flavor: 9.30 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 9.50 / 10.00
Value: 5.50 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.80 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 9.00 / 10.00
Bun: 8.90 / 10.00
Patty: 9.00 / 10.00
Toppings: 8.40 / 10.00
Sauce: 8.80 / 10.00
Balance: 6.70 / 10.00

Total: 83.60 / 100.00

The Independence

~ prachandrasoma ~ 2 Comments

IMG_3209There are a few major gripes people have with Santa Monica. First, parking is hell. Second, it’s not really close or on the way to anything (except, like, Malibu). And third, when you go out, you kind of find yourself running into the same kind of person over and over again. Like, I get it. You went to [insert Pac-12 school here], and were in [insert Greek organization here]. Yeah, no, I’m sure it was an awesome experience. And yeah, that’s a sweet button down. It definitely looks better on you than it did on the last three guys I saw it on. In this bar. Sure, I’ll wait here while you go talk to that girl. Yeah, no, I’m sure you “crush all kinds of ass.”

Okay. Maybe I’m getting a little bitchy. But prides of snowflake-unique bros and lady-bros aside, no one should be heard to say Santa Monica’s food scene isn’t absolutely killer (and also in the process of exploding), because it totally, totally is. Even if burgers aren’t your thing, you can go have some southern-kissed French food at Kris Tominaga’s up-and-comer Cadet (get the rabbit and thank me later). Go to aestus and learn why all the patrons at the Royce miss Alex Ageneau. Or go to what is now an old standard, Rustic Canyon, and be assured that yeah, Jeremy Fox still has it. Or just go to Sidecar Donuts (soon, my little ones…soon) and reflect – with warming self-satisfaction – that everyone waiting in line at Dunkin’ Donuts is as idiotic as they seem. And then eat some fried dough and forget what you were thinking about.

That brings me to The Independence. It’s a trendy new spot in Santa Monica. Located at the corner of Broadway and Second (right where the incalculably sacrilegiously monikered Buddha’s Belly used to be – good riddance), it’s a sprawling, modern restaurant-bar with all the touches one would expect of a spot this hip – one wall is plastered with violently colorful murals, and another consists entirely of windows. It’s bright and fresh, and just trendy enough to make you feel cool but not out of place. Vibe aside, it’s got plenty of culinary cred; Tom Block manages the menu (you might recognize the name; he was the creative nucleus over at BLT Steak too).

As new on the block as The Independence is, the burger has already generated considerable buzz. So obviously, I was drawn there like a carnivorous moth to a delicious, umami flame. Tessa, Alexandra, and Julia made me look really good while I ate it. Which reminds me: if this review seems a little less detailed than usual, it’s because I was really busy being mortified at the terrifying, occasionally scatalogical text messages Julia and Tessa sent from my phone. Don’t ask. It’s personal.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah, the burger.

The Place
The Independence
205 Broadway
Santa Monica, CA 90401

The Order: Angus Burger, medium rare

The Price: $16 (before tax)

The Burger
At the risk of being way, way, way too meta, the burger here kind of reminds me of the guys in Santa Monica that I was bitching about earlier. It was an imitation of something else. At its core, it lacked identity. For a restaurant called The Independence, I was stunned by how much this burger seemed to be trying to emulate one of its Santa Monica counterparts (rivals?). Of course, that’s not an indictment in and of itself. Imitation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I love it, for instance, when H&M imitates my favorite designers for a fraction of the cost. Or when LL Cool J imitates a naval criminal investigator. Or when Demi Lovato imitates a musician. Okay, so I actually only like one of those things.

Sorry. Got a little sidetracked there. I was talking about the imitation game that The Independence play with their burger. It’s not a photocopy, by any stretch, but the inspiration of Father’s Office is clearly present in this burger.

Background for the unschooled: Father’s Office is the most famous burger in Santa Monica (and Culver City, for that matter). The citizens of that fine town will cite that burger as one of the crowning virtues of their city. Father’s Office, they will assure you, is the best burger in Los Angeles. Who cares that it’s cramped? Who cares that there is no actual wait staff? Who cares that you have to hover around people’s tables like hyenas waiting to steal fresh kills? Not Santa Monicans (Santa Monica-ites? Santa Monicansans?). They will stand by that little shop on Montana so fervently that they won’t even go to the one in Culver City (which, parenthetically, is way bigger and way less frustrating and way easier to navigate and also identical from a quality standpoint).

Suffice it to say, it’s hard to blame them. But this isn’t a review of Father’s Office. The point is, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the new kid on the block (which is funny, because Tom Block…get it?…never mind) is trying to get a foothold by way of imitation. Like I said before, this is no culinary Xerox; there are enough differences between this burger and the one at Father’s Office that no one could accuse The Independence of straight-up pilfering someone else’s idea. But the inspiration is clear. It’s kind of like when bands put stickers on the cover of their record saying, “If you love [insert impossibly popular band here], you’ll love this!” They wrote their own songs, sure, but they stepped into the stylistic shoes of another artist. This burger clearly was designed in the tall shadow of the Office Burger.

Okay, I think I’ve established where I think they were coming from in conceiving this burger, so let’s talk about the burger itself now. There is complex, nutty gruyere delicquesced atop (not within) the harshly charred Angus patty. A coppice of bitter arugula sits in a thick bed beneath the beef, concealing a den of slithering French onions. The bottom onion bun is coated with what they call an herb aioli (but which, really, is pretty much just mayonnaise).

The flavor profile of this burger is odd. It hits hard with bitterness on the front end. The sharp cut of the arugula dominates early, and bleeds into the harsh grill-char of the patty. That bitterness gives way not to the soothing nuttiness of the gruyere, but rather to the sharp, soupy onions. Whatever complexity (not very much) is in the aioli is lost behind that dominantly bitter front-end. The cheese and interior of the patty save the finish; earthy gruyere melting into the tender, juicy Angus. The burger leaves the palate much more gracefully than it enters. The finish was good enough to make me forget that harsh introduction and keep on eating.

Holding everything together was that onion bun, which was an interesting choice given the flavors at work in the burger itself. While I’m all for using non-traditional buns, I don’t know if I back this choice. I think a chalky ciabatta would have neutralized things well. A brioche would have been even better, offering a complementary buttery sweetness that was conspicuously absent from this burger’s flavor profile. The onion bun, though moist, was kind of redundant from a gustatory standpoint. It was a dim echo of the bold French onions that were so present. In one sense, you could make the case that it was consistent with the rest of what was happening in the burger. I don’t really see that as a virtue, though. It didn’t add anything, even though it really could have.

This burger skewed too far toward the brash, bitter end of things. It lacked balance. It’s a rare example of a situation in which the execution actually was superior to the conception. The idea was brought to fruition pretty much perfectly…it just wasn’t a very good idea. It did too much of the same thing – here’s something bitter, then here’s another thing that’s bitter, and then here’s something that’s sharp but not acidic enough to complement the bitterness. Then cheese.

To the extent that The Independence is seeking to emulate Father’s Office, they aren’t doing a bang-up job. They’re incorporating some of the same stuff (gruyere, arugula, beef), but they don’t seem to realize that those are dangerous tools to work with (okay, maybe not the beef), tools that require judicious balancing and careful maintenance. The Office Burger isn’t good because of the ingredients; it’s good because the ingredients are well-harmonized and purposefully proportioned. That wasn’t the case with this burger. This burger felt like someone ate Father’s Office and said, “Yes, that’s good and seems easy; I too will use those ingredients and make money.” Sadly, it’s not easy. The Independence would have been well-served to live up to their name a little bit more. They’re losing the imitation game.

The Ratings
Flavor: 7.90 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 8.70 / 10.00
Value: 5.80 / 10.00
Efficiency: 9.00 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 7.10 / 10.00
Bun: 7.30 / 10.00
Patty: 8.00 / 10.00
Toppings: 7.70 / 10.00
Sauce: 7.40 / 10.00
Balance: 7.60 / 10.00

Total: 76.50 / 100.00

The Oinkster

~ prachandrasoma ~ 2 Comments

IMG_3201This one will be near and dear to some of you. The Oinkster has a special place in the hearts of many here in the City of Angels. But that has almost nothing to do with the burger they serve. Most people love the Eagle Rock powerhouse for its house-cured pastrami (which, I admit, drool), or its unbelievably slowly slow roasted pulled pork, or its singular milkshakes (I’m still unsure what ube is*, but it’s weirdly compelling) which feature local favorite Fosselman’s ice cream – by the way, if you haven’t had Fosselman’s ice cream and you live in Los Angeles, you’re nothing short of a monster…a silly, silly monster.

For still others, the love is more undifferentiated; they just kind of vibe with Andre Guerrero’s “slow fast food” gestalt. They like that he’s a legit culinary force who knows how to slum it with style. And who can blame them? The Michelin-recognized mind behind Max and Señor Fred is famously restless, but has the versatility to carry it off. His every swing of the bat, it seems, is a home run.

Suffice it to say, there’s a lot to love about the Oinkster. So much so, that the burger kind of gets lost in the shuffle. And so, in spite of supposedly having one of the best burgers in the city, relatively few people have actually had it. It’s like, the best burger no one has ever had. Kind of poetic. But anyway. I was at a loose end this weekend, so I made the drive to Eagle Rock and got the burger. After all, if the venerable LAist says it’s one of L.A.’s best, you can consider me on notice.

*I know. Ube is purple yam. I have Wikipedia too. God, it’s called dramatic license, guys.

The Place
The Oinkster
2005 Colorado Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90041

The Order: Classic 1/3-pound burger (with Gruyere cheese), Belgian fries, Coke.

The Price: $6.50 (burger); $3.25 (fries); $2.00 (Coke) – pre-tax.

The Burger
Let’s start with basic anatomy. The burger comes on an idiosyncratically flimsy white bread bun (which proves problematic – stay tuned). The patty is stellar: six ounces of fresh-ground, tightly packed Nebraska Angus beef, and it’s topped with house-made Thousand Island, pickles, raw white onions, lettuce, and two hefty slices of tomato. The cheese options are American or Cheddar (for an additional $0.75) or Gruyere (for an extra $1.50).

The patty is a juicy, beautiful medium rare. As juicy and flavorful as it is though, it holds together impressively. This probably is due to the fact that a) it’s really well-pressed, and b) it’s really well-grilled. The outside is a crispy, just-charred-enough umami crust that contains the pink, gently cooked beef on the inside. Leaving some pink in the patty allows the flavor of the beef to really shine through. It’s six ounces of really strong stuff, and is a worthy focal point of this – or any – burger. The earthy, nutty Gruyere complemented the beef beautifully. It was $1.50 well spent.

The Thousand Island is another high point. It’s a tangy little number, clearly made with In-N-Out’s famous and enigmatic spread in mind. To be sure, many have tried to reverse engineer that spread (myself included), and precious few have succeeded (myself decidedly not included). Oinkster’s attempt is as admirable as any I’ve yet had. Having said that, it’s thinner and runnier than In-N-Out’s spread. This makes the burger quite a bit messier; by the time I got halfway through, the sauce had completely soaked through the bun.

From there, things deteriorated (literally and figuratively). The toppings were good, if not great. They weren’t some sad, undifferentiated, flavorless mass, but they also didn’t stand boldly on their own. The whole was more than the sum of its parts – except I mean that pejoratively. The garnishes were awkwardly codependent; the sharpness of the onions yielded timidly to the sourness of the pickles, which itself leaned, exhausted, on the watery crunch of the lettuce. So while all the toppings were all present enough to get noticed, none was particularly flavorful in its own right. They gave little flashes of flavor that faded out faster than Gotye did from mainstream recognition (which was real sad by the way; he’s a talented cat).

The even bigger problem here was that the burger wasn’t very well built. By the time I had  run out of patty, the tomatoes were herniating out of the back of the bun like a couple of slipped discs. The pickles had long since gone to plate. The lettuce and onions were hanging on for dear life. The bottom bun had been completely corroded away by an acid wash of Thousand Island. The burger wasn’t just messy, it was structurally unsound. Near the end, if I had put a brown robe on the burger, it would have looked like when Obi-Wan Kenobi…well, you know.

This burger tasted good. The beef was delicious. The sauce was good but inconvenient. But it was a colossal pain in the ass to eat. The toppings were not so great. As a result, the burger itself was imbalanced. I don’t know. It was kind of like watching Scent of a Woman: unbelievably good leading man, but with just a weak sauce supporting cast (Chris O’Donnell, if you’re reading this, the answer is yes…I did just compare you to flaccid lettuce…sorry). It was – in more ways than one – sloppy. While certainly nothing to scoff at, when I go back to the Oinkster, it’ll be for the pastrami.

The Ratings
Flavor: 8.60 / 10.00
Freshness/Quality: 7.60 / 10.00
Value: 8.60 / 10.00
Efficiency: 8.70 / 10.00
Creativity/Style: 6.20 / 10.00
Bun: 4.00 / 10.00
Patty: 9.20 / 10.00
Toppings: 7.10 / 10.00
Sauce: 7.90 / 10.00
Balance: 8.30 / 10.00

Total: 76.20 / 100.00