San Francisco Burger Blog

Of All The Burger Joints In All The World

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:45:00 -0500

Night was just beginning to settle over the horizon and the last hint of light was draining from the windows through the blinds of the tepid, dirty little office that Drew called home, and had for as long as his whiskey-soaked brain could remember. But now that daylight was finally waving goodbye it was time for him to rise from the dirty third-hand couch he’d been sleeping on and at least make an effort to pretend he was a worthwhile citizen of this fair city.

His hand reached for the nearest bottle of Missing Papa whiskey. Without even looking he could tell he hadn’t left much inside before falling onto the sofa, drunk and exhausted. He brought the bottle to his lips and plugged what little was left into his mouth and felt it burn as it slid down his throat. He coughed hard from the effort and tossed the now-empty bottle into the trash.

“Good morning,” he gurgled to himself as he watched the last sliver of sun give way to nightfall.

Drew tucked his shirt back into his pants, although neither item was clean it made him feel like less of a train-riding hobo. He rubbed his eyes and surveyed the room as he found his way behind the old oak desk, the one that used to stay empty from papers and cigarette butts but now looked like it hadn’t been used in months. He picked up a stack of papers, thinking maybe he’d missed something the last time he bothered.

“Bill, bill, bill,” Drew muttered as he flipped through the notices, many marked with warnings of impending danger if they remained unpaid. “All bills. Not a damn job in the bunch.”

Drew had been a Burger Blogger, and one of the best. When he and his gang roamed the streets they were unstoppable, hitting burger joint after burger joint and getting noticed in all the papers. But those days seemed to be years ago, now. They hadn’t seen each other in ages and Drew’s prospects were getting slim.

He slid into the chair at the desk and tossed the papers back onto the mess in front of him. Regardless of what they threatened, he couldn’t pay them if he wanted to. He needed some Burger Blogging to come his way, and fast, or his goose was cooked.

His red eyes found their way to a picture at the edge of the dusty mess of a desk. He picked up the frame and studied the image. It was the old crew. George, the man-about-town, and James, the weirdo. They were all there, even Marci, who had left the team to go jumpstart her lounge-singing career up in Canada. They hadn’t all been together in years, and Drew contemplated the thought that they might never again.

Just then, a knock came at the door. Drew hastily placed the picture back on the desk, patted down his disheveled hair and tried to look like he hadn’t spent about six months on the verge of bathing in cheap bourbon.

“Come in,” he said loudly towards the door.

In walked a woman he’d never seen before in the Burger Blog world. She was clearly not from around here. She walked straight over to the desk, pushed aside some dirty clothes that were in the chair in front of the oak desk and sat down.

“I have a job for you,” she said. “My name is Lola. And you’ll need your whole crew back together for this one.”

Holy crap! Can it be? Is it real? You betcha, burgerteers! We’re back, and I mean all of us! After a long-ass absence your favorite burger crew in the entire burgerverse has returned with a vengeance, complete with ALL the members and a few special guests! Well, Domingo isn’t with us, but Domingo was never all that popular with anybody but a few old chickenhawks who enjoy a handsome Latino ladyboy. We’ll miss him, but those Go-Go shorts aren’t going to wear themselves.

But otherwise, the gang is indeed all here! James, Marci, Joe, George, Chris, Leila, Erica and Drew…

And, because it just wouldn’t be right to wait this long between posts without something special, we have some guests joining us for the review as well. As longtime readers - or at least longtime Burger Blog fans who don’t just skim the pictures - know, your humble Burger narrator hails from the wilds of Michigan, where a man can be a man and a tractor is a viable form of transportation. Well, most of our family still resides there, and on this particular occasion we got a visit from my one and only sister, Lola.

Lola had two requests before coming to San Francisco - first, she wanted to smoke some of this so-called “opium” in one of those “dens” she’d been hearing so much about. Lola was reading some pretty outdated promotional materials before she came.

But she also wanted to join the esteemed Burger Crew for a trip out to review some San Francisco burger action. Seeing as how we hadn’t done a review in ages, it seemed like it was time. I climbed to the top of City Hall to turn on the Burger Signal to get the crew in action. Then, after being released from jail for climbing to the top of city hall and drunkenly shouting something about a Burger Signal, I used Gmail to schedule the trip.

We were also lucky enough to be joined for the journey by our esteemed friend Will, who keeps us laughing with his sexy limericks and, oddly enough, hardcore racial vulgarity. Who’da thunk it? We’d been trying to get Will to join us for a burger run for years, but his parole officer finally gave the okay and here he is!

So, where would we go? What place could possibly stand to get reviewed by San Francisco’s most volatile, intense Burger Crew after so long an absence? Would it live up to the hype? Can we, after such a long absence? Of course we can. Let’s do this.

Custom Burger is a stylish little shop located in San Francisco’s SoMa district, which means South of Market, aka where the warehouses used to be and where the new rich people are building condos. Just a short hop from Union Square or the crack-tastic goodness of the Tenderloin, Custom Burger offers a menu with several options for beef - including Kobe - and promises lots of options to customize (cough cough) your burger, anyway you want it. Like Burger King, but without old people arguing in the booth next to you.

The menu is so extensive, in fact, they offer handy little sheets for you to mark up with your order preferences as you line up to make your selection. It is, after all, very difficult to remember what type of beef, cheese, toppings and bun you prefer if you’ve spent the day taking pulls from a half-gallon of Thunderbird at work. Not mentioning any James - excuse me, names - but you know how it is.

The menu is still on the complicated side, however. You’re picking between meats, toppings and even sauces.

If anybody in the world knows what Hoisin Glaze is, please let us know. The somewhat gruff staff at Custom Burger grunted an explanation at us but it was of little help, and upon trying to search for it online all I get are YouTube clips of Jerry Lewis screaming at women while wearing funny glasses.

Custom Burger also goes by our favorite ordering system of ordering and paying at the counter. This is very handy when you plan on stiffing your server, or if your server acts like you just insulted their mother when you ask for more water and deserves the old two-bits-and-pocket-lint routine. But the menu was so intense it took most of us quite a bit of study to pick out what we wanted. Even with the worksheet it took most of us 5-10 minutes to make our final selections.

Finally, we all completed both the math and verbal sections of Custom’s odyssey to make our final orders, hunkered down and awaited the results. Would we be blessed, or would we be damned?

In our typical Going For The Gusto/Diabetes fashion, we all ordered up quite a few of Custom’s sides, which started coming out pretty quickly. George made sure to get some onion rings, because it’s not a meal without onion rings!

The regular fries are also nothing to shake an insulin stick at, either. Custom serves up their sides in cute little mini-fry-o-later tubs, just to remind you that a few moments ago they were taking nature’s pure, wholesome goodness and dipping it in boiling fat before loading it with salt and carrying it to you. Take that, wholesome nature!

It should also be noted that while Custom offers the standard bevy of sodas and a few milkshakes, they don’t sell beer. However, nobody said anything when George ran to the nearest Check Cashing/Boozeporium location and grabbed a few tall boys in paper bags. The lesson here is, if a lot of you are wearing shirts and ties, you can get away with almost everything, including drinking in an establishment before Noon while almost everybody else is eating breakfast. Take note, kids. It comes in handy.

So, after enjoying a few fries, onion rings and pulls from booze bottles in paper bags the real reason for our trip began to emerge. Get ready to put on the red lights, Roxanne. It’s burger time!

Ahh, good old reliable George. “Keep them fancy sauces and new-fangled cheeses away from me!” shouts George as he waves his fist in the air. George went with Custom’s standard 1/3 lb. Angus option, cooked medium rare with his Straight Outta Maybury veggie combo of lettuce, tomato and onion. George also made sure to let them know to keep mayonnaise far away from his burger at all costs. You tossed that frisbee in my yard and now it’s mine, you rotten kids!

Erica also got the 1/3 lb. Angus burger, topped with Pineapple and Cheddar. Custom throws in a pickle spear with every burger, and you get to choose from five different kinds of bun, including Potato Pepper, Brioche and multigrain, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Lola got the 1/3 lb. Angus burger with some Arugula, tomato and Red Pepper Feta Tapenade. Actually, I could be totally wrong on that, because my notes for her burger look like I had a stroke in the middle of a car crash, but I am also a genius who can look at things and guess relatively accurately.

I was among the members to opt for the 1/2 lb. Kobe beef patty, topped off with pepperjack cheese, black olive tapenade, sauteed onion and “secret sauce.” I also ordered the Potato Pepper bun but got the Sesame Seed, and while complaining about something like that would make most people feel like they were the person at the coffee shop complaining about the barista only getting their espresso up to 130 degrees instead of the standard 143, it began to point to a trend of some lackluster effort behind the counter.

James, also nicknamed Ironguts Von Greasenhammer, got the 1/2 lb. Kobe patty, topped with Pepperjack, jalapenos and chipotle mayo. James once again wins the prize for Gutsiest Order Ever Prior To Having To Drive For An Hour. For a guy who looks like the goody-goody member of the Statler Brothers he likes to live on the wild side.

Leila got the 1/3 lb. Angus with cheddar, arugula, black olive tapenade and a side of pesto mayonnaise. If you get one of their special mayo items they come in a handy little cup that attaches adorably to your burger tray. It also makes it dangerously tempting to dip your fries/onion rings/mozzarella sticks/fingers into it.

Joe ordered up a 1/2 lb. Kobe burger with jalapenos, tomato, raw onion and Custom’s special Ketchapeno sauce, which also sounds like a game my Filipino in-laws play at the nearby casino. First one to Ketchapino pays for the first round of coffee at karaoke!

And last, but most troublingly, is Chris’ burger. I don’t say it was troubling because it was a 1/2 lb. Kobe. We love our 1/2 lb. Kobe burgers. And I don’t shy away because it also had bacon, swiss cheese and roasted garlic aioli, all of which just transform an awesome burger into HELLA AWESOME. This burger was troubling because despite Chris having specifically asked for it to be cooked medium rare, it came out somewhere between medium well and shoe leather. In fact, for the first time - the very, very first time - in Burger Blog history, a burger was sent back to be remade. Not a good sign for Custom Burger. Would they recover? Could it be true? We all dug in to see what the final outcome could be.

Let the judgement begin!

Why I Oughta, You Dirty Rat: Meat Quality

Custom Burger gets their meat fresh daily from the Golden Gate Meat Company, which is a fine reputable source who not only grind up solid burger, but also make some great sausages and other products. Plus, most places who take the time to keep Kobe on hand are trying to make sure a hardcore burger fan can really enjoy the experience.

However, on our trip the Kobe was the wrong way to go. In fact, just about everybody who got the 1/2 lb. Kobe commented that it was overcooked and pretty flavorless, especially in comparison to the other toppings involved. Custom Burger has the policy of cooking everything to Medium Well unless otherwise specified, but even those of us who ordered it Medium Rare got a nice hard light-black disc of meat instead of the gooey, slightly pink orb of goodness we were planning on.

On the other hand, the people who went with the 1/3 lb. Angus patty were pretty happy with their preparation results and had them cooked to the level they’d asked for. If you find yourself in Custom and are wondering whether to spring for the Kobe, in our experience you’re better off with the Angus. It came out prepared properly and doesn’t have the added frustration of springing for extra bucks for a cow that was allowed to have feelings.

But come on; if you’re going to bother to have Kobe on the menu don’t overcook it. Even after they “fixed” Chris’ order it was still nothing resembling a quality burger. That cow probably knew how to speak several languages; we can at least show some respect before we eat it and turn it into poop.

I‘m Gonna Plug Ya: Final Meat Score - 3 Hot Dames out of 10

You’ll Never Catch Me, Copper - Sides Score

The rumor is that Custom Burger actually makes their own sides, although the crew we were dealing with seemed to be hungover, had just found out they were all being audited, lost a bet and realized they were out of underwear all on the same day, because any and all questions were met with some lovely one-syllable “yes” or “no”-esque grunts, so I can’t be sure.

However, in this case we were all lucky enough that you have to try pretty hard to ruin making french fries and onion rings, and they all came out pretty tasty.

For those of us who’d swung for the fences with the Kobe, the sides were the only saving grace. Custom also serves up some pretty solid sweet potato fries and mozzarella sticks, even though by the time they came out we’d all tried our burgers and some of us were worried they could mess up frying cheese. Lucky for us, it apparently can’t be done. They were delicious.

Swim With The Carbs: Final Sides Score - 8 Cement Shoes out of 10

You’re Gonna Pay Fer This: What Happens After Score

So, you settle in at Custom, order yourself a Kobe and then find yourself hunkering down to meal of crushed hopes and dreams and the most expensive 1/2 lb. of sadness you’ve ever eaten. How do you feel afterwards?

Well, thanks to the quality of the product from the Golden Gate Meat Company, you feel pretty good! In fact, yours truly finished mine off and then was able to go for a long walk and a trek across the Golden Gate with my sister. And yes, almost all of us finished the burger. Unfortunately, they all required far more sauce/mayo/ketchup/mustard than most of us prefer to put on them in order to lube the charred meat down our throats, but we did it. Somewhat out of spite. Some of us, because we’re fat greedy bastards. But also because none of us wanted to know what the things would taste like after a day in the fridge.

So, the good news is, other than possibly choking on your rage from having a Kobe burger ruined you’ll be sitting pretty! Engage in water polo, go for a run, do naked leg-lifts - no matter what, you’re in good shape for that active lifestyle of yours. You will also be fine to fall asleep with Netflix streaming on your iPad without a problem.

You Ain’t Heard The Last Of Me: Final Aftermath Score: 8 out of 10

So, should you go to Custom Burger and get yourself one of their specialty burgers? According to a fair amount of internet folks over on Yelp, quite a few say the preparation is typically very good and exactly to order, the staff is friendly and helpful and it’s a positive experience. When we were there, this was not the case. They were as efficient and professional as one would hope, but the ridiculous amount of overcooking on the Kobe burgers is not reassuring. Our teammates who got the 1/3 lb. Angus were all pretty happy, although nobody said it was among their favorite burgers of all time.

The general consensus is that even the best of Custom’s efforts were workmanlike and not overly exceptional. Price-wise it’s on the more expensive side, making it a little bit hard to recommend, especially considering one of our favorites is right around the corner at Pearl’s Deluxe.

For most of us the best part of the whole trip was getting the band back together for the first time in about nine months, and Custom was a bright, comfortable spot to hang out again as a group. If I was determined to get a good burger I would probably just stick to the nearby Pearl’s, but I would also be interested in trying Custom again when they’ve got their A-team behind the grill. But in the meantime, we’ve gotta give Custom a SKIP IT.

And with that, once again we must bid you adieu, burger fans. It will be less time before the next review, as Leila and I made a sojourn with another team not long ago and I’ll be posting up that review in a few weeks. But in the meantime, we’ll be planning our next trip before too much longer and to tide you over, here’s a picture of George using an iPhone. Seriously, this never happens. Thanks for reading!

Slake Your Hunger - Burger Winter Is Over

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:39:40 -0400

Kraygor stepped to the peak of the ridge and inhaled deeply of the crisp, bitter air. His cape of lionskin was pulled tight across his broad shoulders but the cold air still cut through him like the blade of a southland warrior freshly scraped with a wetstone.

The winter had been cruel to Kraygor and his band of marauders, and they were not accustomed to being the targets of cruelty; they made their way through the kingdom by pillaging and taking what they wanted. But against the power of the Snow Gods even their strength meant nothing. It had been weeks since they overtook the tribe of wandering whore-wenches and quaffed deeply of their stores of salted meats and took their pleasures with their seasoned flesh, and now their stomachs croaked the need for sustenance after sustaining themselves only on the leaves and berries of the trail.

Kraygor turned to his tribe as their boots crunched to a stop in the snow; each hulking warrior’s breath erupted into the air as their lungs heaved against the effort of traversing the conditions.

“Kraygor,” grumbled Galvgar, a brash and ambitious warrior who had made his intentions to someday overtake Kraygor’s dominance known. “We hunger! Our bellies cry out for yak or swine!”

“Indeed,” responded Kraygor as he turned again to the East, thinking that if his riding panther were still alive, he would gut Galvgar and turn him into a feeding trough for the beast. But he was right; the tribe needed to feast or he would face their wrath. His mind turned, contemplating the direction to lead the men. The wrong way could mean death through winter if not by the swords of his vengeful band first.

Just then in the distance, through a bank of dark forest it appeared: a pillar of smoke emerged, clearly from one of the stone chimneys of the Tree-Savages. They were known to stock great stores of provisions: cured meats and fish, urns of dried grains and jug upon jug of sweet greenberry wines. And their daughters were known to be thick of frame and eager of flesh.

”THERE,” pointed Kraygor, extending his sinewy blade-arm in the direction of the smokestack. “Tonight we take our fill of that den’s offerings, whether its owner wishes it or not!”

The tribe raised their blades and whooped their rape-howls, a sound so terrifying it had been known to frighten even the most grizzled of the terrifying grey mountain bears. Kraygor allowed himself a short smile as he imagined the pleasures the night would bring, as his belly would be filled with meat and a horn of intoxicating broth. The winter was finally ending.

Hi, everybody! I know, your favorite burgeteers done went and left you all alone for a long, long time…but we can explain, baby. First, we were actually doing some chatting with a TV production company about possibly being involved in a cable TV show about burgers around America. Well, that fell through. Then, yours truly went and got himself a new job, and nothing hurts your ability to hunker down at the keyboard to write about burgers like a long day of performing brain surgery in between orating 21st century economic theory at Harvard. I just have too much to give, I guess.

But, here we are, like the dad who said he was going out for cigarettes and then didn’t come back, until it was your birthday and he knew you’d have some envelopes with sweet $5 bills in Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and he needed a loan to start his hot wings-on-wheels business in the back of his ‘91 Impala. But unlike your deadbeat dad, all we want to do is tell you about our most recent burger trip, and maybe sell a few of your videogames so we can pay our electric bill. Then we can go throw the baseball, kid, I promise.

For this installment of everybody’s favorite occasional burger review, we left behind the scenic parts of San Francisco and made our way not just to the Richmond but the Outer Richmond, home to an endless succession of liquor stores, hardware outlets with tools that were new when Gary Coleman could get women and apartment buildings filled with people either building up the courage to get on or trying to drink away the rage caused by frequent rides on the 38 Geary bus.

On this scenic stretch of roadway sits Belly Burger, a small and nondescript joint that still advertises organic Niman Ranch beef for those with a refined palette who would rather not chug down the gristle on a bun available at the nearby Mel’s American Cafe while watching German tourists suck down a tuna melt.

Belly is a cozy little spot with seating inside or in an area out the back. They go for the lunch-style ordering system - line up, make your choice and pay and then they’ll call you when your tray of goodies is ready for the taking. This works out great for when you have a large group of people, or for when you go on a date but have no intention of paying for the other person’s food. You ain’t gettin’ all this AND a free meal!

The menu (which George was pretty excited about) has a moderate selection of burger options and then they have a salad bar-esque boutique of vegetables and sauces for you to choose from to personalize your burger yourself. If you’re not in the mood for a burger, Belly also has a slew of sandwiches, chicken and seafood, as well as, bleh, salads. Although I do give Belly credit - their only salads are a house salad, or a grilled chicken salad - and you can top those salads with chili and a fried egg for a moderate charge. It’s good to see salad get some egg on its face, although those salad options are kind of like the 300-pound woman who goes to Subway because she thinks it’s healthy, then gets a meatball sub and two bags of barbecue chips.

So we all made our choices, hunkered down at a table and then got to chatting about what was happening on Real Housewives that week. That one girl, who did that thing and then said the stuff to whats-her-face? What a bitch, right? Oh, hey, burgers are ready!

George went with his De Rigeur (that’s French for the same old thing) and got a regular burger cooked medium rare with a side of fries. Belly’s patties are all a 6-ounce slab of their premium angus, and it comes out with that nice grill char to it. It’s almost as pretty as George but let’s not get too crazy.

Erica got a bacon cheeseburger with swiss and some regular fries, then topped off the burger with a slice of pineapple, in accordance with her love of Don Ho and his sultry vocal stylings. In addition to the pineapple you can also slather your burger in the typical onion and pickles, or go for chickpeas, jalapenos and mushrooms if you’re a geek.

Domingo decided to follow George’s lead and grow a manly lumberjack beard and learn to tickle the ivories, but before that comes in he went with a regular burger and fries. Hey, it’s worked for George for the last fifteen decades.

Chris decided to take his burger on an Eastern pleasure tour and went with the Teriyaki burger, which simply means Belly offers up the burger with a healthy helping of Teriyaki sauce on top. Chris ran it through the veggies, including some mayo and ketchup for safety.

Leila gandered at the menu and decided to go Trial By Fire and ordered Belly’s Chili Cheeseburger - WITH onion rings. So let it be written, so let it be done!

Not to be outdone by my wife - and because clearly our day was done after this - yours truly ordered Belly’s Double Cheeseburger, totaling 12 ounces of beef for a tummy celebration that is already planning on an afterparty in the colon. I also got the curly fries to go with it, just for something cute and adorable.

And thus, we were on our Belly journey. Would it be satisfactory? Would our tastebuds dance in an orgy of flavor delights? Or would we be disappointed that we had eaten garbage AND found ourselves in the Outer Richmond? Read onward, true burger believers. THE NUMBERS!

This Burger Be Crazy: Meat Quality

Belly advertises its beef as Premium Certified Angus Beef and All Natural, but we didn’t quite notice that zing-zang-oh-my-goodness-stop-the-presses flavor. It’s entirely possible that we’re spoiled Bay Area brats who have spent too much time enjoying the pleasures of the Niman flesh, but the entire crew found Belly’s burgers to be solid and adequate, but not something that anybody would go nuts for.

On the plus side, we did all like the bar of topping options. Ahh, screw it - I’m from the Midwest, I’m calling it a Toppings Bar. Who wants to drink a glass of whole milk and judge those goshdarn Lutherans and the way they dance at weddings?

Anyway, the toppings bar was a nice touch that allows you to customize your burger in a myriad of ways. Belly doesn’t have much in the way of their own specialized burgers, but their model seems to be to allow you to make it your own. And indeed we did, from Erica’s pineapple ‘splosion to George’s Lettuce, Tomato, Pickles and I Like Ike burger.

While none of us were loving our burger enough to run out into the street and shoot pistols in the air, the combination of decent quality meat, a healthy portion and moderate price meant that nobody was disappointed either. Belly isn’t breaking any new burger ground here, but they’re also not farting in the face of burger history.

Burgers Be Shoppin’: Final Meat Score - 6 out of 10

Regular Sides Do This: Fries and More Score

Do you love fresh-cut fries, special seasoning recipes or a shop that uses the owner’s grandmother’s recipe for a batter to make their onion rings? Us too! If you’re really in the mood for any of those things, don’t go to Belly, because the only grandmother involved is the one who got suckered by the TV preacher, lost all her money and had to get a job hauling bags of frozen food down at the processing plant.

That’s not to say that the fries and onion rings aren’t sufficient - they’re better than the ones you’d get served at a Jack in the Box from a dead-eyed 24-year-old who can’t stop thinking about how he’s going to manage to pay for daycare for two kids AND get those new limited edition sneakers he wants. But they’re also not going to leave much of an impression, either - like the John Mayer of side dishes. You’ll only remember it if they do something really douchey.

The standouts of the sides were probably the chili, which has a nice flavor to it despite being served in a clear plastic bowl like you’re a prisoner at San Quentin, and the garlic fries, which managed to be garlic-y without tasting as though they’re designed to kill Dracula from across the room.

The chicken wings, however - blech. It was as if a crew of suicidal chickens decided to get vengeance on a world they hated and committed seppeku by jumping into a Chicken Wing machine designed to make the gristliest, cruddiest hunks of leathery meat-wands possible. Even coating these things in ranch dressing and barbecue wouldn’t hide the fact that they taste like they were cooked by an alcoholic clown.

Black Sides Do This: Final Fries and More Score: 5 out of 10

Burgers, I love Ya But Y’all Be Crazy: What Happens After Score

A six-ounce patty is a moderate size, and if you eat the whole thing and try to hit a yoga class, you could become the horn section of the namaste band if the meat isn’t decent. Or if you get the chili or garlic fries. Or a milkshake. Actually, why would you eat a burger and then go to a yoga class, unless you’re a jerk who intends to spend your afternoons farting in stranger’s faces? Go do downward-facing dog somewhere else, smart guy.

But you get my point. For most of the crew, the Belly burger wasn’t a gut-bomb and their days were not impeded for activities by their meal. For yours truly, who ate 12 ounces of meat, the regret sank in almost immediately, especially once I climbed onto the 38 Geary back towards downtown and felt the meat sweats overtake me. If you don’t know who the sweaty, scary person on the bus is, it’s probably you. But I was able to get a seat to myself for once!

Eating one of their standard six ouncers won’t do much damage if you’re a regular to the Beef Dance, but if you’re planning on any real activity I’d avoid the double. Even now it haunts my dreams, like a Vietnam Veteran who ate a big meal and was uncomfortable instead of spending years in a savage jungle in a war he didn’t understand.

Make Some Noise, Burgers: Final Aftermath Score - 8 out of 10

So, should you venture to the boonies of the city for a Belly Burger? One of us called it a “Workingman’s Burger,” just to make sure we made our quota of Grateful Dead references in a San Francisco-based blog. All of us agreed that the pricing was good and while Belly isn’t the kind of thing we’d crave, it isn’t half-bad either.

Normally in this situation I’d say that “if you’re in the neighborhood,” but I can’t imagine many reasons that somebody would be in this neighborhood, unless you need a bottle of Chinese whiskey or a box of Russian pastries. If you live nearby and have considered giving it a shot, stick to the basics on the menu and sides and you’ll walk away happy. It’ll be a nice reward after your day of weary travels. If you don’t live in the neighborhood and don’t have any plans to be there, then I wouldn’t make the trip just to stop at Belly. It’s all right, but nothing worth the indignity of your transportation options to get there.

And, hey - we all finished ‘em. Sure, we’re eaters of the highest order, but if something doesn’t satisfy the burger itch we don’t scrape the trays clean like that.

Belly Burger gets a Not Too Bad from the SF Burger Blog.

And with that, we end our latest installment. My apologies again for taking so damn long, but hey - life happens. On the plus side, I’ve lost a few pounds from not eating so many burgers! We’ll attempt to make the next review come a lot faster, but in the meantime let me soothe you with some pictures I snapped recently on a trip to Yosemite. Mother Nature knows what you need, baby. See you later!

You Say Umami, We Say Ewwwmarina (or) TRY FOR BURGER POINT OR FACE ULTIMATE DISHONOR!

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:36:30 -0500

Aloha burgeeteers, and Happy HoliKwanzakrismestivus! Harken over to the meat log, my chilluns (I’m an old black lady now) and I’ll spin you a yarn about a delightful red-faced fat man who, once upon a time, swore to spend his days traveling from restaurant to restaurant eating hamburgers and writing about them, until one day many years ago when people were still wearing wooden shoes and overalls were fashionable, he ate at a place and then never wrote about it, because the President called and told him he needed to drink all the whiskey in the city before a terrorist could poison it.

At least, that’s the story I intend to stick with. You see, lo these many years past, your favorite burger-eating crew pulled up our bloomers early one morn, chugged a few cups of coffee and prancer and vixen’d our way into the Marina neighborhood to sample the wares of a joint called “Joe’s American.” Unfortunately, while Joe may have been proud to be an American (cuz at least he knows he’s free!) he wasn’t hawking burgers that made us stand up and salute. Frankly, it was pretty mediocre and in lieu of writing up that review, I opted to spend my time catching up on “Breaking Bad” on Netflix and searching for the hottest Filipino ladyboy in town instead.

Before you know it, Joe’s American had been transformed into Joe’s Empty Space, more than likely the candidate for yet another coffee shop, because for a minute there you could almost walk an entire block on that side of the street and not purchase a Pumpkin Spice Latte. The coffee gods will not allow it! But before Lord Javacus of Mount Caffeine could wave his wand and make that happen, the location became the target of another burger joint - this one already proven in the far-off land of Los Angeles, home of the neon porkpie hat and a short skirt for every skinny girl without a soul.

Umami Burger opened in the southland (that’s what we kewl Californians call L.A., bros) and was quickly showered with praise from the burger community, including such Metro-inclined magazines as “GQ” and “Expensive Tight Pants and Shoes Monthly.” And after Joe’s American found its way into Restaurant Heaven, Umami set their sights firmly on their former Marina location on Union Street. So, does the highly-hyped burger from the hypiest city in hypey-land meet expectations, or are they a one-hit wonder that years from now, you’ll hear somebody mention and think, “gosh, I remember that. Why did we think that was good? We were so dumb back then. Welp, back to fighting death-robots.” Read on, my friends. All shall be revealed.

It should be noted that the restaurant’s name is taken from a Japanese term meaning a “pleasant and savory taste.” It does take some mega-nerve, and more than likely a few years of living in Los Angeles, to give your burger restaurant that name, and I can only imagine it was conjured up in a circle of bro-dawgs, all clad in deep-V t-shirts and meaningless leather wristbands. But the burgers shall speak for themselves.

We all arrived eager to give Umami Burger a shot, as well as excited to start work on a project we’re not ready to talk about yet. But in atypical Burger Blog fashion, we’d actually planned this trip out pretty far in advance, meaning everybody had a good chance to hunt over the menu online and make their selection. And wouldn’t you know it, Fancypants Fauntleroy himself, George, had a problem. Before I say this, keep in mind that George was only days away from jetting off to Paris for a few days of sipping wine, sampling foie gras and debating between steak au poivre or coq au vin for dinner.

You see, Umami Burger makes all of their ingredients in-house, including their mustard. George, having grown up in a time when men wore hats and kissed dames on the street after Uncle Sam gave the Kaiser the ‘ol heave-ho, doesn’t want his burgers with any fancy-schmancy girly mustard. After reading about Umami’s specialty sauces and recipes, prior to the restaurant visit George found his way into a diner and grabbed a few packets of the old-schooliest, most generic yellow mustard he could find. When George sets his mind to something, he will not be dissuaded. Enjoy the sole meuniere, George.

Another note - as part of Movember, Joe grew himself a ‘stache. While not nearly as firey-red or radical as my prior facial growth, I think we can all appreciate that if the Burger Blog were an episode of Star Trek, Joe would be preparing to sabotage Captain Kirk any minute now. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since our last burger run, and therefore when he walked up it was like confronting Evil Joe. He quickly slapped a woman on the butt and told her he liked that she was “keeping it tight.”

Umami Burger has also made some decorating changes to the location, including adding a sword to the wall. As a firm believer in the upcoming zombie apocalypse, I heartily endorse the ready availability of swords and enjoy knowing where as many of them can be located as possible. The rest of the place has been altered to be a bit more dark and cozy than it had been before, with a fair amount of seating and some spots at the bar right when you walk in, if you don’t want to be more than a few inches away from a person who can pour you drinks.

Umami’s menu is on the simple side, although the names of the specialty burgers can make your head spin a bit. They get high points for calling one burger the “Manly Burger,” even if it doesn’t come with a picture of Chuck Norris giving you a thumbs-up. However, I’m still a little baffled by the “Port & Stilton” burger, which sounds like something a fop in the streets of 1910 London would say to you if you asked where a chap might locate a finely-tailored derby, god save the queen and all that.

As we all perused and attempted to make our selections, the most vocally wary of Umami’s menu was definitely George - they don’t really offer a plain-old burger the way he likes it. But, before he could get all Whiney McWhine, The Whiniest Whiner in all of Whineytown about it, we ordered up some of Umami Burger’s sides to enjoy.

Umami’s cheesy tater tots had been the source of much hype prior to our visit, most especially because, in an effort to be extra-trendyriffic they’re *gasp!* not even on the menu. We were told it’s because they always run out before the end of the day, but when we started ordering our other sides our waitress was quick to ask, “how about some cheesy tater tots?” I guess if you’re a hillbilly wandering in off the pickup truck with grandma Bessie, Billy Joe Jon Jim and your pet raccoon Miley, they take one look at you and decide your plebian butt isn’t ready for the splenderific delights their cheesy tots offer, so take your muskrat-eating mouth and however many teeth you have left and wander over to the nearest boiled fish place, chump. But we’d all worn our best finery and managed to hold in (most) of our farts, and were thus judged worthy.

We also got an order of regular fries and some onion rings, the way mother nature intended. The portions are definitely more in order with a single person, or maybe a pair, or if you’re the typical lady who lives in the Marina, a whole week’s worth of post-yoga snacking, like ohmygod!

Also making an appearance at this point - and free of charge, I’d like to add - was Umami Burger’s specialty condiments. They include Umami Ketchup, the aforementioned and terrifying Dijon Mustard that George had no intention of sampling, Umami’s House Spread, a Roasted Garlic Aioli and Jalapeno Ranch, two great flavors that ensure that yes, you WILL know regret today. The sauces got pretty high marks all around as everybody dipped their fried goodies into them, and Joe noted that it was a classy move that they showed up free, unlike another recently reviewed location that charges for dipping sauces. Hook a brother up, Super Duper!

Umami Burger also offers a decent selection of beers and if you prefer American champagne, their Coca-Cola products are the Mexican variety. This means that they fled their homeland years ago to find their way into America, where they now work hard everyday to provide for their families. Also, they contain real sugar instead of that other stuff. Umami also has something called Zenify on their menu, which they claim is an “All-natural calmness drink.” Needless to say, nobody tried it. We’re already full of calmness, goddammit, now shut up before we shut you up.

Without any further ado-ing, affix your Super Happy Burger Fun Helmets, assume the Stance of Multiple Joy-Joys and paint that fence, ‘cause here comes the burgers. SUCCESSFUL TRY!

Both Chris and Domingo opted to get the Manly Burger, with beer-cheddar cheese, smoked salt-onion strings, bacon lardons and ketchup and mustard. Every Umami patty is a 6-ounce slab that Umami does indeed grind themselves at their locations. We do commend them for grinding their own meat, however while nowhere near shabby a six-ounce patty isn’t what I’d call “manly.” But I suppose the addition of something called “bacon lardon” does up the ass-kickery a bit.

Leila - who as you can see by the black nail polish is going through a goth phase right now, because you’re all too mainstream and laaaame, maaaan - put a pinky in the air and ordered up the Truffle Burger, which comes topped with house-made truffle cheese and a truffle glaze. As you can see from the above, Umami sends out each burger emblazoned with a “U” on the top of the bun - which they also make themselves. The buns are said to be “Portuguese-style,” which I can’t say is totally accurate because my only experience with the Portuguese is a knife fight in Mexico City. And he deserved it, the bastard. The buns are also sweetened with milk and honey, which I’m sure is a line from a John Cougar Mellencamp song that takes place near a Tastee Freeze.

Bizarro Joe stared out a large window for a while, twirled his mustache contemplatively, leaned his head back and let out a devilish laugh and then demanded they bring him the Kombu Meal #1, immediately, or face his wrath! Umami offers three Kombu Meals, which include a burger, a side and some sort of alcohol that the restaurant thinks pairs nicely with the meat and fried treats. In Joe’s case, this meant an Anchor Steam beer. He allowed them to live this time, but next time they might not be so lucky. The Umami comes with shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, a parmesan crisp and the Umami ketchup.

The burger that has Erica so excited is the Hatch Burger, topped with roasted green chilies, and house-made American cheese. In addition to being ground on-site daily, Umami also uses an all-natural Niman Ranch wagyu-angus beef (which does sound fancy!) that they then coat in something called “Umami Dust.” I think that was popular in the 80’s with stockbrokers.

Your always humble narrator got one of Umami’s specials for the day, called the Oxtail Burger - their typical patty topped with some cheese and some further pulled-beefy treats on top. Seen above, I paired it initially with a lone tot and onion ring, which is my own attempt at Feng-Shui’ing my food. A busy mind cannot ease the soul, or something like that.

George did as much as possible to get his standard, patty-medium-rare, a few veggies and nothing else, and he did indeed take every packet of mustard he brought to the top of it. And if you can’t read George’s emotions, no, he wasn’t very happy. In fact, the whole experience quickly divided us. Was it possible? Was a burger joint that entered into our universe with heaps of acclaim not going to live up to its reputation? Onward, to our review points!

Thunderclap From Clear Sky: Burger Quality Points

No question about it, Umami Burger is serving up some pretty-looking burgers. They clearly have been keeping themselves hydrated, plenty of rest and lots of time up in the gym, working on their fitness, just so when the big night comes they can go out and wear that perfect little black dress. And while I have no idea what Wagyu-angus beef is, I assume it must come from a cow that has achieved the Wisdom of a Thousand Centuries prior to being butchered, ground up and served on a bun with a big “U” on it. As always, we heartily endorse the grinding of the beef daily and in-house.

But many of us were quickly amazed at how greasy the things were. We certainly aren’t averse to grease, but quite a few of the crew found their buns disintegrating under the greasy powers of these burgers. Joe was still quite fond of his Umami Burger, and I’m quite certain that the addition of the extra meat on my burger helped to keep it together, unlike some of the others.

If you’re the type who pounds down a burger hard, you might fare better but lots of us were a little surprised at how difficult they became to eat. They’re definitely the type of burger you’ll need to lean over deep for and position yourself and your clothing far away from any possible debris, because it’s coming, brother. Get in the zone and become hard like Hanzo steel, for this will require all your concentration.

Luck Exists In The Leftovers: Final Meat Score - 7 Wisps Of Dust out of 10

After The Rain, Earth Hardens: Sides Score - Umami offers up a pretty healthy offering of side dishes, but even if you order up a combo meal - sorry, Kombu Meal - you’re going to be forking over some extra bucks for it. We tried the thin fries, Tempura onion rings and the not-on-the-menu, only-for-the-cool-kids cheesy tater tots, but they also have a market salad, sweet potato fries or a thing called Smush Potatoes available, which are described as “fried dutch yellow creamers.” Frankly, I’m part Dutch and grew up in Western Michigan, home of Dutch Judgement and a Bar Next To Every Church!, and I have no idea what that means. All of these sides will run you between $3.50 to $7 bucks for a Caprese salad, and if you want to try their house-made pickles be ready to fork over a fiver.

As for the quality of the sides, we all found ourselves pretty firmly entrenched in the middle for them. The thin fries were decent but nothing to commit seppuku over, the onion rings weren’t too shabby but may have been a bit too battered for some of us (I liked ‘em) and the cheesy tots turned out to be nothing but all right. They were kind of like a modern Radiohead record - yeah, I know I’m supposed to like it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to care that much. The supposed cheesiness wasn’t very apparent, and that left all of us a bit bewildered. If they had just called them tater tots we probably wouldn’t have minded, but the lack of much gooey cheese flavor made us turn like when you found out Beck was a Scientologist. So long, and thanks for the memories, I hope Xenu buys records.

Scattered Clouds, Disappearing Mist: Final Sides Score - 6 perfect blossoms out of 10

Even Monkeys Fall From Trees: What Happens Afterwards - So, it’s a 6-ounce patty of quality Niman Ranch beef, sprinkled with magical fairy dust that gives it three wishes, so how do you feel after you eat it? Will you finally turn into a real boy?

Honestly, we all felt pretty darn good. While all of us often find ourselves stuffed and uncomfortable after a burger trip, nobody had any complaints, except that maybe we were going to be hungry again a lot sooner than usual. There are some burger trips where members won’t eat again for up to eight hours, and sometimes not even until the next day at breakfast (we’re usually reviewing at lunch time) but not only did everybody finish their burgers, most of us were already talking about how we’d definitely be ready for dinner later.

Now, this should be a relatively good thing for a lunch trip - except that it didn’t cost us what an average lunch seems like it should. Even splitting the sides up and not hitting the hooch too hard - a difficult feat for us - the final tab added up pretty fast for a group of seven. Even with a Kombu or sharing sides, don’t expect to walk out of Umami for less than $20, probably more after you throw down a tip because you’re a decent human being. If anything, realizing that this was definitely one of our more expensive trips left a worse feeling in our tum-tums than the food.

Wake From Death And Return To Life: Final Aftermath Score - You’ll feel fine, especially if somebody else pays. 7 drunken salary men out of 10.

So, really, should you give Umami Burger a try? First you have to venture into San Francisco’s hoitiest of toity neighborhoods, the Marina. Then you had better be ready to pay well for the experience. But if you’re a hardcore burgerphile, you’re most likely already planning your trip, if you haven’t been already.

As for our crew, Joe stands pretty alone as being a firm believer in Umami Burger, while the rest of us could take it or leave it. The high cost made all of us shudder a bit, even though we’re all big time ballers who roll on dubs. See, I’m so rich I can say that and have no idea whatsoever what it means!

So, while we applaud Umami’s practice of making everything themselves with fresh ingredients, most of us weren’t blown away by the experience and probably won’t be placing it into our upper echelons of burgerdom. And frankly, I don’t think if Umami Burger were in any other neighborhood in the city, they’d be getting nearly the hype or crowds that they are right now. The Marina is filled with people who are more than happy to make a scene for anything that’s sceneriffic and pre-approved by the Cool Police, making it a perfect stop for a burger restaurant that’s been making dude-bro’s and lady-dudes very happy prior to standing in line at a club to get $500 bottle service and spend the night texting people they’re not with. If Umami opened in the Mission the only thing in front of their storefront would be cigarette butts, smoked by tight-pantsed hipsters after they finish their burrito from a nearby taqueria, purchased for six bucks in between rounds of PBR.

If you’re a purist and hunting for all the burgers the city has to offer, I’d urge you to plan a visit during the daytime, away from the nightlife crowds and judge for yourself. But plan ahead, as you’re definitely spending more than a typical burger would cost you.

And with that, we must bid you adieu, burger lovers. We’ll be back as soon as our little legs can carry us, but in the meantime thanks - as always - for following us, and may your holiday season be chock-filled with expensive gifts you don’t really need, plenty of liquor and that one family member you hate gets stuck in a snowstorm. Number one burger review finished with ultimate power! Super Punch! See ya later.

Two Men On A Scooter Ride Into A Mexican Restauranto

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:59:23 -0400

There are a few things one thinks of specifically when you think of San Francisco’s historic North Beach neighborhood.

If you’re a literary buff, you think of City Lights Bookstore, where modern-day wannabe poets imagine what it was like to be Allen Ginsburg and read dirty poems to strangers while they look at a poster of you naked. If you’re a dude-bro, you think about all the bars you can bro down with your bro’s at, before you bro over to the strip clubs on Broadway and tip dancers until you’re bro’ke. If you’re a stripper, you think of all the drunken tourists and Asian businessmen who huff watered-down whiskey fumes at you while they tell you how pretty you are on the glamorous Wednesday afternoon shift.

But it’s highly unlikely that you think of North Beach as a tip-top burger destination, especially in a Mexican-themed restaurant. But it’s adventures like that which make the world go ‘round, and since our last North Beach burger bonanza didn’t go so hot - looking at you, Burgermeister - it was going to take something special to get us back into the ‘hood and ready for a burger.

North Beach is always an entertaining place to hang out, regardless. The above was taken at our parking garage, which adorned the spaces with helpful little hippie-dippy sayings, such as “A secret may be kept a secret by not telling that it is a secret.” If you don’t get that, you’re a total square, man, time to expand your mind by spending a few years growing goatees and writing pretentious scribbles into a Moleskine.

Joining us for his very first inaugural run into the burger depths was our associate, raconteur and gentleman spy Domingo. He had long wanted to sample a burgerventure with us, but his duties with the church prevented it. Having been excommunicated (a complete misunderstanding, he tells us) he was finally free to join us.

Our destination was Mexican hot spot Don Pisto’s, and the first order of business was owner Pete Mrabe pouring beer down our throats. And boy, did we put up a fight. Pete opened the place about two years ago and has carved out quite a niche for himself, serving tasty cuisine to packed houses and serving specialty drinks in the meanwhile.

Speaking of specialty drinks, after a beer or so somebody (it may have been me - well, it probably was me) asked about tequila. Don Pisto’s doesn’t actually serve tequila, but they do have a specialty cocktail called the Lamborghini Margarita, which Pete himself served up and we all enjoyed.

They use an entire bottle of liquor for every pitcher of the things, and nobody was complaining about the lack of tequila, even though some of us had intended to end the night in a knife fight in the dirty basement of a grocery store.

The place is also bigger than it looks, including a basement dining area that features one of my favorite paintings ever:

After a few of the Lamborghini margaritas, I could see beginning to gaze upon the above donkey as my new god. Even Moses wouldn’t find a problem with that after he hoofed his Jesus-creepers down the mountain and got handed a pitcher containing an entire bottle of booze.

So, we all mingled and enjoyed a few beverages, along with fresh chips and salsa, and after some of us got to the point of shameful intoxication (mostly James) we agreed it was time to fire up the grill.

Rumor had it that Don Pisto’s burger was a special treat, and Pete clued us into his method: the meat gets ground fresh daily, and then marinated in bacon before they cook it. Yes - BACON marinade. The look on our faces when he told us let Pete know that he probably didn’t need to spend the previous forty minutes pouring liquor down our throats. But we still appreciate it.

Pete had also set aside a table for us, complete with a few of their signature side dishes, including the above pickled peppers. We all quickly acted as though it was a test of manhood to try them…

…but they were more tasty than anything. As a result, we had to resort to our favorite manhood game, that thing where you try to stab a knife between your fingers on a table. That game is why these blogs now take so long.

Now, we’re told that Don Pisto’s has one waiter in particular who is notoriously popular with the ladies, so much so that many of his tables walk away leaving a mess of phone numbers on napkins behind, in the hopes that after his shift he enjoys touring from apartment to apartment, alternating from serving hot, delicious food to sweet, authentic Mexican lovemaking. However, he was away that day, so we had to settle for San Francisco’s second most eligible bachelor:

It’s not often that one finds George on the serving side of food. Most of the restaurants in his neighborhood call him “Here Comes That Guy Again.” But George was so excited to have us try the Don Pisto burger he started serving them up.

It was a sight to behold, for sure. But then we started focusing on the burgers. Put all your illicit powders under the seat and get out your passport, because here comes the border patrol of food porn.

Now, we typically show you our burgers in a roundabout way of letting you take a look at all of our varied selections, from George’s usual plain-old-timey burger to whatever we can find that includes a fried egg on top of a ham steak and slathered in cheese. But Don Pisto’s does one burger, and one burger only. But remember - THEY MARINATE IT IN BACON.

Each burger is cooked medium-rare to medium-ish, and that is also not up for debate. If you ask for it done well, they will laugh in your face. Well, probably not, but this whole policy is one that we fully endorse. Whenever I see somebody order a burger cooked more than medium I wonder why they even bothered to leave the house, when they likely have plenty of old shoes sitting at home they could drown in ketchup?

The burger’s typical topping is Don Pisto’s fresh guacamole, which was very tasty. So tasty, in fact, that Domingo didn’t mind it, even though he later revealed that he isn’t a fan, after which every single one of his ancestors started turning over in their graves. Then Domingo told us that he once stabbed a man at a cockfight, and they stopped turning. He still follows tradition.

They did provide us with a few extra toppings, include a spicy red sauce and some crunchy coleslaw, both of which got rave reviews, although it should be noted that they’re not readily available.

And thus, the digging in began. Another note on the burgers - Don Pisto’s gets their buns specially made from a nearby bakery, and these babies hold up to this bacon monster quite well. They also toss them on the grill for a quick toast prior to having the patty placed on it.

Another note: Don Pisto’s doesn’t serve fries, onion rings or any of the other usual fried goodies we typically throw down our throats on these binge runs. Chips and guacamole are the only options, but after a few bites of these things nobody was complaining.

The Don Pisto burger was immediately greeted by the moans and groans one would usually only hear at an orgy in the 70’s or around a television showing Fox News in a room filled with people who enjoy facts. Everybody was amazed at how flavorful the thing was, and people’s eyes started rolling into the back of their heads. Anybody walking by the nearby open window probably thought they’d strayed past a cadre of jazz cats going after Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. And anybody who gets this reference has lived, man.

The burger was definitely cooked to a perfect medium-rare, and while the bacon definitely played a big role in the flavor you can still make out the high quality of the beef inside. The benefits of grinding the meat fresh and daily once again shine through. And it is a half-pounder, so if you’re still worried about not having fries, onion rings, jalapeno poppers or fried bloomin’ ranch mozzarella explodin’ fingers, have no fear: nobody walked out hungry.

Now, typically we go through a whole list of criteria and review points, but since Don Pisto’s is a specialty we’re going to keep it more basic this time around. We’re going to hit a couple of points and leave it at that.

Yo Soy Es Beefachacho: Burger Score

In the theme of keeping things simple, Don Pisto’s served up a burger that quickly found a place in the tippy-top of our list and was many of the member’s favorites. Chris said the first bite knocked him out of his chair. George said it’s the most flavorful he’s ever had, and since Grandpa Georgie usually just wants a patty on a bun for the sweet, meaty pleasure of it, you know he means it.

Domingo said that he might have to quit after his first outing, since he couldn’t imagine a better burger than this ever coming his way again. And before we allowed him in we forced him to eat the entire Pearl’s Deluxe menu in one sitting.

James said it was tied with his choice for first place ever, the Bullshead, and although most of the terribly racist things he said that day were because of the liquor, I have to assume the positive stuff was some of the last good things coming out of his doomed soul.

Final Burger Score: 10 out of 10.

Don Pisto’s was one of our group’s most satisfying burger experiences, and that was even without any specialty burger menus or the chance to order a large plate of french fries topped with melted cheese and sausage. All of us were so impressed we started perusing the menu, curious to see what else they offer.

Some highlights? A lobster burrito, specialty al pastor tacos, and did I mention you can get a pitcher of margarita with a whole bottle of liquor in it? Whether you’re a burger fan or just enjoy drinking and eating Mexican food, check out Don Pisto’s. Pete says their Sunday brunch is especially popular, so show up early and spend your Sunday being a heathen.

The food was so good, in fact, that even though George lives only a short distance away he couldn’t make it there on his own power. So he had to turn to Joe, who came via scooter. Not only did we get to enjoy the sight, people driving by slowed down to witness the following…

Every man wants to ride his bike around town with a sexy pair of legs on the back, but Joe really got the best of the best on that afternoon.

With that, we bid adieu to another entry. Thanks to hanging in with us and stay tuned for further burger action!

With Beef Power Comes Beef Responsibility

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:03:29 -0400

Aloha and salutations, burger fiends. Summer is in full swing and your favorite crew of burger-chomping mad men (and women) have returned. We meant to be back sooner, but all of us went to see “Transformers 3: The Hunt For Transformy’s Gold” and the 3-D gave us all aneurysms. Except for George. George was fast asleep.

Summer is a weird time in San Francisco anyway; the temperature doesn’t really go up but the city fills with tourists from all over the world, places as obscure and backwards as Lithuania, the Czech Republic or Florida. And of all the people, the Floridians usually have the weirdest habits - seriously, TWO fanny packs? Well, I guess one is just for all the cigarettes they need in a six-hour time span and the other is filled with Disney Dollars, but seriously - get a backpack. Preferably one without a Bon Jovi decal.

Even with our mild weather, however, San Franciscans still like to find an excuse to enjoy some barbecued meat, including burgers. And it was just our luck that only recently a brand-spanking-new burger joint opened up on Market Street near Union Square, complete with plenty of rave reviews and a line out the door. Those are usually good signs. But can they stand up to the hype?

Super Duper Burgers now has two locations, the first being in the Castro and the second being their new Market Street restaurant. Within a matter of the Market opening we were getting e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, Google+ invites, Friendster requests and carrier pigeons suggesting - nay, demanding - that we try it. And since it’s in a location I walk by relatively frequently, I had seen and smelled the goods beforehand. All of us were eager to give it a chance. And other patrons were probably happy that the fat guy was going to stop standing over them, sniffing their burgers and staring at them while they ate.

The place looks small from the outside, but once inside you realize it’s pretty huge. And it’s a good thing, because Super Duper is typically swamped for the lunch rush. Another note: if you don’t live in the area and are driving there, you may want to meditate, take a Xanax or pound a stiff drink or two beforehand. I don’t want to encourage drunk driving, but operating a motor vehicle around Union Square and attempting to park in the summertime is the mental equivalent of having to compete in a kickboxing tournament blindfolded. Unless you’re (a) Jean Claude Van Damme, (b) high on cocaine or (c) both of those things at the same time, you’re not gonna have much luck.

Eventually, the whole crew assembled and we grabbed a large table on their second floor tier, giving us a great view of the goings-on and the gigantic line that formed shortly after we arrived and ordered. Super Duper utilizes the counter ordering method, then leaves you to fend for yourself for a table. Not a terrible method, but considering their popularity if you arrive after Noon you may find yourself in a knife or pickle fight for a seat. And once a San Franciscan gets a seat, they tend to enjoy lounging there for a while. Be prepared.

On the positive side, Super Duper gets their beef ground fresh daily, AND it’s Niman Ranch, typically a great sign for the flavors soon to arrive into the faceholes. They also don’t have a set menu of specialty burgers - just a menu of toppings for you to choose from. The first few come free, with extras and some more awesome toppings - bacon, fried egg, etc. - costing another sheckel or three. With a little belt-tightening you could feasibly walk out with a burger and fries inside you for less than $10, but I doubt many who read this are in it for the tightening of belts. They just get tighter on their own.

So we ordered, and we waited. Despite having a big crew in the kitchen, the food did take a little longer than expected. But it was still fresh and hot when it came out, so we won’t dock them too many points.

The wait WAS long enough, however, that George felt the need to order a beer and fries as an apertif - the “Gentleman’s Repast,” as we called it - prior to his burger. And with legs like that, who can argue?

Chris bided his time with one of Super Duper’s alcoholic shakes. They make all of their shakes with organic cream from a local dairy, and for a little extra you can get booze in it. Finally, all our teenage girl dreams came true. Never again shall we have to resort to Kamchatka in a Shamrock Shake on the sidewalk. And then finally, the food began to come. By the power of Beefskull, here comes food porn!

Erica got the “Mini,” meaning a 4 ounce patty with lettuce, tomato and onion. She didn’t ask for onion, but she got it. She also got cheese, which comes in one variety: orange. Seriously, check the menu - you either want cheese, or you don’t. I’d guess it’s American, because that’s a pretty American way of offering something. If ya don’t like it, git out! *insert Tobey Keith guitar riff here*

Joe got a Super Burger, meaning two 4 ounce patties for a half-pound of delight. He topped it off with everything, including Jalapenos, because Joe is a spicy fellow who enjoys the conga beat. Joe also opted to get his regular fries with Super Duper’s three dips for an extra buck, which they describe as “Super Sauce,” “Homemade Mayo” and “Chipotle.” And by the way, those pickles are homemade and free! Free! FREE! with purchase. My grandmother would be happy, if her heart didn’t stop from eating too many free pickles.

Our guest Christina got a mini with grilled onions, jalapenos and and order of fries. Super Duper offers regular and garlic fries, and as you can see they come in a heaping pile that would make most residents of Oklahoma shout, “Awww shucks and crawdaddy pipers!” They say that in Oklahoma, right?

Chris got a Super Burger with the Lee Greenwood cheese, lettuce, red onions and grilled onions. He also lived life in the fast lane by ordering his fries with their signature three dipping sauces, not to mention his spiked vanilla shake. Elvis would be proud.

James stepped up to the counter, took a long hard look at himself and contemplated the long drive he had ahead of him after the meal and decided to take it to the limit. If we were a band, James would be the lead singer who starts out all wishy-washy and within a year is shooting drugs into his eyeballs and puking on the audience. James ordered a triple burger, meaning 3/4 of a pound of meat, WITH cheese and everything else except for the pickle and onion. Vegetables would have just gotten in the way.

I had felt pretty awesome about my order until seeing James and his stack of beef. I got a Super Burger with cheese, lettuce, onion and a fried egg, and also on the tray is Leila’s burger - a Super with tomato, onion, lettuce, their special “Super Sauce” and the ‘merica cheese. We also got an order of regular fries and garlic fries but went with plain old ketchup. When you’ve got an egg on your burger, dipping your fries into mayonnaise just seems a little too “I’m gonna die on a toilet”-y.

And never to be forgotten, our man George got a regular burger with his standard toppings - lettuce, tomato and onions. He did, however, mistakenly get the Super Sauce instead of his regular mustard. It’s the first time he’s had a variation on his burger toppings since you could smoke in a hospital.

And thus, the diggin’-in began. One thing we all notice pretty quickly was that the grease quotient at Super Duper is on the higher side - not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean you could walk in wearing a white shirt and walk out looking like you sat up front at a Gallagher concert, and nobody wants to be accused of that.

James especially had his work cut out for him, but nobody puts baby in a corner - he attacked with gusto and made it work without a single drop on his clothing. Truly, a foppish dandy of the highest order.

So, what did we think and how does Super Duper stack up? Read on, compadres…

Great Burger’s Ghost: Meat Quality - for being a freshly-ground Niman Ranch burger, almost all of us were a little underwhelmed with the flavor of the patties. They were a little on the bland side and tended to be outdone by the toppings, especially in the case of the lone 4-ounce patty burgers.

Luckily for San Franciscans, Niman Ranch is becoming de rigueur (that’s a San Franciscy way of saying common) at burger joints, much like sourdough bread or the table filled with loud Asian people who chug coffee like overnight security guards. So, maybe we were less impressed with it than we should be, but many of us noted that more seasoning was needed - nothing special, just a bit of a devoted mother’s love. Barring that, some salt and pepper would be great. By the time you add the veggies, cheese, bacon or fried egg, the greasy patty gets left behind. We showed up ready to be impressed, and were sadly nowhere near as happy as we’d hoped for.

Another issue: Super Duper prepares all their burgers the same, around a Medium done-ness. It appears all their beef is rolled up into 4 ounce balls, then smashed onto the flattop when the time comes to be cooked and eaten like a kid in a nursery rhyme. And just like their cheese, Super Duper gives you one option: cooked. For those of us who like a little “moo” left in the meat, it was acceptable but a little disappointing.

We’ve also been told that the Portabello mushroom burger is fantastic, but that would have involved ordering something that hadn’t been alive to know hopes and dreams, so we have no idea.

Burger-Man No More: Final Meat Score - 6 issues out of a series of 10.

My Sides, My Vengeance: Side Dish Score - Super Duper has two sides to go with your burger; fries or garlic fries. There’s also salad, but let’s be serious here. Luckily for all of us, the fries are none too shabby. The regular fries have a great ratio of crispiness-to-chewiness to them and aren’t overly salted to the point of resembling the flavor of a dead clown’s alcohol-ravaged skin. The garlic fries are essentially the regular fries doused in garlic and were decent, everybody who tried them gave a thumbs-up but as a crew I think we all favored the regular fries and gave them high marks.

The dipping sauces, however, didn’t get much fanfare. While none of us could claim to be totally innocent when it comes to occasionally dipping fries in mayonnaise, or even a strange mixture of mayo and ketchup that I like to call “Awesome Sauce.” But after forking over an extra buck for three small containers of the various sauces, nobody was very enthused. Joe went so far as to begin referring to them as “rips” instead of “dips,” because Joe is the Oscar Wilde of the Burger Blog. Bon Mots like that are wasted on the rubes and should instead be uttered between sips of champagne and cucumber sandwiches!

On another plus, though - the pickles. Super Duper really does just leave it up to you how many of their pickles you greedily pile on to enjoy with your burger, and they make them themselves. Some of us thought that perhaps the pickles could have stood to have spent a bit more time in the briney deep, soaking up the pickleriffic pickle-ness, but they still had a nice bite to them. If pickles are becoming the hipster snack of today, then Super Duper is offering a nice incentive to stop by in your tightest pants, hoodie and sense of ennui and pose as you eat pickles.

The Dark Pickle Saga: Final Sides Score - 8 consumed planets out of 10

The Power Cosmic: What Happens After Score - So, Super Duper has clearly carved out a handy niche for area burger fans to stop by on their lunch hour and grab a burger. And the line was out the door almost the whole time we were there. But is their beef suitable for a professional to consume, then return to work, or will there be missed meetings, uncomfortable afternoons and lots of excuses for those weird noises that happen when people hold in farts?

First up, afterwards James felt pretty terrible. But let’s face it - the guy ate a triple burger. Given my habits of drinking the demon rum and only utilizing my gym membership for bathroom breaks while walking between bars, I clearly do not expel a lot of energy respecting my own body. And I never even considered getting a triple burger. Buy the ticket, take the ride, as they say.

The rest of us felt pretty good with little to no ramifications. The quality of the Niman Ranch beef helped us remain solid citizens who were able to function within polite society, whereas James spent the remainder of his waking hours in the fetal position. Maybe that will teach him. But I sure hope not.

Galactus Feeds: Final Aftermath Score - 8 cosmic heralds out of 10

And the final verdict? For the most part, we put Super Duper as a middle-of-the-road burger joint. George, always having to be a special snowflake, stood out as saying he loved it and would put it near the top of his list. Chris was solidly at “meh” and Erica compared it to In-N-Out Burger, primarily in presentation and topping options.

And in all likelihood, yours truly will be stopping by Super Duper again in the future. The beef needed a little extra mustard to spice up the flavor but they had a decent flavor, especially when combined with the regular fries and some of their homemade pickles.

Our strongest recommendation, however, is to avoid the lunch rush. Get there early or come mid-afternoon, because if you show up between Noon and 1 p.m. you’re going to be forced to queue up like you’re at the DMV, except without the promise of those golden personalities of a government employee at the end of the line. Awww naw you didn’t!

If you’re a burger fan, Super Duper is a must-try. But be sure to time your visit properly, or you’re going to be chewing on frustration waaaaaay before you get to a burger.

As always, thanks for reading, burger fans! We’ll be back soon with more burgerventures. Same burger time, same burger channel.

The Winds Of Change - Flame On, You Crazy Diamond

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:15:00 -0400

“The times, they are a-changin’.” - Bob Dylan, Death Polka Volume III

“Questing for dragon teeth has left me vexed, squire. But go on, we must.” - Sir Gahaladadrial, Book 7 of Magic Candle Dance Squad Ghost Pirates

“Blllbbpphhhhhh vugggglmmmmech.” - Hobo Jim, the trash can at Ellis and Jones

Howdy, burgerteers. Today’s entry isn’t intended to be solemn, but alas - we have to make a sad announcement. No, the blog isn’t done, although we sure post on our own sweet time. Today we bid farewell to one of our founding members. Marci is moving on.

We always knew the day would come when one of us would be forced to leave. Hell, we threaten James with expulsion at least twice a week, but every team needs its Hulk character, and our green behemoth is James’ colon. It truly is the strongest of all. James’ colon smash! Now if he could just stop talking about Ultimate Frisbee.

Regardless, Marci is bidding us adieu as she heads off to an undisclosed location in the Northwest, America’s home for serial killers, 90’s nostalgia and where every Thursday is Taco Night! We’re all going to miss her. Marci has often been the voice of reason within the group, keeping us from getting too excited when a burger was good or from fixing torches and grabbing pitchforks when it was bad (Barney’s, you owe her a thank you card). She also has a sharp, dry wit that helped to class up the usual array of jokes about farts and wee-wee’s. In other words, prepare for things to go downhill, folks.

But before we get all weepy and listen to Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” on repeat for twenty or thirty times (I love that song) let’s get to burgerin’. We sent Marci off in style, like a viking captain getting kicked off on a burning raft into a dark, cold ocean, and her last trip was not a disappointment.

Hall of Flame Burgers is on the outskirts of San Francisco proper, right next to a college campus. In fact, it’s so far out there and a little difficult to find that it took all of our wits and skill to locate the joint, and that includes two smartphones and George’s encyclopedic knowledge of San Francisco streets. Believe me, if you give that man an address not only will he know the location, but he’ll have a story about how once he, Jimmy Durante and Eva Gardner once ate steaks at a bistro down the street, only to have Jimmy J.J. Walker show up, high-five him and shout, “Dyn-o-MITE, George!” But Hall of Flame almost stumped even him. Bring a map, a GPS and one of those dogs with a barrel of whiskey around its neck.

However, once you get there - PARKING! That’s right, San Franciscans, a place that you can park without dealing with meters or the low, low parking garage rate of $4 for every 20 minutes. People who don’t live in San Francisco might not understand, but we can all nod at each other with the thousand-yard stare we’ve earned from years of parking in this tiger cage of a city.

Once you walk into Hall of Flame you’ll notice that it doesn’t look like anything that would blow your mind, unless you’re the type who fantasizes about hanging out in the room of an 11-year-old sports fan, in which case you’re probably on the wrong blog altogether.

Hall of Flame did have the added fun of a broken light in the bathroom which flashed like a strobe, so after returning George did start reminiscing about the disco era and some wild nights spent on floors made of flashing lights with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel. But I’ll bet they’ve fixed that by now. But without that light we’d never have known that George cowrote “Funkytown.”

The menu at Hall of Flame isn’t huge, but they do have a decent lineup - ahem, sports pun! - of burger options, all of which are named after sports terminology. Although if you were to walk into a place in my neighborhood and order a “Hum-Dinger” you would be breaking the law in at least 14 states. And then be eligible to run as a Republican in a major election.

As has always been our style we made our choice and grabbed a table, and prepared for our last chance to eat a burger with Marci.

The kitchen is right out in the open so you can watch them cook the burger, something that never bodes well at a Taco Bell but isn’t bad here. The place did get a little smokey during the cooking process, but it smelled pretty delicious. The vent could have been running a little earlier and the restaurant got as smokey as a family reunion held in a barn in Florida, but it cleared up quickly once they turned it on.

Every burger comes on a metal tray with lettuce, pickles, onion and tomato and an order of fries, which is a nice addition for the price. And there’s nothing quite like the visceral thrill of having a giant metal pan covered in meat and fried potatoes placed in front of you.

And with that, loosen your belt and prepare to have the goodness put inside you. Burger time!

Ever Ol’ Reliable, George got a regular burger cooked medium rare. Every burger at Hall of Flame is a 1/2 pounder made from Niman Ranch, always a popular choice with us and a steadfast target for the tummy.

Leila got the Alley-Oop, which the crew at Hall of Flame says is their most popular, and with good reason - the burger is topped with cheese, avocado and bacon. Leila’s such a joiner.

So is Chris, for that matter, because he also got the Alley-Oop. But it sure is a pretty burger. Hall of Flame has a few different cheese choices to pick from to top your burgers with to make those gooey calories in whatever flavor your clogged, slowing heart desires.

Marci ordered up a Humdinger, but opted out of the Swiss cheese and just had the sauteed onions and mushrooms. Damn her and her desire to stay healthy! We couldn’t make her fat here, Pacific Northwest. She’s your responsibility now. You better invent a super-burrito that includes bacon wrapped in waffles or something.

Both James and I decided to drown our sorrows in the most dangerous thing they had on the menu, the Chili Davis. In other words, a burger covered in a heaping helping of Hall of Flame’s homemade chili. Goodbye, cruel world. But wait - James even went one step further…

Putting a half pound of beef slathered in chili wasn’t enough for him, so he ordered up a hot link as well. Sure, he cut it up so we could all sample it…but that, my friends, is why James will always have a place on the team. If we were Pink Floyd, James would be the guy who stays up for seven days doing acid and then tries to convince us to record a song written entirely by smashing liquor bottles onto a xylophone.

And with all of us having our selections, it was time for our own version of The Last Supper, but instead of the fate of mankind and our eternal souls, we all cracked jokes and laughed our heads off.

The Chili Davis was an especially fun burger to attempt to stuff into our noiseholes. Both James and I initially started with the intention of picking it up and actually eating it with our hands, but that plan was quickly squashed. Being a gentleman of the highest order I couldn’t bring myself to do it in polite society. And as you can see, James is just a dandy fop. Frankly, we’re lucky he wasn’t wearing lacy silk cuffs on his wrists and a powdered wig.

Other than the chili-coated mountain of awesome that is the Chili Davis, everybody else had nothing but good things to say about the burgers. The buns held up nicely and the meat was cooked perfectly to order, something that’s been slipping at burger joints lately. If I wanted to eat something overcooked and flavorless I’d track down a Denny’s.

Leila and Chris were very happy with the Alley-Oop, which earned its rank as the most popular selection at Hall of Flame. High points went to both the bacon and the avocado, and when you combine the two it’s a winning duo, like milk and cookies, sweatpants and videogames or cheap beer and a Poison concert.

We all made pretty quick work of our burgers, even those of us manly enough to go with the chili. But how did they line up in our quest? Let the judgement begin.

Swing For The Fences: Meat Quality -

Hall of Flame gets an early advantage for going with the Niman Ranch beef. They don’t grind their meat on the premises, but they do get their meat delivered fresh daily and it’s never frozen. And they also managed to cook all of our burgers exactly to order, whereas a lot of joints lately seem to prefer to overcook. We were all very happy with our burgers and Hall of Flame got major points.

The toppings were also fresh, flavorful and a nice addition. The veggies were crunchy and delicious, the bacon was thick and crispy and the chili was none too shabby. There is no shame in Hall of Flame’s game. If any lame-ass food critics try to steal that from me, I demand a burrito.

And a quick side note on the Hot Link - a nice bit of additional spice with a pleasant snap to it. I don’t often order hot dogs at restaurants because I’m not a toddler who plays with Hot Wheels, but this would be one to consider. And for the record, I DO enjoy coloring on placemats. Crayons on the table are always awesome. Look, I drew a doggie!

Out Of The Park: Final Meat Score - 8 swings out of 10

The Brown Monster: Sides Score - Unfortunately, Hall of Flame doesn’t offer onion rings, which we were all a little disappointed about. The fries aren’t too shabby, though. They’re nice and thick, which probably sounds perverted, with a crispy crunch to the outside and good potato flavor on the inside. Plus, they come standard with every burger, always a bonus.

And on another note, at some point either George or Marci went up to the counter and asked for some barbecue sauce. They started with a little on their burgers, then started dipping the fries into it, then finally just jamming their dirty fingers into the tub and sucking the juicy goodness off their digits like mental patients. They told all of us we should try it, but watching them transform from normal people into wretched drug addicts in the span of 90 seconds was too frightening for any of us to consider. If you find George standing outside a church asking for change, know that it was barbecue sauce that drove him so low. We were all sure it would be the House of Prime Rib.

Going For The Trifecta: Final Sides Score - 7 ponies out of 10

Welcome To The Wrap-Up: Aftermath Score - eating a half pound of beef in one sitting should be dangerous for just about anybody except retired wrestlers and linebackers who are under contract to gain 500 pounds within two years of leaving their sports. But Hall of Flame chose wisely with the Niman Ranch beef, and each and every one of us walked out with our heads held high.

This was especially notable for James and I, because not only did both of us power down our chili-slathered meat monsters, we each had part of the hot link on top of it. Sure, neither of us had plans to hit the gym to participate in an Ab Crunch contest, but we proudly remained among society with only the usual problems of having to inform new neighbors that we’re moving in.

Scoreboard, Bitches: Final Aftermath Score - 8 extra points out of 10 attempts.

So, should you make plans to hit Hall of Flame? As we discussed the meal we were all giving it high marks, and then Professor George had to roll up his leather-patched tweed sleeves and begin a long oratory that included his thoughts on the burger, a history of the spice trade and why New Kids on the Block are better than Backstreet Boys, for some reason.

George’s final point was that while he enjoyed the burger, he chalked it up mostly to being very hungry when he walked in and enjoying the company he was eating it with. George is a sweetheart. Hey, ladies!

As for the rest of us, the burgers at Hall of Flame were very well-recieved. Their location makes them a little difficult to get to without a car, GPS and sherpa guide, but all of us agreed that if we were living at the nearby campus we’d be making a strong effort to add to the Freshman Fifteen at Hall of Flame.

And lastly, Marci declared that Hall of Flame was her favorite burger she’s had for the Burger Blog. Good enough for me - Hall of Flame gets a Recommended from us. Thanks, guys!

And with that, unfortunately, we bid farewell to Marci. There’s one last review that we conducted before this trip that she joined us on, but she’s already gone. As the saying goes, we hate to see her go but love to watch her leave. Best wishes, Marci.

Until next time, burger fans…

From The Bistro: Sacrilege And Whiskey Lullabies

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:26:00 -0400

Once upon a time there was a magical being that everybody in the land thought was pretty awesome. Because he was down with the homies, he said that around the time of his birthday people should give each other presents, drink egg-based cocktails and watch 40-year-old cartoons to commemorate the season.

Everybody loved that time of year, except for those without families or recovering alcoholics. But the magical being decided that holiday was not enough - there needed to be a longer, more serious annual ritual for his people. And because he knew they often drank too much and got fat from eating delicious pork burritos, he suggested a holiday 40 days long where everybody would show how much they loved him by giving up Snickers, malt liquor or methamphetamines. For 40 days, everybody who owed this magical being money had to choose something they love and avoid indulging in it. If they succeeded, they got to hang out in his house where his dad had all these arcade games that you didn’t even have to put quarters into. If they failed, they were cursed with irritable bowel syndrome.

This tradition continues to this day, and during the annual rites it can be hard to get a group of people together because everybody chooses either burgers, fried food or beer. But the lure of evil is strong, and eventually they all succumbed to the call of red meat and potatoes dipped in boiling oil. Would it be worth it? Would they regret their choice?

That answer is coming, dear readers. It’s going to be an action-packed entry of the Bay Area’s favorite burger blog, featuring exciting guests! New ways to stay in touch with the burger blog! A live show! And perhaps the most pulse-poundingly fun part…

George has returned! We finally got him to take a day off from entertaining rich ladies, sipping exotic liquors aboard luxury cruise ships and shopping for the nicest silk finery the suitmakers of San Francisco have to offer and come have a burger with us. It’s nice to have him back. Unfortunately, James couldn’t be with us on this trip. But, when you get word that Memphis Joe has tracked you down from Vegas and is on the way, you get on the first Greyhound to Mexico you can find. If you like your thumbs, that is.

We did get a visit from a new compatriot in burger trips, however - Justine, pictured above with Leila. While she didn’t fill James’ typical role of ordering the largest, most artery-clogging offering on the menu, she smells a lot better than James usually does. The man puts chili on an awful lot of stuff.

So, armed with the return of George and a gathering of lapsing Catholics on a beautiful day in San Francisco, it was time to take on another of the local chains. A place that we’ve had requested before and ignored, because we don’t take no guff from nobody. A place that just about everybody with a lunch hour tries eventually in the city, because they’re pretty easy to find.

Bistro Burger opened their first location in 1993 and have since expanded to five, all in San Francisco. They offer a wide selection of sandwiches, salads and dishes like fish and chips, but their claim to fame has always been their burgers. Many of us had eaten at a Bistro Burger location already, but we’ve never hunkered down and given them the real once-over treatment. Bistro Burger, your time is now.

We opted for their Bush Street/Financial District location for the review. The Financial District sits in the heart of the city, all gleaming cityscapes, well-scrubbed entryways and a few cocky business folks strutting around like Elvis on a bottle of Uppers. But, everybody has to eat, and in this economy even these folks can’t have a $44 Cobb Salad served on a naked lady everyday. Eventually everybody wants a burger.

Bistro Burger prides itself on providing burgers cooked to order quickly, and their staff is definitely chugging along and churning out the food. Bistro also goes with the ordering system of paying at the counter, grabbing a table and they bring it to you. Service was polite and fast, which we always appreciate.

Bistro Burger offers a decent selection of burgers and specialty burgers, and they also have a wide menu of chicken/turkey burgers, and - gasp! - veggie burgers. Some of the group considered getting a veggie burger to prevent possible damnation, but in the end their lust for bloody meat won out. Cthulu is proud, and evil wins again!

With a beautiful day and outdoor seating, we all made our choice and grabbed a spot outside. Unfortunately, we did manage to pick the spot near the kitchen’s exhaust fan, so once in a while we’d have our fresh air interrupted by the equivalent of a giant hamburger fart. It was almost like being John Goodman’s mattress. Choose carefully when grabbing a seat.

Also, Bistro Burger does not offer booze at all their locations. At this spot in particular, there was no beer, wine or options to buy a pint of Kamchatka Vodka in a brown paper bag. Being industrious, George found his way to a nearby pizza parlor and grabbed a Budweiser. Nobody at Bistro had any issues with it, and George wasn’t anywhere near what we call “Scientist George,” just plain, old Happy George.

Besides, who could get mad at a guy in that shirt? It would be like getting angry at your gay uncle when he buys you the complete Golden Girls set on Blu-Ray. As is often the case with boozing in San Francisco, if you can keep yourself from throwing your empties at the window of a moving police car, usually nobody says anything.

So, with all that under consideration, slick back your hair, pull on your best pinstripes and get ready to option the heck out of some burger futures.

George got his usual - the standard burger, cooked medium-rare. He also got the “Frings,” something we first spotted waaaaaaay back in our very first review at Pearl’s Deluxe, which is really just fries and onion rings mixed together. Bistro Burger serves up every burger with lettuce and tomato, with other condiments and toppings - such as pickles - available at a counter nearby.

Chris ordered the Bacon Cheeseburger Royale with coleslaw. And as you can see above, there was a problem - BACON. When his burger arrived it was sans-bacon, and there was nearly a revolt. Before he could tip over his table, throw a chair through the window and take a waitress hostage, Chris mentioned it to our server and she returned very quickly with this:

…and there was peace in the valley. A minor blunder, and one quickly fixed. But everybody gets happier when presented with a tissue covered in bacon.

Erica ordered a regular burger topped with gorgonzola cheese and got an order of the garlic fries. Every one of Bistro’s burgers are a standard 6 oz. patty from the Estancia farms, meaning these are free range and grass-fed, usually a good sign for the burgerventuring.

Marci got a California burger, which usually comes with jack cheese, avocado and sprouts. Marci opted out of the avocado, but she did get an order of onion rings to go with the burger. In fact, just about all of us were pretty fond of the onion rings at Bistro. More on that later.

Justine got the California burger, but on a turkey patty. If she were anybody else, I would call her into my office and make her hand over her badge and gun (yes, we ALL carry badges and guns - don’t mess with us) but since this was her first trip with us, she gets a pass. THIS time.

Leila went hardcore with the Bistro theme and ordered the Paris burger, topped with a healthy whollop of brie cheese and sauteed mushrooms, ooh la la! Afterwards she smoked a cigarette while holding it with her thumb and forefinger and talked about how all Americans were boorish simpletons who don’t understand the subtlety in Jerry Lewis’ humor.

Drew (me!) got the Pineapple Cheddar burger, which clearly took for-friggin’-ever to name, because it comes topped with a hunk of pineapple and cheddar cheese.

And Joe also got the Bacon Cheeseburger Royale, but this time the bacon was not forgotten. Joe was also feeling extra hungry, and got this on the side:

Fries and chicken wings. Because once you get locked into a serious meat collection, it’s hard to stop.

And so, the gorging and denying of scripture began…

The first thing many of us noticed was that our burgers were a tad overcooked. Many of us opt for the medium-rare, and a lot of restaurants prefer to overcook rather than serve up a burger with any trace of delicious, live-giving fluids coming out of it. It’s also possible that simply because of quantity, Bistro leaves the burgers on the grill a little too long. Most of us noticed that they got better the deeper into the burger you got.

The other thing we noticed was a slight gamey flavor to the beef. Not as in full-out, ostrich or buffalo-style gamey, but a tinge of it in every bite. A bit unexpected but not off-putting - it didn’t stop most of us from finishing the burgers.

As we head onto the ratings, an announcement: I have been informed by web professionals that we might appease a few readers if we bother to standardize our ratings system. In line with that, I am still going to call things whatever I want and discuss whatever criteria we feel is appropriate, but we’ll now use a regular 1-to-10 rating system. I hope you’re happy, jerks who e-mail me and say we’re too weird.

On The First Day He Created Beef: Meat Quality - The promise of grass-fed, free-range beef is typically a good thing. But as we mentioned above, on this visit we all noticed a slight gamey flavor to the burgers.

At no point did any of us shriek in terror and run screaming into the street like the Frankenstein monster from villagers with torches, but we were all a little surprised. And it didn’t help that most of us who requested medium-rare felt it was a little overcooked.

Frankly, we were all disappointed with the burgers. For a restaurant chain with only five locations serving San Francisco exclusively with ties to a reputable beef supply, this should have been an easy one to knock out of the park. Instead, we all made our way through the burgers without that typical joy that comes from eating something greasy containing at least 600 calories with melted cheese on top.

The toppings often surpassed the burgers. Erica noted that the gorgonzola cheese overpowered her burger so much she barely tasted the beef. Chris and Joe both liked the preparation on the bacon in their burgers, but not the meat itself. And my favorite part of the pineapple cheddar burger was the pineapple. I’m ashamed just typing that.

Thus Spake Zarathustra - Final Meat Score: 5 sad cowbells out of 10.

On The Second Day He Created Carbs - Sides & Stuff Score: By far, the favorite side of the day was the onion rings. Everybody loved the size, crunch and flavor on the rings. They had a nice golden-brown goodness to them, just like grandma used to make before the doctor put her on the pills.

The french fries were okey-dokey; not great and not terrible, just the dietary equivalent of seeing that the movie they’re showing on your flight is the latest Adam Sandler flick. It’s not something you’d see otherwise, but at least it’s not a Gerard Butler romantic comedy, right?

The wings also got high scores from those who tried them, with positive remarks about the flavor and size. And hey, they looked pretty darn tasty too.

From Every Stone And Sheet of Papyrus - Final Carb Score: 7 diabetes pills out of 10.

And Death Followed With Him - Burger Aftermath: As all longterm readers know, this category is a revolutionary and amazing development in burger reviewing that we’ve created and perfected, although we’ve really perfected everything about reviewing hamburgers. Newer readers, however, may not have seen this.

This category is where we delve into the dark underbelly of burger eating - what happens after. Because we’ve all had a delicious burger that sent us into a bellypocalypse that ruined weddings, birthdays and interventions.

In the case of Bistro Burger, they’ve got a few things ensuring a lack of toilet-shattering repercussions. First, it’s only a 6 oz. patty. Any man who can’t eat 6 oz. of meat and then enter a sit-up competition without fear has the digestive system of an 18-year-old housecat.

Second, Bistro gets that organic beef. It’s not often that the grass-fed stuff can make your belly create noises that should only come from nervous people on a first date. Those two factors mean nobody got the Butt Tremors and all was quiet on the Southern front. Yay for poop jokes!

The Four Horseman Of The Tummypocalypse - Final Aftermath Score: 9 cheap laundry bills out of 10.

EDIT: We’ve never done this before, but an addendum had to be made. After we dismissed for the day following the review location, Justine reported back that she felt sick for the rest of the day. This could be considered justice for ordering a turkey burger, but it’s still a bad sign. Because of that, we’re revising the score.

6 turkey burgers out of 10.

What’s our final judgement on Bistro Burger? We were all underwhelmed by the burgers. As seems to be the case with chains - even smaller, regional chains - the overall quality goes down in favor of the number of burgers going out the door. Bistro Burger is definitely popular, and there was a line out the door for most of our visit. But many of us agreed we weren’t planning on making another visit. Erica didn’t even finish half of her burger, and she’s one of the religious types who stepped out of her faith in order to eat a burger.

Alas, we’re going to have to say you should SKIP IT for Bistro Burger. It’s a clean restaurant that seems to employ a pleasant staff of industrious people, but purely on burger quality we weren’t very impressed. Although our opinion is widely revered and followed religiously, I’m sure many people will still go. I mean, half of us had actual religious beliefs at stake and we still ate hamburgers. If you do find yourself at a Bistro Burger, order the onion rings and chicken wings. Your friends might laugh, but you know better. Because you listened to us.

With that, we bid adieu to another entry. But wait - the promotion is just beginning!

As many of our readers know, we use Facebook to notify a lot of people that a new entry has gone up. But, not everybody prefers that method. So, we’ve created a mailing list via the web, so you can be notified directly through your phone, iPad, iPod, Zune, web-enabled gaming console or maybe/possibly, a computer. To sign up, just GO HERE. We’ll use it just to keep you notified of the latest fun stuff and not spam you, unless we can get hella rich.

Also, as some of you know yours truly of the Burger Blog, Drew, does standup comedy around the Bay Area. And, in an amazing moment of comedic synergy, he’s doing some shows with a group called the Burger Kings of Comedy. To keep up with his schedule, you can go to his site HERE, and there’s even a date coming up in a few days that you can check out RIGHT HERE!

And hey - you can always catch more of the SFBB on the web via Facebook and Twitter. More pictures, updates and general silliness. Thanks for reading!

The Invisible Hand Of The Magical Burger Market

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 23:30:50 -0500

Can it be? Are the rumors true? Finally, San Francisco’s favorite burger blog is posting more frequently AND there’s something on the internet that isn’t Charlie Sheen-related, if only for a few minutes. On the plus side, in a few months this first paragraph will either be hilarious or monumentally sad when Sheen drops dead. Either way, let’s march forward as though we ourselves were pumped full of crazy pills, Tigerblood and winning. Oh, and cocaine!

Spring is in the air here in San Francisco. It’s a time when a boy’s heart turns to thoughts of love, or at least baseball, because girls are icky. It’s also a time when nothing sounds better than marching up a large hill on the outskirts of the city to sample a burger made in the back of a convenience store, obviously a dining experience for only the classiest and most refined.

Alas, for this entry we are once again missing our beloved George. I know many of you are looking forward to seeing new pictures of the man tearing into his classic burger in new locations, but he remains a busy man with a calendar filled with eager debutantes and dinners in exclusive locales. We miss our George, but as the saying goes - if you truly love something, let it go free. If it was meant to be, they’ll come back. Or, they might get too busy playing with model airplanes.

But, have no fear - we still have the rest of the crew, including our newest official member. And we’ve tackled a location that quite a few of you have e-mailed to suggest, a small neighborhood spot with stellar Yelp reviews and a large case of liquor when you first walk in. Always a strong way to start.

Ganim’s Market, located in the Potrero Hill neighborhood, is not going to win any awards for style, presentation or beauty. I’m relatively certain the guy who took our order had Aspergers, the seating is right next to a freezer case of Frost-Y-Pops and one of us (me) had to keep getting up because the table is also right in the walkway to the back office, which the employees needed to keep getting to for some reason.

However, as we’ve stated before, beauty does not guarantee a great burger. Some of the best burgers in the world are cooked in an alley on a car battery by a 102-year-old Chinese man who eschews currency in favor of duck parts. So, with your recommendations and a sprinkle of hope we walked in and gave them a whirl. We are burgerventurers of the highest order.

Small convenience stores play a big role in the lives of people living within the city, because large stores are few and far between. If you decide at 7 p.m. that you want a loaf of bread, some lunch meat and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s “Dion-Abetes Warwick Crunch,” your best option in most cases is to walk to your nearest corner shop. Sure, you’re going to pay $4.99 for the bread and $8.99 for the ice cream, but your other option is to get on a bus with the early-evening crowd, which is a frightful mix of angry commuters and drunk hobos, which is the social equivalent of blending Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks. The commuters just want to get home and the bums just want money to refill their giant Carl’s Jr. mugs with life-sustaining table wine.

Ganim’s has no website, and again - the clerk most likely had Aspergers, so I’ll have to make up the story in my head: after a long day of selling liquor to neighborhood drunks, the owner of Ganim’s thought, “maybe if I grill up some burgers and fry some fish I’ll get to talk to people who can pronounce more than vowels,” and a new burger dynasty was born.

And hey - how can you go wrong with a place that prints their menu on a large advertisement for Budweiser products? You know it’ll be fresh, delicious and chocked full of American values, such as getting drunk and promoting the Black Eyed Peas.

Ganim’s makes no claims of “freshly ground, organic Kobe beef.” Hell, they don’t even claim to have clean bathrooms. Come to think of it, I didn’t see any bathrooms. It’s not a total dare to eat there, however - if you can brave it, they do have a clear plastic window into the kitchen so you can watch them cook up your order. The food is also very affordable - every burger comes with fries automatically, with a small upcharge for an extra large order of fries or onion rings. In a town where a hot dog on the street typically costs five bucks, you do get to stretch your dollar and save money for scratch-off tickets and unfiltered cigarettes, also known as “Grandpa’s Medicine.”

And so it was with great gusto that we all made our choices, grabbed a table and waited to see what Ganim’s had to offer. And yes, Joe wears that hat during the whole review. It’s Lumberjack Chic.

Within minutes of putting in our orders the food started pouring out. The first two burgers to come out belonged to Marci and Erica, who were the only ones to go for a lone patty burger. Ganim’s does a 1/4 lb. as their standard, of whatever kind of beef they use. I don’t imagine they’re getting it shipped in from an organic farm.

This is Erica’s cheeseburger, and it wasn’t promising. The patty drowns in all that bread, with none of the gooey cheese sexiness we’ve come to expect in a proper cheeseburger. It should tantalize you and promise evil dairy delights with every bite, not look like a sad turtle in a doughy shell.

And Marci’s regular burger wasn’t much better. Sure, there are a giant mound of fries to accompany the burger, but once again the meat was buried underneath all that bread. You can barely see the vegetables poking out, and nobody wants their first glimpse of burger to be preceded by - ugh - vegetables.

But all was not lost, friends. Like a beacon of hope, soon came something special. See, Ganim’s isn’t much for “specialty” burgers. Their version of specialty seems to be “let’s see what we can put on top of a burger and people will still eat!” And so, I present the Surf and Turf burger…

Ganim’s takes their regular burger, then tops it with a fried fish filet and, what the heck, throw on a slice of neon-yellow American cheese. Suddenly a trip into Depressionville took a left turn into Awesomeburg, because we do enjoy our chances to witness gastro-crimes of the 1st Degree. Both Joe and Leila ordered this beast, and many of us were jealous with their hubris.

Chris ordered the Jericho, which comes topped with Pastrami. He also got the onion rings, because he and his girlfriend recently moved in together and it’s time to teach her about regret.

James got the Bogie Burger, which is a double-patty with cheese and bacon. Ganim’s tops every burger with lettuce, tomato and onion, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the veggies were fresh. James got his burger without onions, because when you’re eating a 1/2 lb. of burger topped with cheese and bacon, well, what good can two strips of onion do?

And your humble narrator went with the plain old double-burger, which - surprise! - is two patties topped with cheese. Also, being an idiot, I didn’t understand that every burger comes with fries, so when I ordered for Leila and I we asked for an Extra-Large order of fries, thinking we could share. Turns out, they had to decide which of us wanted the extra fries, so they - rightfully so - made the choice that the fat guy with the double burger probably wants ‘em, since he clearly doesn’t give a crap. Take note, unless you’re really hungry or are hedging your bets on the Apocalypse coming soon, you don’t need to order the extra large batch of fries.

And thus, the feasting began. Right off the bat we realized that all of us who had ordered burgers featuring more than one patty were enjoying our experience far more than Erica and Marci, who were mostly getting bread and vegetables. A 1/4 lb. patty is fine, but Ganim’s large, generic bun isn’t a good companion to it.

And one look at the sides and we could all tell they were nowhere near homemade or fresh - these were straight out of Senor Freezercase’s “Lonely Obese Bachelor” collection. But, fresh from the fryer they’re not too bad - and again, for the prices Ganim’s charges it’s not too shabby. You can’t park your car for an hour in a San Francisco garage for what they charge you for a double-cheeseburger and fries.

So, let’s bring on the scores! Always logical and easy to follow, time to see how Ganim’s adds up.

This Piggy Went To Meat Market: Burger Quality - I would be very surprised if Ganim’s wasn’t pulling all their burger patties out of a freezer in the mornings, because there was certainly nothing outstanding or shocking about the quality of their burgers. It really tastes like a decent fast food burger with fresher toppings and without the stench of teenager hormones on it from the crew in the back. James was depressed about the lack of teenager stink, but luckily he keeps a jar of in it his windowless van.

The freshness of the toppings adds some points to the burgers, but don’t walk in expecting anything more than a decent beefventure, and if you have an appetite more substantial than a Yoga teacher, you’ll want to order more than just a lone patty. Both of us with just the standard 1/4 lb. burger and toppings were sorely disappointed, which should teach Erica and Marci to man up and go big. Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, time to order the Triple Burger.

Erica ended up tearing off giant chunks of bun in order to salvage her burger, and by the end her basket was just a collection of beige food. We all know that beige is the color that nature intended food to be, but a lack of cohesive burger-to-bun ratio can really throw off the experience. Let’s put it this way - you’re eating a burger cooked in the back of a liquor store. Get a big one, pretty boy.

Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, Off To Meat We Go: Final Meat Score - 22 cases of Mickey’s Malt Liquor out of 37.

Paintin’ The Town Brown: Sides/Carb Score - In some restaurants, a caring, dedicated individual wakes up each and every day with a goal: peel, dice and chop vegetables that are fresh and delicious, add a little salt and maybe some special batter, then take those healthy, organic vegetables and throw them into a giant vat of grease in order to create a symphony of cholesterol and fat that turns them into mouth-wateringly tasty side dishes that you can dip in ketchup, ranch dressing or, if you live somewhere weird, a strange mixture of Mayonnaise and ketchup that Canadians call “The only thing not from Tim Horton’s that we eat, eh.”

In other places, an order for fries means walking over to a freezer case, grabbing a large brown bag purchased in bulk, cutting it open with a pair of dirty scissors and throwing a handful into a wire basket a minute or two after they’ve been ordered. Ganim’s falls squarely into this second category.

Which isn’t to say that they weren’t tasty - they just weren’t anything special. Most of us didn’t bother to finish the fries, and Chris’ onion rings were also nothing remarkable. I hate to sound like my cheap grandmother, but for the price you won’t be disappointed - but you also won’t find yourself a few hours later saying to a friend, “I got these fries from a convenience store for lunch, and they were awesome! Don’t judge me!”

Rollo Tony Brown Town: Final Sides Score - Three Sexy-Lady-Cardboard beer ads out of Seven.

Takin’ It To The Streets: Aftermath Score - So, we’ve established that these are cheap, convenient burgers cooked in the back of a corner store. What does eating that mean for the rest of your day?

This is another problem with Ganim’s - if you want a decent burger experience that isn’t shrouded in bun controversy, you need to order one of the larger ones. But, eating that almost guarantees a tummypocalypse.

Within hours of eating at Ganim’s, just about all of us had rumbles of dissatisfaction within the gastroranks in our large intestines. Even James, with his double-cheeseburger with bacon, and James routinely eats thunder and craps lightning.

You could claim that our lack of strength is due to being Precious Snowflakes who don’t mix with the common man enough, but to that I say, have you met the common man? I wouldn’t deign to throw him two copper bits upon the cobblestone streets to shine my top hat! But c’mon - we always get down with some crazy burger goodness, and although nobody got sick it was definitely enough to keep any of us from going too nuts with activity for the rest of the day. Meat sweats ran aplenty and there was thunder in them thar restrooms later on.

Final Tummysplodin’ Rank: 14 Lotto Tickets out of 19.

Ambiance, Culture and Refinement: Atmosphere Score - I’d be very wrong not to discuss the general look of the place. Ganim’s is very much a local cornerstore, and it’s not trying to be anything more than that. Your first sight upon entering is a cooler filled with 22 oz. Malt Liquor, wine coolers and (in one small corner) soda and water. To the left is a Lotto display, for those of us who enjoy throwing money away in the hopes of hitting it big so we can tell our boss at the Tire Barn to shove it. You’ll dine next to a freezer case filled with Snicker’s ice cream bars and Push-Up Pops that were out of fashion before George W. Bush got off the booger sugar, and you’ll either sit on an uncomfortable cheap chair, or a former park bench that was probably stolen and carries the history of thousands of hobo-naps.

In other words, if you know what you’re getting into, you’ll probably enjoy it. This is a cheap burger experience - no frills, no deluxe specialties and it was an ordeal just to get some mustard, even if they did have about eight different types of hot sauce on hand. However, being Northern California they do have one nice touch…

Ganim’s has their own brand of wine. Finally, a corner store that allows their civilized alcoholic patronage to enter, cough up a wad of cigarette phlegm and, in a proud and slurred tone, say, “I’ll have two bottles of the house red, please.” Then they’re off to their busy day of crying and calling ex-girlfriends while sitting on an old couch in their underwear. Bravo, Ganim’s.

Final Ambiance Score: 57 “Being Poor Sucks!” posters out of 68. You know when you walk up whether you’ll like it or not.

So, should you make your way to Ganim’s corner to pick up a sixer of Four Loko and a burger? Our reactions were mixed. Chris noted that if he lived in the neighborhood, he’d probably eat there at least once a week, which is reasonable considering the price and our lack of respect for our own bodies. But will any of us make a special trip to eat at Ganim’s again? Probably not.

Ganim’s isn’t a Destination, Must-Eat burger. If you plan your whole day around eating Ganim’s then you’ll probably be a little disappointed and feel that tinge of failure like when you peruse the receipts in your pants after a night of drinking. However, we hate to make it sound like the burgers suck - they don’t. The Surf and Turf, especially, is a great little corner burger with something extra, and we were all a little jealous to see them when Joe and Leila’s came out from the kitchen. Chris noted that he would probably have enjoyed his Jericho burger more if he hadn’t had to watch Joe and Leila rip into their Surf and Turf burgers in front of him. They were pretty tantalizing.

So, if you happen to be in Potrero Hill and you’re craving a burger, and most definitely if you’ve only got a few bucks in your pocket, you will be a happy camper if you find yourself in Ganim’s Market. They’ll take care of you and make it all better, if only for a few minutes. But we wouldn’t say you should mark a day on your calendar to make a special trip.

And with that, another entry has been completed. Thanks again for reading, and as always you can find us on the Facetwits around the web via these intratubes:

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Until next time, keep the beer cold, the TV loud and the bikini ladies sexy.

Lebeeficus 3:16 - And The Meat Shall Inherit The Earth

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:57:00 -0500

It was a cold Switzerland evening as he entered the party, clad in the finest handmade tuxedo money could buy. It was an invite-only, white-tie event that any aspiring socialite would be proud to find themselves at, sipping champagne served by eager servants as the waltz reverberated around the ballroom. But he wasn’t here just for the champagne or the Blue Danube…he was here on a job.

He was George…International Man of Leisure and Intrigue. The raging blaze in the stone fireplace at the front of the room provided a crackling warmth inside the room as the snow lightly fell outside, with the occasional glimpse of an armed guard wandering the grounds, protecting the party from intruders.

George glided across the polished floor to the bar. One glance at George told the bartender he was dealing with a man of refinement and class, and he stepped up ready to take his order.

“One Sazerac,” ordered George as he slipped a $50 bill into the tip jar. “Not too generous with the bitters, my good man.”

“You got it!” replied the bartender, as he quickly began preparing the drink. As George waited he glanced around the room. His eyes moved up and down the other partygoers, and each detail opened up a world of information to his mind. At one corner of the room his eyes met a world class beauty - an elegant and gorgeous creature, with red-tinted curls framing her porcelain face, and a string of pearls highlighting a chest that would make almost any man beg for mercy. Her perfectly-curved figure was clad in a tight satin dress that hung like the Devil himself had cut it just for her, and she stood sipping her martini posed with the help of a pair of 4-inch heels that looked as though they’d be just fine to walk in, so long as she did it on the backs of hundreds of helpless men. And as it turned out, her eyes were already on George.

“That’s Angola VonMasterson,” said the bartender as he returned to George with his Sazerac. “Rich, powerful and a man-eater, if ever there was one!”

George turned to grab his drink and looked at the bartender with a sly grin on his face.

“Let’s see if this kitty has any claws,” smiled George as he took his first sip of the cocktail, then turned and began his steady walk to the beauty. She watched him every step of the way across the dance floor to her corner of the room, and as he got closer her eyes examined every inch of him, and finally she spoke as he stepped within inches of her.

“Do I have the honor of meeting the one and only George?” she slyly asked.

“That depends,” George returned, taking a casual sip on his beverage, “on whether you consider that a good thing or not.”

She smiled with an evil smirk at his response. “We may be in for quite an evening, sir.”

George took another sip of his cocktail. “In that case, I might need to find a telephone.”

“Whatever for?” asked Angola, pretending to be worried as she raised her martini once more to her perfect, supple ruby lips.

“Because,” smiled George. “Looks like I’m not making it back for the next Burger Blog trip.”

Hello and welcome back, dear readers! Yes, unfortunately it is true - George was not able to make it out for us on this most recent trek, but we did manage to bail James out for it, and we even have a special guest who tagged along to keep our numbers up and beef-to-person ratio equivalent to that which could murder the average family from Oklahoma. And to top it off, we even went with a restaurant option filled with religious totems and verbage, because that seems to be the climate in America these days. Praise be to Jesus, let’s eat some meat! Sarah Palin will love it. Except for the whole San Francisco thing.

Our latest burgerventure found us heading into the SoMa area of San Francisco, also known as “South of Market” or “that place where the weird leather party happens every year.” SoMa was once a much more scary area of the city, but is now gaining quite a few trendy eateries and clubs that just look like somebody was once stabbed in the bathroom during a coke deal. And that’s a perfect area to put a religiously themed burger joint!

Holy Grill is pretty shiny and new, like a kid’s Christmas toy that hasn’t been in the potty yet. It’s located in the middle of a strip-mall-esque collection of shops across from a large office building that appeared to be empty, except for a security guard playing “Angry Birds.” You’re greeted as you walk in by a giant Buddha…

…because if any religious figure knew how to pound down some calories, it was Buddha. Seriously, on the 4th of July between him, Jesus, Xenu, Moses and whoever else on Coney Island, Buddha would kick ass eating some Nathan’s Hot Dogs. You’ve gotta respect a religion that basically started as a lazy guy saying he was gonna sit down for a while and think about how awesome everything was.

Holy Grill goes for the lunch style ordering system, so you put in your order at the counter, pay and their handy team of grill ninjas gets to work immediately on your order. Seating is limited inside the joint, but they do quite a bit of takeout and they even deliver to a limited area, because who wants to waste any burger calories walking and carrying? That’s for poor people!

As per usual, we all made our choice without any regard to what the others were getting, because we’re all precious snowflakes. Before we get onto the meat parade, let me introduce our special guest for the day…longtime reader and associate, Erica!

Erica is a Capricorn who enjoys men with hairy chests, the music of Isaac Hayes and riding on Vespas. That may not be true - but hey, ask her! Prior to being allowed to join us, Erica was put through the burger paces by being forced to identify the difference between types of beef, and swearing a blood oath to never again eat a veggie burger. Then, we made her go out and rob an old lady to prove her loyalty. Blood in, blood out. Also, she had to agree that she would pay for everybody’s food, and she had to eat whatever we ordered for her. Hope she likes 2-pound Jalapeno burgers cooked rare!

As I mentioned before, everything on the Holy Grill’s menu has a religious tint to it, so this escapade will be a blessed march into the halls of beef dogma. Glory be unto us, brothers and sisters. This is my body, taste of it and pray for extra bacon and cheese. Enough blasphemy, time for burgers! And probably more blasphemy.

Chris chose to forsake Him and got a Pagan Burger, with cheddar cheese and hickory bacon. If being Saved means no bacon, so long, Evangelicals! Chris also gained extra radical points by ordering the “Gratitude Cheese Fries” -

- which is possibly the best name for Chili Cheese Fries, ever. Truly, gratitude is what everybody you sit next to on the bus a few hours later will feel as you gleefully squeeze out a whole orchestra’s worth of melody from your gratitude-hole. They call their chili “Voodoo Chili,” so it may have cost Chris two pinky fingers, a dead pirate’s skull and a skin of blood wine. But all his enemies now have Herpes. Worth it? You betcha!

James, always dapper and ready to roll, ordered up the Trinity - cheddar cheese, avocado and bacon. The Holy Grill’s faith system is quickly becoming something I can get behind. They do all of their burgers as a 1/3 pound of Meyer’s Ranch beef, which they form into patties by hand on the premises. Everything gets cooked medium well unless you ask otherwise (which most of us did - medium well is for the rubes) and comes on a bun cooked at a local bakery topped with Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Pickle and their concoction called “Holy Sauce.” Growing up, my grandparents called their Sunday morning pitchers of Bloody Marys that, but at this joint it’s actually a mixture of ketchup, mayo, sweet relish and a dab of dijon. And nothing blatantly racist came out of anybody’s mouth after this Holy Sauce.

Joe walked into the mountains with nothing but his faith and came down carrying two tablets of beef and the word of his savior, because Joe decided it was the kind of day to eat two burgers. Somewhere inside that skinny runner is a gigantic fat man, just waiting to escape. When that day comes, it’ll be like watching Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk, except with a lot more Meat Lover’s pizzas and Playstation.

Anyfart, Joe once again proved himself as Conan the Burger Destroyer by getting two of them - a Holy and a Divinity. The Holy comes plain with their regular toppings, the Divinity has cheese, crispy onions and Holy Grill’s honey-chipotle sauce.

Erica (who went from the extreme closeup on her burger) got all Epiphany’d, which is what they call a plain old cheeseburger. But hey - cheese is an epiphany. What else can pack so much gooey goodness and calories in such a small package? Erica got hers with “Baby” Swiss, and I never figured out what the baby part meant. Maybe that it wasn’t old enough to understand racism yet.

Yours truly got a Trinity, topped with cheddar cheese, bacon and a dollop of avocado. I’m running out of religious jokes to make my dead relatives cry, but let me just say this was one I’d consider tithing for. Jesus zing!

Leila, who actually grew up Catholic and quickly tired of my need to talk smack about her savior, fulfilled the typical George role by ordering the “Holy,” a plain burger with their standard toppings. Then she drank two bottles of His blood, aka $5 Shiraz from Trader Joe’s. Catholicism: come for the guilt, stay for the drink specials!

Marci went with a Divinity Burger, which usually comes with cheese (she opted out, durn healthy fool), crispy onions and a honey-chipotle sauce. There were a few closeups of her burger, but they all appeared to have been taken in a bowl of vaseline during a lightning storm, so instead there’s Erica and Marci with a look at Holy Grill’s decor.

And thusly, the feasting began. French fries begat onion rings, and onion rings begat burgers, and burgers begat the magical chili-cheese fries. There’s magic in the Bible, right? They might get more followers if a Wizard shoots some lightning bolts at a dragon, like a sweet heavy metal album cover.

And as Rambo said, we killed ‘em all and then decided to sort ‘em out ourselves. God was busy. Let the judgement day begin!

Thou Shalt Have No Meat Before Me - Meat Quality: Like many San Francisco burger joints these days, Holy Grill has learned that serving a quality patty made with organic meat from a local farm is a surefire way to burrow their way into our clogged arteries. However - cooking a burger medium-well as the standard is a bit dodgy.

Because we are men (and women) of wealth and taste, many of us made sure to get the burgers either medium or medium-rare. I would recommend the same, because cooking a burger - or any decent cut of red meat, really - more than medium just makes the meat worthless. Sure, that cow’s hopes and dreams might not have been to get ingested by an account executive on a Tuesday lunch break, but you may as well taste the cow. Yes, some people shy away from blood or fluids that may drip while you eat the burger, but that gooey, greasy fattiness is what makes these things so deliciously decadent. Live a little and wear a bib.

Plus, Holy Grill’s meat is pretty tasty when cooked properly. Get it cooked a little less than they normally do it, and you’ll be saying “Hail Mary” and “Praise Xenu!” all the way back to your cubicle, where your God regularly ignores your dreams again.

Final Meat Score: An enchanted thirteen full collection plates out of fifteen.

Thou Shalt Not Carb - Sides-n-stuff: Much like their burgers, Holy Grill gives all their sides religion-y names. The regular fries are called the Virgin fries, so if you go there with friends make sure to loudly say, “I’ll have the Virgin fries,” then turn to your shiest, geekiest friend and point and shout, “LIKE YOU! YOU’RE A VIRGIN!!! HA-HA!!!!” It’ll be the most mature thing you ever do, and everybody will think you’re an awesome person.

Despite the obviously hilarious crack at people’s sexual maturity, Holy Grill does a good job on the fries. The regular ones are nice and crispy on the outside, hand-cut and a nice potato flavor on the inside. A little dab of ketchup and you’re a happy Virgin, except for the pangs of loneliness.

These “Halo Rings,” aka onion rings, aren’t too bad - buttermilk batter on handcut onions with a splash of sea salt and then served with a side of God’s Gift to Obesity, ranch dressing. They are, however, the thin-cut variety, and as we’ve learned before it’s hard to keep these crisp and delicious beyond a few minutes when they’re so thin. The flavor was good, but we all kinda lost interest and didn’t even finish one order between the six of us. These might just be better as a burger topping than a side.

But if you really want to commit some tummy-sacrilege, the Gratitude Cheese Fries are your new best friend. For a measly $3.29 you can spend the rest of your day knowing you showed your colon who’s boss. All of us who dared to try them were very pleased. Holy Grill is definitely a fry-centric place. And hey - the regular fries are only $1.99 for an order too. Can I get an amen?

Final Sides Score: 33 voodoo dolls out of 40.

Trust In Me And Be Saved - Destiny All Up In It: Sure, they subscribe to a somewhat hippy-dippy mentality and serve burgers with names like “Divinity” and “Enchantment Rainbow.” But if you eat one of their burgers, what happens afterwards? Will you be saved or damned?

Thanks to the quality of the beef, you’ll be just fine. Nobody got much in the way of the belly-rumbles, except for Joe - but let’s all remember that he ate two burgers. Plus, Holy Grill uses a 1/3 patty, cutting down on the meat intake slightly from the places that dare to serve up a 1/2 pound with impunity. Now, if you eat a burger and the chili fries, you may not want to have much planned in the hours ahead. That’s more of an, I’ve-got-a-hangover, sleep-it-off-in-the-park kind of combo. But it’s not the worst we’ve seen.

You Will Know My Name Is The Beef - Final Aftermath Score: 17 snakecharms out of 22.

So, should you cast your lot in with Holy Grill? They serve up a tasty burger and fries for a pretty cheap price - less than $10, in most cases - and they have a delightful faith-based decor and menu that you can either consider refreshing in a town filled with Atheist hipsters who can’t even enjoy a band for longer than six months, or that you can make lots of snide pretentious jokes about, if you’re one of the aforementioned Atheist hipsters (guilty!) The location isn’t the easiest, but there is quite a bit of parking in the area, something that all San Franciscans would gladly change religions for. Seriously, I’d shave my head and wear a robe and bang a tambourine all day if it meant I could find a damn parking spot once in a while.

Therefore, Holy Grill gets a Recommended from the San Francisco Burger Blog. In the church of Beef, all are welcome. Especially if you serve Chili Cheese Fries.

As always, find more of us on the web here:

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And yours truly has other scribblings and a standup schedule here.

Thanks for reading!

Liquor In The Front, Gaming Located Elsewhere In Facility

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:06:00 -0500

Excerpted From The Journal of Drew M. Harmon, Explorer, Inventor, Lover, Sex Expert and acclaimed writer of the world-famous San Francisco Burger Blog:

November 10th, 2010
Dearest Journal, it feels good to once again inscribe my latest thoughts and experiences into you, like a therapist who doesn’t judge me for my awkward fetishes. Things are progressing nicely, especially with the Burger Blog - the latest entry was yet another rousing success, filled with joy, triumphant passages that illuminated those who read it, and yet another proposal from a man to marry me. However, I still feel unaccomplished. I am moving forward with my experiment - a dangerous venture, but one that may change the course of humankind. I see no downside, because science has never created anything that hurt man. Well, except for Four Loko. That stuff just makes you want to throw bottles at police cars and make molotov cocktails to toss into churches. But this will be nothing like that.

November 15th, 2010
Well, that didn’t go well. I don’t want to say too much, journal, but it turns out if you steal things from graveyards, and a brain from the dangerous waste outside a prison where they do executions, not only are you committing a crime (who’da thunk it?) but it also means some science experiments don’t help to create Wal-Mart greeters or good Burger King clerks, like those friendly retarded people who smile when you ask for extra mayo. Instead the “creation” prefers raping, pillaging, raping, drinking Four Loko and then raping again. I’m hoping to get this problem squashed before the authorities find out, especially my landlord, who may think all that equipment means I have an unauthorized pet. Wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll get this done quick and get home to write the next burger blog installment. Also, turns out they’re banning Four Loko. I must stock up, the holidays are fast approaching.

November 30th, 2010
To My Journal…The situation has grown dire. I find myself traveling the arctic mountains in search of my creation, which fled from man after burning down my estate. Needless to say, now I’m angry like the main character in a mid-90’s movie set in Compton whose best friend was shot in a drive-by, and I’m down to bust some caps. I’m sure all this has a hidden lesson about not tinkering with god’s will, but if that guy was so smart then maybe I wouldn’t have hair all over my back.

December 15th, 2010
Provisions low…still no sign of the beast. Also, it looks like I’m going to miss Christmas. I was really hoping to get an Xbox 360, because I heard “Red Dead Redemption” is awesome. Also, I wanted a gram of cocaine, because I wanted to hang out with terrible, loud-mouthed women and guys who think neon bat skeletons are awesome on a t-shirt. Oh, well…also, I hope I get to finish the next burger blog installment.

December 26th, 2010
This morning the beast set upon my camp, but my wits were sharp thanks to the gnawing hunger and the fact that I used the last of my iPod’s battery power to listen to Metallica for an hour upon waking. I grabbed my shovel and beat him, most likely in the realm of 90-100 times. Some would say it was overkill, but dude, I was totally pumped up from Metallica. Now I must find my way back to mankind, although after all this violence I may not be able to acclimate again. Maybe I’ll become a mortgage broker. They’re giant douchebags anyway.

January 9th, 2011
Dear Journal, how was your holidays? Mine were great! I got an Xbox and only had to kill one ungodly inhuman monster created out of my own avarice, but still learned a valuable lesson - that Xboxes are AWESOME!

So, howdy, everybody. Welcome to the 2nd year of the San Francisco Burger Blog, everybody’s favorite burger-centric site that plays fast and loose with a posting schedule. Come for the silly reviews, but stay for the anticipation that makes you learn the value of patience, like that Guns & Roses song, until they finally released a new album and reminded us that patience is for suckers, at least in reference to over-botoxed aging lead singers.

I don’t know about you, but I was very happy to usher in a brand-new year. 2010 managed to hit a pinnacle of sucktastic crappiness that few others could contend with. Taylor Swift taught us that nobody understands the perils of being an awkward teenage girl like a talented, rich and beautiful teenage girl, “Avatar” swept into theaters and dazzled us with special effects that caused our brains to ooze out of our ears and prevented us from realizing there was no story, and “Two and a Half Men” remained the top television show in the country, even as Charlie Sheen rubbed his never-ending cocaine and hooker binge in our faces.

But with a new year comes new hope, new possibilities and, yes, new burgers to try. And so, your favorite burger crew dispatched all hopes of weight loss and headed towards the Russian Hill neighborhood to try beloved burger spot Polker’s Gourmet Burgers.

Russian Hill is a lovely little neighborhood filled with classy eateries, trendy nightspots and plenty of high-end pet emporiums, for those who think their dog really needs to eat a can of $9 food while wearing a collar made from imported silk. But if a dog can live that high on the hog just by being adopted by a 30-something woman with a trust fund and a lack of marriage prospects, you know a fella with a few sheckels in his pocket can probably find a decent bite.

Polker’s also does breakfast and a full menu alongside their burger specialties, but we showed up to do two things: compare notes on “Glee” and eat burgers. And we were pretty tired from reenacting choreography.

Polker’s goes with the traditional restaurant style of ordering, meaning you hunker down at a table and order from a waitress, although they do have at least one or two who are from England, so if you try hard enough or have been drinking, you can imagine you’re asking a pretty wizard for a hamburger. The place is a decent size, but they do fill up around lunchtime.

Now, before we proceed a quick note: not everybody was available for this trip. I know all of our readers love George, much like we do, but you must be aware that George is a busy socialite with a calendar filled with afternoons entertaining rich debutantes, sampling cucumber sandwiches at hoity-toity country clubs and playing the bad guy in 80’s movies where the ragtag group of lovable scoundrels somehow gets the best of him. Also, James wasn’t free to tag along. I think he had a court date or something.

But have no fear, we still managed to traverse the burger canyons and come back alive to tell the tale. For instance, how about a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Shake to start…

It was almost too pretty to drink, but those calories aren’t going to chug themselves. Very tasty and a nice rich shot of dairy to start the meal out with.

Gird thy loins, here comes burger time.

Chris went with the bacon cheeseburger, topped with cheddar and cooked medium rare and a side of regular fries. Polker’s does every burger with the standard lettuce-onion-tomato combo, but you put it together yourself, so you can leave out the unfried veggies like the redheaded stepchildren of burger eating they are.

Lord Studenhammer VonMuscles (aka me) got a plain-old cheddar burger with the regular fries. Polker’s uses those big, thick slices of cheese, then gets them to that melting point just on the verge of becoming a mess, but not quite. I call it goo-riffic, although I would refrain from using that term in a public restroom.

Leila got adventurous and ordered the Mexican Burger - a beef patty with chorizo sausage mixed in, pico de gallo, melted jack cheese and a big healthy chunk of avocado on top. A work of art that ran across the borders in all of our hearts and then got jobs at the restaurant in our stomachs, earning enough money to buy an S-10 pickup and drive it through our livers. Without insurance, of course. Is that enough racist jokes yet?

Marci also went for the gusto by ordering the Western burger. I realize you can’t really tell what the heck is going on in the picture above, but here’s an idea - the burger is topped with cheddar cheese, then some barbecue sauce, then some bacon and finally they rustle up some onion rings. Marci also opted for Polker’s curly fries, which they serve with a side of ranch dressing. I think John Wayne died with four of these sitting in his colon.

Not to be outdone, Joe took a look at Polker’s menu, considered his goals, hopes and dreams and decided the rest of the day was going to be spent on recovering from self-abuse, and ordered the Habanero Burger. On the menu, they warn that it is “Extremely Spicy!” When Joe ordered it, the waitress gave him a look like the old townspeople do to kids in horror movies and asked, “are you sure?” Joe said yes, and soon the serial killer of flavor was set down in front of him. It’s topped with a large helping of habanero salsa, melted jack cheese and some avocado aioli. Joe also went with onion rings as his side, because nice breath is for pansies who kiss girls.

Polker’s does 1/2 lb. burgers as a rule, and it’s a rule we can all live with. Their bacon is also the delightfully thick-cut strips, and not the wimpy ones you feed to your elderly grandfather with cholesterol pills. The buns left a little to be desired, as they all got a little soaked from the grease and began falling apart - but not before we got a healthy helping into our faceholes.

The Habanero Burger certainly lived up to its promise. After the first couple of bites Joe was feeling the heat, and he had to lean heavily on beer to cool the flames. It was a terrible sacrifice, to be sure, but we’re nothing if not dedicated. Normally, being a skinny guy who actually owns sneakers for running, Joe sits idly by, comfy and cool, while I do the meat-sweating. So it was nice to see him brought down to my level. However, he did enjoy the flavor of the burger and stepped up nicely to the challenge.

Marci was also pleased by her Western Burger…so much so, that it was time to mount up and regulate, apparently. Speaking of regulate, time to get on with the scoring!

Where’s the Beef? - Polker’s gets an automatic high-five for sticking with a 1/2 lb. patty, but they don’t grind their beef on the premises. That doesn’t mean the burger wasn’t tasty - but as we’ve learned, kiddies, a freshly-ground patty does up the flavor quotient a bit. Their preparation is still tight, and everybody got their burgers cooked exactly how they wanted them.

The menu options were also good, ranging from the humble cheddar burger to the behemoth of tummy-doom that was the Habenero. You can walk in a boy, but leave a man. Good work, Polker’s.

Oh, There It Is - Final Burger Score: 22 Peppers out of 26.

How ‘Bout Them Carbs? - while Polker’s may not grind up their meat on the premises, they do appear to be prepping their sides themselves, always a good sign for golden brown deliciousness. The regular fries were a favorite among the crew, attaining the right amount of crispiness without being overdone. The curly fries were also tasty, and hey - ranch dressing, right? The curlies are done with a little extra seasoning and spice, but not overdone to the point of requiring a palate cleanser. The onion rings may have been a bit overdone, but for the most part they were nothing to complain about.

Our recommendation is to just stick with the plain-old, god-bless-America regular fries with your burger, but you won’t feel the need to throw a hissy fit over the others either way.

Carbtastic! Final Sides Score: 77 tubs of ranch dressing out of 83.

Only The Finest - Motif and Ambiance: being located in one of the nicer neighborhoods of the city, Polker’s benefits from a higher class of customer - such as ourselves - and a lack of the great unwashed sitting nearby, muttering into their water glass about how spaceships took their babies. It’s a pretty no-frills place, but comfortable and cozy. You can see the kitchen staff working away on the food, which is bad at a place like Taco Bell (who wants to see their food get shot out of guns into stale tortillas anyway?) but nothing to fear at Polker’s.

Class and Refinement - Final Motif Score: Thirteen pinkies-up out of 16.

Here Go Hell Come - Aftermath Score: As longtime readers know, we here at the San Francisco Burger Blog feel it is our duty to address the one thing other burger-centric (and, let’s face it, lesser-awesome) blogs do not - what happens after you eat the burger. Thanks to Polker’s using quality meat and excellent preparation, not only can you enjoy a 1/2 lb. burger and still function afterwards without being weighed down by grease, you can pile a few handfuls of fries in there too and still walk tall back into work after lunch.

That diagnosis, of course, doesn’t apply to the Habenero Burger. If you order that, clear your calendar, call loved ones to tell them how you feel about them and set aside a case of Metamucil, because the rest of your day is locked up. If you’re the type who orders that kind of thing on a regular basis, not only is your stomach most likely already a steel trap of hate, sorrow and fart pains, but you probably have a pretty good idea what you’re in for. If it’s your first rodeo, hold tight and enjoy - but I wouldn’t plan on any hot blind dates later.

Aftermath Score:
Non-Habanero - 2 tummy aches out of 18
Habanero Burger - Ow, my belly hurts.

So, what’s the deal with Polker’s? Their popularity is understandable - the food is fresh, cooked well and, hey, did I mention affordable? You can walk out with a burger and fries in your belly for a little over $10, which in San Francisco - and Russian Hill - is not something to shake daddy’s Amex card at.

Our only real gripe is that the meat wasn’t anything that surprised us, although the specialty toppings options were plentiful and fun and nobody walked out disappointed.

Is Polker’s a destination, must-eat burger? Sadly, no - but they do get a recommendation from us for a quality lunch at a good price. Whether you’re nearby getting your prize French Poodle a manicure, or swinging through the neighborhood to get some of the organic canned food your Pug just loves, if you’re looking for a burger you won’t go wrong at Polker’s. Give it a shot.

Still need more of our delightful adventures? Find more of us at these locations:

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Thanks for reading!

Back In Burgers: Wherever We May Roam

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:59:00 -0400

So, what have you guys been up to?

I know, I know…it’s been a while. But when your foster brother is killed in an underground karate tournament, you do what you have to do. Sometimes it means going AWOL and entering yourself into that very same tournament, and other times it means ignoring your blog about hamburgers to go try to bribe some Chinese guys to lay under a car and break the guy’s legs. You know - the classy way.

Seriously, though - your friendly (and humble!) burger blog writer has had a poo-storm of diarrhiffic proportions going on lately. Ever have one of those months? Where it seems like you’re at a party in formal gear and everybody else is in Ed Hardy clothes and talking about how totally rad trust funds are? Plus, all they have to drink is that “Sweet Tea” vodka, which is really just a wine cooler without the instructions for statutory rape on the packaging? That’s been my life for the past little while.

To put it another way, if blogging were like playing the Blues, yours truly would be the oldest, fattest, blackest man alive. My name would be something like Ernest Higgins Brown and my album would include songs like:

1. Ain’t No Sunshine, Even When She’s Gone
2. Lawdy, Lawdy, I’m in UB40
3. They determined to make this stone bleed
4. My cheatin’ heart decided to attack me
5. Sleepin’ with hemorrhoids on the floor in jail is for youngsters

…and so on, and so forth. It’s been one thing after another. So while I truly love each and every one of you, I haven’t been able to dedicate myself to this like I usually do. But not to fear…we’re coming back strong, and I even have a gift for you.

No, the gift is not this t-shirt. I snapped this shot during an impromptu emergency trip back to the Midwest (part of the ongoing travails of my absence) while on a layover at the lovely Cincinnati airport. Clearly, Paris ain’t got nothin’ on Cinci - why, I even had time to visit their delightful food court!

And what would a trip to Cincinnati be without some of their namesake chili? If you’ve never had it, here’s how you make it.

Step one: boil up one pound of generic spaghetti. The Cheaper, the better.

Step two: coat the boiled spaghetti in as much meaty, bean-riffic chili as you can get to stay on the plate.

Step three: Every meal needs a dash of color; add gigantic handfuls of generic, neon-colored cheddar cheese to the top of the heaping mass you have created in defiance of God’s Law.

Step four: if you’re lucky enough to be in an airport food court located right next to the World’s Last Indoor Smoking Lounge, begin pushing large forkfuls of spaghetti, chili and cheese into your face as 98-year-old businessmen suck down Pall Malls before their flight to Tampa.

Step five: now that your belly is full of carbohydrates, meat, beans and cheese, go to your gate and wait for your flight. You’re in the middle seat, and you’re about to make dreams come true for two lucky individuals.

In reality, I had Chik-Fil-A.

And that still caused plenty of gastro-delights. In fact, just about anytime I travel away from San Francisco, it only takes about a week before I start missing the cuisine. While I may have grown up in the Midwest, “Home of the Cheese and Gravy Food Groups,” you really can’t go wrong with the tasty goodness available in this fine, fair city.

And it was with that notion that our entire gang of burgerventurers loaded up the BurgerMobile (it’s like the Batmobile, but it’s sweatier and has a gym membership it doesn’t use enough) and made our way to the Cow Hollow neighborhood to try out a relatively new - but already acclaimed - member of the SF Burger scene.

Roam Artisan Burgers opened up earlier this year, and had been suggested by our own Joe as a review spot not long afterwards…but, having been raised to distrust Italians and thwart them at every turn, I merely laughed in his face. However, over time the buzz continued to grow and Roam would not be denied. Somewhere, my great-grandfather who lost an eye to an Italian cocktail waitress is spinning in his grave.

Roam is immediately welcoming, with nice warm colors inside, a nice contrast to the hateful clown-orgy palette some burger restaurants seem to prefer. They also have the occasional artistic twist, such as the jars as light fixtures. Please never ask me how long it took to line up this shot.

Another note about Roam: they don’t use high-fructose corn syrup in ANYTHING. In terms of burger restaurant comparisons, that’s almost like Elvis not doing quaaludes, UFC not being homoerotic or any of the women on a “Real Housewives…” show not having enough plastic surgery to resemble the Joker. But Roam has the high-falutin’ idea of making burgers and fries that won’t kill you…a noble idea, indeed, and one we’re willing to get behind if it means getting to see what the year 2020 is like.

Roam employs one of our favorite lunch-style ordering systems - you order and pay at the counter, get a number and grab a seat. Your food comes out lickity-split, or at least it seemed that way with all the licking going on at our table. They have their menu on the wall at the entrance (as the beautiful Joe is pointing out) and it’s not bad. A decent selection of specialty burgers, and if you’re one of those precious, hipster-y snowflakes who wants to define your identity through your purchases, you can also create your own from their list of ingredients. By the way, nice scarf in 90-degree weather!

Before we go too much further, time for the gift. Because we love you, your friendly neighborhood burger bloggers are now going to be offering you the chance to buy some half-off vouchers from the places we review! If you’re using an iPhone, iPad, Android device or a Blackberry Torch, simply click right here! and you can purchase a voucher that will cut the cost of your burger trip down significantly. Then, take the confirmation into the joint via your mobile device and woila! You just got fatter for less cash! Truly, we live in an amazing age. Big thanks to our new compatriot Mobile Spinach for hooking this up, and I hope you all enjoy it! I’ll keep you posted if more platforms are coming up, but we’re planning on giving this a whirl for a while. It’s like “Logan’s Run,” only with burgers, and instead of dying at the age of 30 you just start taking cholesterol pills.

But enough with all the bargains - time to get our burger on. The gang’s all here, so let’s get down to business.

As per our usual highly-scientific, ultra-organized process, we all picked whatever we wanted without much concern for anything else. This haphazard method has launched us into the stratosphere of burger fame already, so why mess with it? Although Chris got a salad, and we had once sworn that any veggies not on a burger must be deep fried in buttermilk, but we all get soft with age. At least, those of us eating burgers constantly are.

George got his usual Old Man Special - regular burger, medium, with a side of fries. Roam does all their patties as a 1/4 lb. standard, and you can double up the patties for a little upcharge. They also offer a variety of meats, like turkey or bison, or (shudder) a veggie burger, if you hate things like America, freedom and the laughter of toddlers.

James did us proud by ordering the Tejano, then Tejano’ed all over the place by doubling it. The Tejano is like a Mariachi band marching into your colon with their guitars and instead of gentle, soothing melodies, they suddenly rip into “Freebird.” Pepperjack cheese, Jalapeno relish and white corn strips make this the perfect companion when you have no plans with other companions for the rest of the day. Just seeing that picture makes me want to do a hat dance while firing pistolas in the air. Maybe I learned too much about Spanish culture from Looney Tunes.

He even kept his white shirt clean. He may look like Mr. Rogers, but James is gangsta.

Chris danced with destiny by ordering the French and Fries burger. Truly, an ooh-la-la for the ages: truffle parmesan french fries (yes, ON the burger), avocado, gruyere cheese and some dijon mustard for good measure. It marched casually down his throat, disdainfully smoked a cigarette while looking fashionable and then artfully found its way into his colon.

Leila, occasionally being Queen Pickypants of Pickytown, went off the reservation and came up with her own creation: steak sauce, onion, lettuce, pickles and a healthy slice of the gruyere cheese. She may be picky, but the girl knows what she likes.

Joe, aka Captain Enthusiasm, ordered a Roam Classic but added some Jalapeno Relish and some pepperjack cheese. He likes his burgers like he likes his ladies: spicy with a smooth finish. If I ever figure out what that means, I’ll let you know. I think it has something to do with Budweiser beer and a trip to East St. Louis, but I have no idea.

Because I rule, yours truly ordered up the Sunny Side burger. Topped with an organic, free-range egg, aged white cheddar, caramelized onions, some greens (okay, fine), tomato and sweet chili sauce. There’s nothing better than a burger that can wake you up, then put you back down in one fell swoop. I also ordered the zucchini onion haystack as a side. And I got an e-mail from somebody about always ordering the burger that comes with an egg: it’s my party, and I’ll die at 60 if I want to. Unfortunately, egg on a burger has become my fat-guy version of chasing the dragon.

And Marci ordered the classic, but with some avocado on top. All of Roam’s burgers come standard with lettuce, tomato, onion and house-made pickles, and they’re also all served on a specially-made Pacific Coast Bakery bun.

From the first bites we were all pretty blown away. The quality of the meat is pretty great, and Roam did not disappoint in their other offerings.

Hands On The Counter And Spread ‘Em: Meat Quality - Roam uses Pacific Pastures 100% Grass-Fed beef for all their burgers, so they’re getting their stuff locally. And as we’ve learned in the past, a happy cow is a delicious cow, so Roam’s cows must have driven Ferraris, done cocaine with Charlie Sheen and avoided ever seeing “The View,” because these things are darn tasty.

They don’t grind their meat in-house, but they get it fresh daily and they do make the patties by hand every day. It didn’t take long before members of the crew started voicing their opinions. George said it was already one of his favorite burgers. James said it was in his top 3. And Chris reminded us about his belief of White Power Forever, but he may have just had low blood sugar.

Roam is producing a really good burger for a really low price, and that’s something we can all get behind.

Takin’ You Downtown: Final Meat Score - a resounding 99 hoof prints out of 106.

Sides, Sides, Everywhere the Sides: Carb Score - Roam produces their sides in a good companion size for a burger, so you’ll want one for every person, unless you’re a group of size-0 yoga moms out being naughty for lunch. Roam offers Russet potato fries, Sweet Potato Fries, a Zucchini Onion Haystack and, in a feat of perfect naming, the “Fry-Fecta,” in which they take a combination of all three of the above, sprinkle it with dew and make all your dreams come true.

And if sweet, delicious carbowonderfulness isn’t enough, Roam goes the extra mile - how about adding some custom seasoning to your side as well? For the same price the bum outside my building keeps telling me he needs for chicken livers at the deli (50 cents) you can get your fries coated in Truffle Parmesan, Lemon Chive or, awesomest of all, Chipotle Maple. It’s like your fries ran through a forest, then got sprinkled with hot sauce. God Bless Us, Everyone. If you’re ever wondering if mankind is gonna make it, remember that somebody somewhere is putting a maple glaze on french fries, and know we’re gonna be all right.

All of the sides are darn tasty, and the extra flavors help even more. The Russet fries were a crowd pleaser, the Sweet Potato fries were enjoyed by all and nobody had any complaints about the haystack, which was probably the least-favorite of the three.

Can’t You Read The Sides - Final Carb Score: a healthy 43 sweaty fat guys out of 56.

Shortly after we all finished, King Schmooze of North Beach, the honorable George, began chatting up the owners of Roam, and before we know it desserts began arriving. None of us had ordered Roam’s specialty shakes, and they felt - rightfully so, I think - that we ought to sample them. To all future review locations: we will not judge you if you also make with the free goodies.

Roam brought us out a Salted Caramel shake and a Blue Bottle Coffee shake, both with bruleed marshmallows. At this point most of us were starting to get full, and we began by all doing that routine where you pretend you have dignity and you wait for others to try it, then you just try a small spoonful…within a matter of seconds we all dove in. It was despicably delicious. The shakes get a good recommendation as well.

And our final, ground-breaking category…Comin’ Down The Pipe: What Happens Afterward

Once again, the power of good meat comes through. Because Roam sticks with the 1/4 lb. as their normal burger, and because the meat got to have dreams and hopes, you can power down one of their burgers at lunch with pride and the knowledge that you won’t have to “make a phone call” to excuse yourself from a meeting in two hours. Everybody had a pleasant tummy-aftermath, and Roam managed to come through our historic test with flying colors.

From The Insides: Final Aftermath Score - 44 meat sweats out of 45.

Roam is making some high-quality, low-cost burgers, and their variety is pretty great too. Not to mention, they don’t use the high-fructose corn syrup, which gives you another way to feel good about yourself for eating there at least four times a week.

In other words, Roam is getting a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from us. Go try it!

And hey - don’t forget, if you’re using an iPhone, iPad, Android device or a Blackberry Torch, you can even click here and get a voucher to cut the cost even more. Don’t say we never gave you anything!

Once again, my apologies for the delays. But we’ll get ourselves back on track and back to doing the Lord’s work - ensuring you have plenty of content to look at to distract you from being productive while reading about hamburgers.

Check us out on Facebook for more content, and you can also follow us on Twitter.

Thanks again! See you soon…we promise!

Burgermeister Meisterburger: We're In Flavor Country

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:06:49 -0400

In Las Vegas, there’s a racket at casinos that goes like this: every major hotel prints up the occasional “magazine” that they distribute to their rooms that contains reviews, show wrap-ups and gambling tips. The hook? Oddly enough, all the really amazing stuff happens to be right in the same hotel that the magazine was printed by! Who’da thunk it?!? The same hotel you’re in RIGHT NOW happens to contain the best shows (Yanni on Ice!), the best - and loosest - slot machines (try the “My Name Is Earl” nickel machines!) and the most affordable detox and gambling addiction specialists.

In San Francisco, the only local magazine that serves such a particular interest would be the Street Sheet. This is the newspaper that homeless people print up to sell, so they’re actually offering something to people as they ask for the vital change they need in order to get blasted on ripple. And you haven’t lived until you’ve read a horoscope written by hobos, for hobos.

But there’s a lot of weekly magazines here. Each one contains reviews and articles and then wraps up the last dozen or so pages by providing the most up-to-date information about massage parlors, transexual S&M specialists and phone party lines for shirtless dudes looking for other shirtless dudes. They’re available for free all over the city, so you always have access to the latest ultra-liberal cartoons and can find a bikram yoga studio that fits your busy lifestyle.

Most of these weeklies do an annual list of the “Best Of” the Bay Area. They award restaurants, entertainers, blogs (hint, hint, you guys) and specialty shops, i.e. Best Burger. It was this reason that we found ourselves at our review location for this week.

Burgermeister has gotten plenty of accolades for their burgers, and just recently added another one to their wall of fame from one of these weeklies. It’s another localized chain with multiple locations around the Bay Area, including the one we went to in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

North Beach has the distinction of being a pretty awesome neighborhood during the week, then transforming into d-bag central on the weekends. It’s an area littered with cozy restaurants, divey bars and strip clubs, strip clubs, strip clubs! Not that the whole neighborhood is nothing but girls named Christina wearing hot pants and DJ’s in mesh tank tops blaring Poison tunes, but you turn one corner and suddenly you’ve found your way into a parade of sadness, where men who can’t seem to control their B.O. and just got paid run to simulate emotions and drink $11 Bud Lights.

However, if you’ve ever seen a movie or TV show that was shot in San Francisco, you’ve seen parts of North Beach. “Dirty Harry?” Yup. “Mrs. Doubtfire?” Sure enough. Even that piece of McConaughecrap, “Ed,” has scenes that were filmed in North Beach. It’s picturesque and pretty, just like us. And hey - strippers and liquor! North Beach has it all.

We’ve had requests to review Burgermeister before, but we’re the blog equivalent of the sassy black lady on your favorite sitcom, and we just never bothered because of our hilarious attitude. Awww naw you didn’t, readers making requests! (Picture us waving our fingers and moving our heads in sassiest way possible when reading the last sentence.)

But as they got yet another award, we could no longer ignore it. It was time for Burgermeister to get their day in our sexy court.

Shortly after walking into the place you’re inundated with their multiple awards and prizes, not to mention the soundtrack. Like our last review at Acme Burgerhaus, we don’t start out intending to talk about the music playing in the places we eat - but Burgermeister serenaded us with the likes of Jewel from her folksy, I’m-cute-but-have-important-feelings period. Nothing adds to a burgery atmosphere like being forced to listen to poetry from the pretty girl who thinks she has meaningful things to say! It may have just been Muzak, but we still hold firm. Not a good sign.

Burgermeister goes with the service format that has proven to be popular with us and great for lunch trips - you order at the counter, fork over your cash and they bring you your food after a short wait.

Burgermeister offers a smattering of specialty burgers, which they call “favorites.” You can also build your own burger from the menu with your specific selection of toppings, if you’re all picky like that. You also have an option on the size of your patty - 1/4 lb., if you’re watching your waistline, or 1/2 lb., if you’re all like, “screw you, waistline! I like elastic better anyway!”

Burgermeister’s prices are a little higher than the average burger joint, especially if you aren’t from San Francisco and the most you’ve ever paid for a burger prior to Burgermeister is about three bucks, and it came with a pound of fries and a gallon of beer. Those of us who have been jaded into thinking it’s okay to pay $9 to park at a meter for twenty minutes won’t be as shocked, however.

The general aesthetic of Burgermeister is mostly warm and cozy, with the bright color palette of Ronald McDonald’s sex barn. Lots of red and yellow, with the occasional beige thrown in just to keep it as non-threatening as possible. The seating is first-come, first-served and while there isn’t a ton of it, we had no problems at lunch time on a Friday.

And speaking of lunch, time to take the mouth boat to burgertown.

Joe got the San Diego burger, named after the whale’s vagina of lore. It comes with roasted jalapenos and pepper jack cheese on top. In this case, the cheese came looking like it’d just been peeled from the plastic wrap and placed on top as an afterthought. Most of us had our cheese nicely melted and oozing; Joe’s came out cold. Joe also went with the regular fries, which come with your burger as a default. You can upgrade to other sides for additional cash.

Chris got the 1/2 lb. California burger, because California knows how to party. So long as “party” means “include a buttload of avocado.” Along with the aforementioned hindquarter full-o-avocado, it comes with jack cheese on a whole wheat bun. Chris also got a side order of cole slaw, because he’s back in training for a UFC title match. In our world, cole slaw is healthy. Join us!

Leila was the only person to opt for the 1/4 lb. patty, which means we’re getting divorced. Shameful.

Well, maybe not…but she got the San Francisco, which comes with grilled onions, sauteed mushrooms and bleu cheese. She also went with the seasoned curly fries on the side, because Leila grew up on Arby’s. Seriously, the girl loves her roast beef and curly fries. Maybe we’ll stay together after all.

I went with a plain old 1/2 lb. cheeseburger, although they do two large slices of cheese to maximize your gooey dairy intake and make sure digestion goes awesome. And, why not - onion rings! Burgermeister offers a beer-battered ring for a $3 additional charge on your burger. All the burgers come served on a large tray with the Burgermeister paper, with lettuce, onion, pickle and tomato on the side for your toppings pleasure. There are ketchup and mustard bottles on the tables, and a station near the counter where you can load up plastic tubs of mustard, ketchup and mayo to carry out, if you’re the type who prefers to pick up food and go eat in shameful isolation.

James, never afraid to jump on the food grenade and tempt a tummypocalypse, ordered the “Colossal.” Two 1/2 lb. patties with cheese, but you can get it with two 1/4 lb. patties if you want the thrill of eating two patties without the heft of all the meat. He got the regular fries, and he was pretty darn happy about it. Seeing James get a large burger is like handing a kid the most awesome toy/videogame/ninja weapon ever, because his face lights up like a Christmas tree.

And at the last second we got an order of Burgermeister’s roasted garlic curly fries, because we hadn’t met our usual quota of “ridiculous” for carbohydrates at the table. The fries come out nice and crisp with a nice garlic flavor in addition to the spicyness of the curly fries.

So, we all tucked into the food with our typical gusto. The sides all got initially high marks, with everybody enjoying the regular fries quite a bit, and the onion rings also getting the approval of the masses. And both versions of curly fries weren’t bad; not too spicy but still a bit of bite to them.

The burgers, though, quickly began falling short of the hype. For starters, the bun began falling apart almost immediately. The lower portion began soaking up grease and felt like a soggy piece of paper towel when you picked it up, and that was immediately after it came from the kitchen. That’s all well and good when you’re eating at Grandma’s house, but a burger joint with a wall full of framed awards for “Best Burger” should be doing better.

The prep on our burgers was also a bit spotty - it was about 50/50 for desired preparations. Some burgers ordered at “Medium Rare” came out Rare, burgers ordered Medium came out Medium Rare. The flavor wasn’t terrible and nothing was cold or frozen at the center of the burgers, but it’s a bit daunting when you expect medium rare and you bite into the bright unbridled pinkness of virgin cowflesh.

Let’s stop all this fussin’ and a fightin’, and get to the judgin’.

You Don’t Win Friends With Salad: Meat Quality - Burgermeister uses a Niman Ranch beef, so it gets hugged regularly as a baby cow and doesn’t have additional hormones or antibiotics added to it. They don’t grind their meat on-site daily, but it apparently comes fresh every day.

Something just didn’t sit right, though. The flavor of the Burgermeister burgers is decent, but not great. And considering the cost of the burgers, we were all a bit underwhelmed, like the feeling about halfway through most Mike Myers movies. Except now the burgers were the guy doing a funny accent and coming up with corny sexual jokes even your grandfather would say are stupid.

Which isn’t to mean the burgers aren’t good - they’re just not great. The meat oozes out into the bun, causing it to get flimsy and weak, and the flavor isn’t anything you can’t find at most joints in San Francisco serving burgers. As we’ve found, Niman Ranch is becoming as common in this city as naked dudes at parades, skinny jeans on men (boo) and puke piles in BART stations. We get it, Niman Ranch is good…but the story is in the details, and our skirts remained firmly un-blown-up.

It’s Still Good, It’s Still Good: Final Meat Score - 12 shiny plaques out of 33.

The Sides Are Alive With Brown Carbohydrates: Sides - Burgermeister is also not preparing their sides fresh daily, so you’re not going to see people chopping up potatoes or slicing onions when you make your order. Even though they weren’t freshtastic, we all still enjoyed the fries and onion rings, and Chris was happy with his cole slaw. Most of us had nicer things to say about the sides than we did the actual burgers, and that doesn’t happen often.

James even floated the idea that Burgermeister would be a good place to stop in, grab a few sides and beers with friends for a mid-afternoon snack and then take off, which probably isn’t the greatest recommendation for a place touting burger superiority.

The Cheese Fries Stand Alone: Final Sides Score - 244 heart pills out of 273.

How Do You Talk To An Angel: What Happens After - the extra grease that causes the buns to get flimsy and weak also means a little extra joy-joy in the belly area, and all of us - even Leila, with her wimpy 1/4 lb. burger - felt a bit of the meat ennui take over as we finished our burgers.

Burgermeister also marked the first time in our entire, storied career as a band of burgerventurers, that James didn’t finish a burger. Yes, he ordered a 1 lb. burger, but he’s done it before. He’s ordered burgers that came in a bowl covered with chili, he’s had burgers that count as war crimes in countries that consider cows sacred, and he’s even been willing to walk into the woods in a loin cloth and knife to fight a bear in order to get a burger. Yes, that happened, don’t question me.

Believe me, there’s nothing any of us like more than making fun of James - the dude listens to Michael Buble and wants to see “Eat, Pray, Love,” fer chrissakes - but when it comes to eating burgers there’s no shame in his game. The dude puts up for the team, and he just wasn’t into making the effort to finish the Colossal.

The use of the Niman Ranch meat means you won’t be in for too miserable of a time after you’ve eaten it, but we’re honestly not that psyched about the burgers in general.

In the name of fairness, everybody but James finished their burger. Clearly they’re not disgusting or inedible, but they’re not the Grand Poobah of Burgerville some seem to think they are.

And Hell Followed With Him: Final Aftermath Score - 77 antacids out of 99

So, what’s the dealio? Why aren’t we jumping up and down with chubby glee for Burgermeister? Are we just being cruel? Are we being contrarian, like the aging film critic who hates all modern movies because they don’t include guys wearing hats, smoking cigarettes and slapping dames?

The burgers just aren’t the peak of Mount Carnivore, as they’ve been voted in the past. Maybe they were once the best of the best, and they’ve fallen into a drug-and-booze tailspin following the tepid response to their 2nd album of arty concept rock. Maybe their favorite grandma died that day. Maybe they met a Chinese artist who encouraged them to take burgers to exciting, new places and they were tripping on ‘shrooms when they put our order together.

We aren’t sure what the issue is, but our honest review is that there are better burgers, and given the cost at Burgermeister, you would probably be better off heading to a different place to satisfy your cravings for red meat. Sorry, Virginia - Santa Claus took off to live with his Mistress in Miami. He exists, but he ain’t what he used to be.

So, Burgermeister is getting a resounding Skip It. The burger isn’t terrible, the sides aren’t awful but it’s by no means a spectacular journey through the meating glass. Given the extra loot you’re forking over for what is supposedly one of the best burgers in the Bay Area, it doesn’t match up to what the hype from the weeklies appears to be.

If you’re in the North Beach area, there’s tons of great little restaurants all over the place. Whether you’re looking for greasy gut-bombs or gourmet goodness, there’s lots of spots to try. While Burgermeister is serving up a reasonably tasty burger, it’s not at that competitive of a price and the overall product just doesn’t justify dropping the cash. Sorry, Burgermeister. Lucky for them, they have plenty of certificates from other reviews to dry their tears with.

But hey - if you want to get even closer with the San Francisco Burger Blog, join us over at our Facebook page. Extra content! Sexy pictures! Random status updates! All the fun, but more of it. Because we care, folks.

Thanks again for reading!

Diamond In The Raugh - Go West, Young Man

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:10:00 -0400

The turn of the 20th Century was an exciting time to be living in San Francisco. Despite the looming terrors of Ripper Attacks, the plague of Copper Poisoning or the shame of Flattened Hat Syndrome, it was still an area rife with possibilities and adventure. For a mere half-pence, a gentleman could ride a trolley towards his favorite drinkery, hoist himself upon the drinking stools and order a half-flagon of Mr. Ricepennie’s Conjugated Ale Drink and listen to the boisterous tunes of the nearest accordian player without fear of the constabulary. And with the magic of steam and a staff of Chinese laborers, nothing was impossible! Before long, anywhere in the world could be accessible by dirigible or Water Train!

However, it was a booming time and the city was facing expansion. A steady stream of wayfarers, vagabonds and roustabouts were flocking to the area, eager to find a fortune in gold and then spend it on prostitutes before fleeing to Hong Kong to see how long a person could do opium without going blind. But as those men failed to find their fortune, they eventually set up shop and began opening bars, restaurants, brothels and, apparently, Peet’s Coffee Shops.

The area was filling, and before long a whole new neighborhood began popping up - the so-called Western Addition. It was called this because it was an addition, located to the West. Truly, they don’t name ‘em like they used to.

The Western Addition still exists. While no longer a home for Irish immigrants, you can still find an Irish hippie with red dreadlocks down to the hem of his hemp pants wandering around. And while not the most stylish neighborhood in town, there’s still plenty of gold nuggets to dig up if you look hard enough.

And it was with this adventerous spirits that the humble burger crew abandoned our families with promises to send for them later, spent the family fortune on supplies and the finest snow shoes and hiked towards Acme Burgerhaus. A perilous journey indeed, and along the way we were forced to draw straws and sacrifice a member for the greater good. But we made it to our destination, and there was much rejoicing.

Acme is a relatively new addition to the San Francisco burger scene, but one with a hefty amount of buzz building behind it. If there’s anything we love more than eating burgers, it’s having a chance to crush dreams and knock a person when they’re finally achieving their goals, so off we went. But Burgerhaus tweren’t no pansy, and they certainly earned the buzz.

By no means a huge joint, Acme Burgerhaus is still a pleasant, cozy spot. They’ve got a smattering of smaller tables and a couple of long bars towards the counter, and service means ordering at the register and they bring you your burger shortly thereafter. And hey, look above - they have the delicious, Mexican Coca-Cola with real sugar. Take that, artificial sweeteners!

Acme has quite an array of options and ways to customize your burger, which always scores points. And any place that gives you the option to add a fried egg to any burger also gets knocked up a few notches automatically, out of respect. They also don’t screw around with their specialty burgers…but more on that later. And they definitely offer quite an array of meats, so whatever animal you feel like proving your dominance of, you can. Finally, we can put Lamb in their place - between buns and slathered in cheese.

We charged out of the gate with a selection of their carb options, including the above onion rings. Beer-battered orbs of gold served fresh from the fry-o-riffic grease, they were pretty tasty.

And hey - Garlic Fries! Because when you’re going to eat fried potatoes, you may as well have bad breath at the same time. Nice fresh garlic addition and a really nice flavor on top of the fries. A few of us called them their favorite garlic fries, and we’ve had our fair share. To all the fries we’ve loved before, who have walked in and out our lower colon…

And hey, if you want flavor on fries - George had been talking about chili fries all day. “Chili fries this” and “chili fries that” and “boy, I could go for some chili fries.” Luckily, Acme had the prescription for his chili fry fever, because otherwise we were going to ironically murder him with a cubic ton of fries and a hundred gallons of Hormel. And they weren’t shabby, either - the chili is nice and robust without being ridiculously spicy. You could even make a whole meal out of one order of chili fries, and walk out with your chili-covered head high, ready to face the day.

Once you get into a really great potato run, you just can’t stop - so we also got the sweet potato fries. They do these in a crinkle-cut style and they’re fried to the point of fast-food crispiness, which was a nice touch. If you’re a fan of the sweet potato, not only do you like your potatoes like you likes your ladies, you should give them a shot.

And, what the hell - regular fries! With nothin’ on ‘em! Like a comfy bubble bath of golden brown happiness, even without extra spices, meat sauce or sweetness, they’re darn tasty. I heartily endorse these potato products, although my heart may not have the strength after eating all these sides.

We were only munching on the sides for a few minutes before the orgy of beef began. To keep that horrible metaphor going, grease up your chest hair with baby oil, grab your best friend’s wife and hop on the nearest air mattress on a living room floor and get ready to mount a burger train of joy…

George’s standard burger came out first. Acme goes with a 1/2-pound patty on their burgers and it came out nice and juicy. For those who haven’t dedicated their existence to reading this blog, George always gets a regular burger, no cheese, medium rare. It’s worked for him for 89 years so far, goshdarnit.

And as far as toppings go, Acme has a do-it-yourself station where you can pick exactly the items you want and in what quantity. In the Midwest where I grew up, this is called either a “Toppins’ Bar” or “The Place Grandma Steals Things.”

James got a Black-and-Blue burger, to match his parenting philosophy - berate and abuse the strong child, to keep the weaker ones in line. The burger includes parsley and black pepper mixed up with the 1/2 lb. patty, and a healthy amount of blue cheese on top.

Marci got a Mama’s Mix - white onion, parsley, allspice and salt and pepper. When she ordered it, I pictured the mix my mother always stood by - Absolut with ice. This may have been a little more flavorful.

Acme also serves their burgers on a Ciabatta bun, something that most of us liked quite a bit - they held up against our most powerful open-and-cram moves and kept the burgers from turning into crumbling messes in our hands.

Joe went with Old Man George and got a regular burger, then topped it off with a slew of veggies and peppers from the toppings bar. Joe needed a few healthful items, as he may have been a tad hungover. When you’re a member of the most popular burger crew in town, you do some partying. We’re socialites, people. Look for us next Fall on the E! network, where we’ll spend our time yelling at one another, shopping at high-end boutiques and hooking up with douchebags. That’s good TV.

And now for the specialty burgers…Chris got the Surf-and-Turf burger, which is a pretty glorious blend of land-born and seafaring animal in a burger that strikes fear in the hearts of beasts everywhere. 1/4 lb. of beef, mixed with a 1/4 lb. of scallops and shrimp that are ground up and mixed in the patty. They also throw in some cilantro, garlic and onions. And if you show up with an eye patch, peg leg and poofy, frilly shirt, you get one for free! (note: this may not be true, but you won’t know until you try)

And, I’m afraid that no picture will really capture the majesty of The Carnivore Burger I consumed that day. But let’s see if we can do it with words: take almost a 1/2 lb. of freshly ground beef, mix it with some diced Italian sausage and then sprinkle in a healthy dollop of chopped, fried bacon in the mixture. Form it into a patty, grill it to a sexy medium rare and serve with hopes and dreams, and prepare for a flavor I can only describe as a Meat Lover’s Pizza mixed with a pretty great burger. We win, America. We win.

The Carnivore was indeed a gastroriffic adventure through Meat Town, and I don’t mean the 70’s-era bar with no windows with the burly bartender with the giant handlebar mustache who mixes the tastiest Cosmo in the city.

These are hefty burgers…in terms of people, they fall somewhere between the hefty dude in high school who always pretended he had a sprained ankle on Dodgeball days, and the guy who sat next to you on your last flight who broke a sweat while boarding and carried a garbage bag of Funyuns on as his carry-on.

We made quite a mess with all the burgers and sides, but it was worth it. And so, on we move to the ultra-scientific Burger Blog review criteria.

That’s Meat In The Corner: Beef Quality - Acme offers a buttload of meat options, including Ostrich. There are some who would consider eating ostrich cruel, but if you ever met an ostrich, you’d realize they were nature’s version of the popped-collar bro-dawg who thinks they’re in an episode of the Real World-Road Rules Challenge. Not only is it not cruel, you’re doing god’s work.

Acme doesn’t grind their own meat daily, but it’s still fresh and flavorful. The Kobe option is nice without busting the bank too much. And while we walked in not expecting this place to razzle-dazzle us, it jump, jived and wailed right into our hearts. That’s a “Chicago” musical reference AND a Brian Setzer reference rolled into once sentence, which legally requires me to open an all-male ska club immediately.

Marci called her burger one of her favorites, James said it was in his top three of all our reviews so far and George also put it towards the top of the pack. Chris wasn’t completely happy with his Surf-N-Turf, saying that it wasn’t the beef itself - he just didn’t like the combo of flavors. And the Carnivore, while not a traditional burger flavor, was pretty ridiculous. Acme came out of left field on the burger quality and variety and surprised us.

That’s Meat In The Spotlight: Final Meat Score - 937 out of 962.

Painting The Town Brown: Sides - the fries are cut medium-thick and (mostly) fried right to the point of having a little crisp to them without getting too crunchy. Both the garlic fries and chili fries were great, with the garlic getting especially high marks from everybody. The chili fries are the right mixture of meat, messiness and potato, and the onion rings ain’t too shabby either.

The general aesthetic of serving the sides in a plastic bowl with the white paper almost always works, and as you dig your way through the sides you get to see the beautiful grease transform the paper into an opaque window to glory. And Acme offers grilled corn on the cob - but we make it a rule not to pay for any vegetables that aren’t spending at least five minutes in a fryer. But hey, if that’s your thing…

If You Like It Put A Ring In It - Final Carb Score: 277 out of 291

Hope Springs Eternal: Aftermathing - Following our three-burgers-in-one-afternoon Chevy binge, we were all hoping for a burger that nestled into our bellies, made friends with the others and played nice, rather than showing up drunk on Jack Daniels, hitting on a married lady and telling jokes that consist mostly of racial slurs.

Acme Burgerhaus’ burgers not only didn’t cause any of us to run screaming for help, even the most ridiculous options didn’t cause turmoil. After eating the Carnivore I had plenty of energy and felt great, and therefore spent the day engaging in my favorite outdoor activities: hobo wrestling, late-night dice games and competitive breakdancing to the soothing sounds of Hall & Oates. Clearly, you can power down their entire 1/2 lb. burgers and still manage to exist as a beneficial member of society. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Activitation - Final Tummy ‘Splosion Score: a mild 13 out of 33.

Acme Burgerhaus is a nice, small-ish joint that takes pride in serving solid burgers with a few crazy options and some ridiculous specialty burgers (for the extreme!) - in a pleasant atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, another note on music. Most of the places we go have some sort of music playing, and we usually don’t notice. In one case, months ago, a decent burger was downgraded because they were playing the worst club-centric techno music imaginable. It’s hard to eat and enjoy a burger when you’re listening to the lastest MC Dubs-N-Scratchez album, “Sneakerz Full Of Funkkkk.”

However, whoever picked that playlist at Acme that day had apparently found my iPod from when I was 26, because it zipped me right back to my halcyon mid-20’s. The Shins, Strokes, Postal Service, Radiohead…it was like eating a burger in a hipster time machine, back to a time when I actually could consider wearing the lady-jeans you need in order to capture the perfect too-cool-for-school hipster vibe. I’m guessing that’s not the permanent playlist, but I enjoyed it, and what are we doing if not talking about me?

And one more quick note…the napkins.

Acme keeps their napkins readily available on the table, and they are strong - like bull! When you dive headfirst into a hearty burger and some fryriffic, golden brown goodies, you don’t want to have to keep pulling skimpy, weak napkins to wipe your face, hands and chest. If, y’know, you eat without a shirt. Which we prefer if at all possible.

Acme’s napkins are as strong as a Minnesota farm girl, the kind you meet while on the road and suddenly imagine settling down with, spending the 10-month-long winters making love and fixing ox carts in front of a raging fire while drinking 100-proof moonshine from a Mason jar. It’s a small thing, but one we appreciated. Nice work, Acme.

In a lot of ways, Acme’s burgers reminded us of one of our favorites, the Bullshead. As it turned out, we had a chance to talk to the owner of Acme’s, and he wooed us by saying two things. When George walked up to inquire if he was the man in charge, he slyly answered, “that depends - are you complaining?”

And upon further questioning, he told us that he grew up eating Bullshead burgers and loved them, and used them as inspiration for his own fare.

Acme offers a quality, high-end burger for a pretty durn cheap price, and they do it fast and with a laidback, friendly atmosphere. We all walked out of the place with big smiles on our faces and glad we’d spent some time shortening our lives at their fine establishment.

Acme gets a TOTALLY RECOMMENDED from the Burger Blog crew. The Western Addition isn’t the prettiest, most stylish or notable neighborhood, but now they have a burger joint to call their own that is definitely worth a visit.

And as we walked away, we came across a super-San Francisco-esque sight: A Prius covered in flower and butterly decals. Up there with a Chinese woman carrying a pink plastic bag filled with live fish on the bus or a guy who calls himself “Astroglide” playing a banjo version of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” during a parade of nude people, it was a reminder that we live in a city filled with delightful weirdness, strange mentalities and the occasional wonderful indulgences.

For exclusive content, fun pictures and random oddball postings, hook up with us on our Facebook page. And if you enjoy our nonsense, we’d appreciate it if you attached a link to your own Facebook, or passed it to like-minded friends who are as totally kewl as you.

Stay tuned until next time, my burger fiends…

Apocalyptoliciousness: Burgergeddon 2010 - The Redmeatening

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:00:00 -0400

Lo, many years ago when the tribe would gather to hear the telling of an epic tale, many things had to fall into place. Firstly, it had to be the feasting season - for no tale is heard well without a stomach full of boar, or buffalo, or elderly tribesman. Then, you had to have a roaring fire, because fire rules.

And thirdly, you had to have a wise old man (the one who escaped being eaten or sacrificed to the god of urinary tract infections) to tell that tale.

For this review, there will be no roaring fire. And I presume most of our readers peruse the site while avoiding work, so I doubt most of you are chocked full of delicious pig-meat. But you’ve got the storyteller (me!) who, although only 31-years-old, still rambles on and on like an old fart, and the conjoining of great forces in a quest to accomplish amazing feats of strength. Such as, eating three burgers in one day.

Above is a brand-spanking new 2010 Camaro - a beautiful car, and part of this journey. Your beloved Burger Blog crew was contacted a while back by Chevy - yes, that Chevy - with a simple offer. They provide the cars, we pick the restaurants and we all pile in - along with a sampling from some other awesome food reviewers - and we cruise the city eating burgers.

Seems simple, and awesome - and yet, a story about a midget hauling a ring to a volcano turned into a thousand-plus page book with talking trees. This trip was epic in all the ways we hoped, and not all of us escaped unscathed. So pull up your bloomers, settle in and prepare, my friends. This just got epic-ier.

The day started as we all gathered at the Civic Center plaza in downtown San Francisco. Speaking above is Dave from Chevy, who happens to be a darn nice dude AND hails from the same alma mater as yours truly, Michigan State University. See, when you spend some of your formative years learning how to make the grades, party and contend with eight steady months of pounding snowfall, you end up either becoming homicidal or really awesome. Dave (like myself) turned out awesome. Dave gave us a little intro, and then they had me talk to everybody…

…and after a riveting speech that I imagine in my head was similar to Mel Gibson’s pre-battle rant in “Braveheart” (and probably more like his ranting in recorded phone calls, but with more Irish-bashing - damn potato-eating bastards!) we all hopped into the cars for the first time, and off we went. To eternity. To glory. To lunch!

Our first location was one that we’ve been getting requests to try for ages, but the opportunity finally presented itself: Red’s Java House. Located under the shadow of the Bay Bridge on the Embarcadero next to the bay, Red’s has been hailed as a divey-riffic joint where you can grab a simple burger and a beer at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday by its fans, and as a pit of despair filled with fat alcoholics by detractors.

Red’s had been warned of our imminent arrival, and as such had a box of burgers ready to go. We all grabbed a sample and dug in while enjoying the view and the thrill of getting to ride around in cool cars eating hamburgers, which is really all my high school guidance counselor told me I’d be good at.

Red’s burgers are really as simple as they get - not much in the way of toppings or options, and the general atmosphere is you’ll eat it and like it, goshdarnit. They also serve every burger on sourdough bread, unless you ask otherwise, which isn’t ideal for most burgers. But, the simplicity and diveyness are part of the charm for those who swear by the joint, and also one of the main issues for those who would prefer to avoid Red’s.

In the name of keeping this whole thing under a billion words, we’ll get to all our typical specifics after we recap the journey…but you get the idea with Red’s. It’s definitely a love-it-or-leave-it kind of place, and part of the charm isn’t going to be the gourmet burgers they lovingly grind by hand, cook at a precise temperature and serve on fine china with a sprinkling of fairy dust and wishes.

Red’s also served us up a sampling of their chili burgers, which have to come in a container that enables you to eat it like soup, or if you’ve been drinking, a trough of burger and chili mixed up into a sobering meal that you can smear on your face as you contemplate all the awesome decisions you’ve been making.

Most of us enjoyed Red’s Java House, but we’re also admittedly fond of divey places run by old men who respond to complaints by jabbing you in the eye with the peg leg they got in Korea. But we’ll get to all the meaty quality stuff in a bit - for now, off to spot number two in our never-ending quest to show our colons who’s boss.

Our next location is one we’ve been contemplating for nigh on seventy years, or however long this blog has been going on. Set in a relatively nondescript neighborhood but covered in enough neon to make even the crappiest Vegas casino blush with inferiority, Joe’s Cable Car beckons diners to enter with promises of freshly-ground meat, one heck of an interior design scheme and plenty of enthusiasm on behalf of the owner and operator.

As if the exterior of the restaurant wasn’t enough to make a kid with A.D.D.’s head explode, we were greeted in the parking lot by Joe himself. Here he is, with Gil from Chevy, as we prepared to go for round #2…

Joe clearly loves his business, and he does it well. You can’t help but be excited walking into the place, because it looks like an obscene mixture of Chuck E. Cheese and the pleasure city in “Pinocchio.” You can even sidle up and take a look at his staff getting ready to grind up the meat.

And it wasn’t long after we walked in, that Joe got all like, “awww snap, it’s about to get all burgery up in this, dawgs.” He unleashed a torrential meatstorm at us like few others, and we were willing to throw down the gauntlet. Pacing be damned, here we go.

Joe served us a pretty hefty sampling of some of his biggest-selling burgers, along with some giant plates of fries and onion rings. Above is Joe and James with a regular Joe’s burger. Every burger comes with lettuce, tomato, onions, whole-egg mayo, pickles, Greek pepperoncini and a slice of fruit, in a nice nod towards healthfulness we often don’t even bother with, on account of living life a quarter-mile at a time on the way to cardiovascular specialists.

And George, giving us his best Price-Is-Right lady-pose with one of Joe’s burgers. You can definitely taste the quality of the meat in every burger, and once again the importance of grinding the burger fresh daily is proven. These things practically melt on your tongue like ice cream.

And Leila, with a heaping plate of oniony goodness. Joe’s sides are also tasty and fresh, and served with the same general enthusiasm Joe seems to bring to everything. The dude loves his restaurant, serving up quality burgers and is quite a character in general. He hung out the whole time we were there, and as usual George quickly struck up a conversation and became best buddies with the guy.

Actually, George became best buddies with just about everybody he ran into during this trip. That’s just how George rolls…and somehow, the universe keeps providing new friends who enjoy flying model airplanes, old military flight info and all the other factoids George stores in that curly-haired head of his.

Regardless, Joe doesn’t need to do much shilling or glad-handing to convince us about his food. These burgers are hellaciously good no matter how you slice it. Despite promising myself no more than half a burger at every stop, I ate half of a regular burger and half of a bacon burger at Joe’s, then Joe started handing out prizes…

…including beer mugs and other memorabilia. Then, he really attacked our digestive system and started handing out cups of his freshly-made milkshakes. Nothing like pounding a ton of meat, onion and potato into your body, then topping it off with a healthy serving of dairy.

However, the fine folks at Chevy had been prepared for such extremes - they even gave us all tupperware to stash the leftovers in, if we were smart enough to leave some on the plate.

Very good idea, and it also assured that by the time all of us had finished digesting the cubic ton of meat we’d eaten that afternoon, we’d get to enjoy some more.

Joe’s was a treat, and we all walked away happy - and full - from the place. Heck, his crazy design scheme even allowed for a lovely moment of old-school wife jokery…

Joe’s pushed your humble Burger Blog writer officially into the red zone, and even as I stepped out into the cool San Francisco air to saddle up towards our final destination, the meat sweats began to appear. Would we persevere? Was victory attainable?

From Joe’s we made our way towards the Pacific, but instead of being our getaway in a Shawshank-esque run of freedom and redemption, we were headed towards the Sea Breeze Cafe…a nondescript little eatery near the coast that was rumored to serve a mean burger.

The Sea Breeze put their best foot forward, and even welcomed us to the place with their owner as well, describing their efforts to keep their burgers from being a soggy mess - they order and grind their meat daily, and they came out swinging.

Much like Joe’s, the Sea Breeze served up a sampling of their most popular burgers. They even slipped in a veggie burger, which we quickly began chiding like it was the fat kid in grade school hoping to get picked for dodge ball. Much like that sad, chubby kid, it was just too big a target.

But to their credit, the Sea Breeze still came through with a pretty solid burger. They also order their bacon fresh daily, and then proceed to fry it like my grandmother…until it’s a hard, crispy block of pigfat that even somebody kosher would contemplate chewing on instead of bubblegum.

The Sea Breeze’s burgers aren’t soggy, that’s for sure - and even when tossed on top of all the other beef and carbs (and milkshakes) we’d consumed, was pretty darn tasty.

Heck, look at those two jaunty chaps. Not a care in the world, despite having eaten their weight (and yes, there’s plenty of it) in hamburgers.

The meat quality managed to impress us, despite achieving unholy amounts of it already in our tummies. The fries were decent and the staff was friendly. But we were definitely all hitting the wall. As we got to the end of the day I asked everybody to keep track of how long it took before they managed to eat again…Chris felt hungry a few hours later, ate some of his leftovers and regretted it immediately. James went the longest without eating, finally ordering some lunch with his family nearly 24 hours later. But hey - if you want to go down in history, you’ve gotta go the extra mile. Or at least, if you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough. That day was for only those with true grit, chaps.

But how did the places stack up against our typical, ultra-scientific criteria?

Meat Me In St. Meatis: Meat Quality

Red’s Java House isn’t going to wow anybody with the quality of their meat. If you’re the type who insists on only the finest to cram into your gaping maw, you’re going to be disappointed at Red’s. They do offer a double burger, which would be our advice if you’re stopping by. However, there’s plenty to like about Red’s, but we’ll get to that shortly. In the meantime:

Red’s Java House Meat Score: 5 out of 10

Joe’s Cable Car, on the other hand, is a beacon of beefrifficness. Joe is very specific about his meat, and he certainly isn’t shy about letting you know that he grinds his meat daily…

…and he plasters it everywhere. But deservedly so, because you can taste the difference immediately. The burger does almost melt on your tongue, and the flavor is pretty fantastic. Joe sets the bar pretty high, and proves that he’s not just about the hype.

Joe’s Cable Car Meat Score: 9 out of 10

The Sea Breeze Cafe came into the day as the underdog, and we honestly were not expecting much. But like Rocky, Babe the Pig and idiotic storytelling in “Avatar,” the Sea Breeze managed to surprise us and make us take notice. The quality of the meat was quickly evident from the first bite, and they weren’t joking when they say they order fresh daily to make their burgers. Above is George after his first bite, and he was very taken aback by just how good it was. The Sea Breeze isn’t the best burger in the city, but they aren’t fooling around. If you’re in the vicinity and looking for a good burger, the Sea Breeze won’t disappoint.

Sea Breeze Meat Score: 7 out of 10

Sittin’ Pretty: Atmosphere

All three of our locations on the trip offer very different types of dining experiences. Red’s Java falls into the beer-n-burgers category for those who only have a ten-spot in their wallet and need sustenance after being bailed out of jail following a knife fight at a warehouse casino. You get a basic burger, opt to either stay indoors or grab a seat outdoors on the pavement and hunker down for a burger.

Red’s is a good spot to grab a bite on your way to a baseball game, a midday snack when deep in the throes of a true San Francisco booze-a-thon (aka, somewhere between Irish coffee and the inevitable mystery drink at a tranny bar) or just plain looking for a cheap bite with a good view. There’s not many places you can find that, and therefore Red’s fills a hole in our foodsouls that even the broke-assiest of broke-asses can appreciate.

Red’s Atmosphere Score: 9 out of 10

Joe’s Cable Car would be a terrible place to walk into while crocked to the gills on acid. Not that I have any idea what that’s like (hi, mom!) or intend to find out, but much like his menu, Joe takes his plan for his restaurant to the hilt. Why have a few pictures on the wall, when you can have a billion? Why have a few strings of Christmas lights, when you can tack them up everywhere? Why put up a few neon signs, when you can cover every square inch in neon like the basement apartment of a divorced alcoholic father?

But to his credit, it’s not overwhelming or distracting. It’s just Joe’s, and the dude himself is so warm and welcoming that you find yourself just enjoying the experience and warming up to the whole thing. If you couldn’t guess from the standard length of these reviews, I appreciate a person who takes things to ridiculous, absurd lengths, common sense be damned. And because of that, I tip my hat of silliness to Joe - loved it, had a blast, drank a beer out of the mug.

Joe’s Cable Car Atmosphere Score: 10 out of 10

The Sea Breeze Cafe is much more of a local neighborhood kind of spot - nothing too flashy, and they clearly put the bulk of their presentation on the quality of the food more than anything. They’re within spitting distance of the ocean, and the general atmosphere reminded me a lot of restaurants I’ve eaten at near plenty of beaches after a few hours in the sun while in need of a bite. There’s nothing about the Sea Breeze that’s going to blow your mind, but if you’re in the neighborhood and in need of beef, you’ll find a comfy spot to grab lunch.

Sea Breeze Atmosphere Score: 6 out of 10

Carbtastically Beige: Side Dish Score

In am amazing feat of forgetfulness, even with two cameras on-hand we didn’t snap a picture of the fries at Red’s Java House. But, to be fair, they were clearly frozen and, while tasty, nothing that would surprise you. They reminded me of a McDonald’s-style fry, without the failure and shame. Thin, crispy and salty and a good companion to Red’s burgers, but nothing you couldn’t make at home with a bag of frozen goodies and a deep fryer - but if you’re like us, you know better than to own a deep fryer. That would be like signing an Obesity Contract with Diabetes Satan.

More than anything, Red’s is about the view and the atmosphere, and the fries drive that point home. As basic as it gets, and that’s how they like it.

Red’s Java House Final Side Score: 5 out of 10

Joe’s, on the other hand, goes for the gusto. Freshly cut fries, freshly battered onion rings, fried just before they’re brought to your table. If we learned anything that day, it’s either (a) Joe doesn’t screw around, or (b) always go to restaurants with a major automotive company, because you get treated like royalty. I’m willing to bet Joe isn’t one to screw around.

Joe’s Cable Car Final Side Score: 9 out of 10

The Sea Breeze offers up a steak-cut fry, and while tasty they weren’t as good as Joe’s. They did have a great saltiness to them, but after a few of those big potato hunks we were all reaching for gulps of water. The fries fall behind the burger in terms of being the star of the show, but that’s how it should be anyway. The fries are the equivalent of the bass player in most metal bands…yeah, they’re there, and we’d miss them if they were gone…but as long as they show up and plunk a few notes we won’t notice that they’re blitzed on Old Style and Jim Beam.

Final Sea Breeze Side Score: 6 out of 10

The Aftermathening: What Happens Afterwards

Few other blogs dare to go into the sensitive subject of what happens to you following a burger feast, but alas, I’d be hard-pressed to objectively analyze the aftermath of this epic journey. Following this day of meaty, salty indulgence, yours truly suffered a digestive apocalypse that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I doubt I could pinpoint the primary culprit - really, I ate around two pounds of red meat that day, topped off with fries, onion rings and milkshakes, and it would have been more remarkable if I didn’t feel like Old Elvis being body-slammed by 80’s-era Orson Welles. Most of our burgers were made from freshly-ground, specially-ordered meat, so in this case I’m just blaming the consequences purely on my own gluttony.

Final outcome: think twice before eating three burgers in the span of two hours.

The day in general reached levels of absurd awesomeness that would be very difficult to top. Hey, we got to ride around in cool cars through San Francisco and eat hamburgers until we were crammed to the rafters. How could it get better?

If we had to suggest the best burger of the day, that honor would go to Joe’s Cable Car. But all three offer something specific and enjoyable, and all three would have gotten a positive write-up if they had been visited on a solo run of our esteemed burger blog. Red’s has that special, dive-esque motif that we always seem to enjoy, and even when stuffed the Sea Breeze got us to cram in even more of their tasty burgers.

And with that, it’s time to wrap up this most epic of epic reviews. Even Moses couldn’t keep going for the whole 40 years. But wait, we’re not totally done…

Chevy also wrote up a recap, which you can find here (including video!): Chevy’s recap
There’s also a write-up from the SF Weekly: SF Weekly recap

You can find more content, including links to more of our burger compatriots, pictures and exclusive reviews, on our Facebook page. Like us, web-style!

And we do some twittering as well, if you’re into that.

A special thanks to the whole gang at Chevy, who hooked us up. Gil, Dave, and all the rest really made our day. To top the whole thing off, afterwards they let Chris and I borrow cars for a week - Chris took the hybrid Silverado truck, and yours truly got to ride around in the new Camaro. It was quite a ride, and we all enjoyed ourselves until you couldn’t peel the smile from our faces or the cholesterol from our heart valves. Thanks again, gang! It was truly a day that will go down in Burger Glory.

Open Wide And Say "Awesome!"

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:09:43 -0400

Is there a better holiday than the 4th of July? Once every year we all get to embrace our inner ‘mericans and celebrate the anniversary of our country being all like, “awww naw you didn’t, King!” by eating too much food, drinking enough beer to blind an Irishman and enjoying the warm weather.

Not that we have much in the way of seasons here in San Francisco. I know most of the country is experiencing a heat wave, in exchange for spending months and months buried under snow and having to wear layer after layer of sweaters, coats and wool hats. Instead, we San Francisco residents get to enjoy mostly mild, pleasant weather, in our Faustian bargain in which one day God/Xenu/Oprah will smite us all with an Earthquake or by eliminating Asian noodle restaurants from our food sources.

But in the meantime, yours truly got all up in that 4th holiday and ate my weight in wieners over the course of about four days, and I haven’t been able to say that since I went through a very confusing period in college around the time I discovered Morrissey. But I avoided burgers. Most of our crew even attended a barbecue prior to the 4th in which burgers were served, and while Chris went for one of the burgers, cooked to a delicious tartare-esque temperature, I stayed away - opting instead to wait for our review location.

It was difficult to conjure up the next location, because our prior review was a Sadness Parade consisting of nothing but hungover clowns and half-assed floats from banks. For a brief moment we even considered just ending the whole thing, because not only was our last review the very first time we had overwhelmingly negative things to say about burgers (gasp! ye gods!) but it made us question our very faith in humanity.

As we entered into that somber conversation, Joe brought up that he was considering walking the Earth solving mysteries as he hunted for his lost half-brother. George said he was thinking about becoming a backup singer for Lionel Richie, because “Hello” is his jam, yo. And Chris and James thought it was finally time to get back to their lifestyle of being street hustlers, attracting gentleman callers with nothing but a smile and a sly look on the street corner.

But we couldn’t throw in the towel that easily. This intrepid crew of burger crusaders knew it was time to pull up our bloomers, march back into the flames of burgerdition and prove once again that the world was safe for truth, justice and the right to put both bacon AND a fried egg on a hamburger.

So we looked around to find a spot that would help to reaffirm our hopes for humanity, with just a few bits of criteria: (a) it could be nowhere near a Barney’s, (b) it had to be very different from Barney’s and (c) Barney’s can suck it. That last one isn’t really criteria of any kind, but this is our list and we’ll make it however we want.

It was with those aspirations of greatness that our crew decided upon Big Mouth Burgers, located at 24th and Valencia in the Mission area of San Francisco. They do have a second location in San Bruno, and the place has a decent word-of-mouth. But not a single one of us had tried the place. Even yours truly, who finds himself somewhat frequently on the hunt for tasty food in the Mission area after crushing many cups of ye olde Pabst Blue. But in my defense, there’s a pretty great cheesesteak restaurant next door which always lured my inebriated tastebuds in prior to making it into Big Mouth.

But with all of our merry band ready to go, we brushed our hands off like Popeye after proving violence solves everything and walked into Big Mouth in search of some tasty eats.

Right off the bat the mood in Big Mouth was different from Barney’s - mostly, they seemed happy to see customers. In fact, we were greeted like conquering heroes by the staff, and only three of us were wearing viking helmets.

It’s a pretty easygoing setup for the joint, which is ideal for lunch or fueling up before heading out to the bars. You walk in, order and pay at the counter and then grab a seat while they cook your burger, practically right in front of you.

Big Mouth has a few specialty burgers on their menu, including one called “The Hangover” - but, more on that later. You can also build your own burger from their list of ingredients, including a choice of bun. They do a standard 1/2 pound patty, which we - and our aortas - salute them for. And while they do not grind their meat on the premises daily, we were told by the staff they order fresh meat daily. And they DO handle their fries in-house daily.

Already, things were looking up. We all made our selection and waited with bated breath, in the hopes of Big Mouth hitting a home run into our heart-holes.

Big Mouth isn’t going to win any awards for Best Decor, but it is a pleasant little burger joint with some personality, which we’ll take any day over well-scrubbed shiny newness and trendy signs on the bathrooms. Sodas come in cans, they have a couple of beers on tap and the decorations on the wall were probably showing their age when Reagan made the transition from complacent, bewilderingly-popular governor to complacent, bewilderingly-popular President.

Toppings on the table are the basicest basic to ever basic: ketchup, mustard, salt and pepper. What kind of ketchup and mustard? No idea, nor did it prove to be much of a deterrent to enjoying our meals.

The Big Mouth kitchen is almost completely in the same room as the dining area, so you can hear - and watch, if you’re so inclined - them make your food. This isn’t something I’m always necessarily excited about, since it seems to pop up mostly at places like Taco Bell or Subway, which usually means you’re either eating a chalupa while hungover all by your lonesome, or watching an angry philosphy major throw together your Cold Cut Combo on a lunch break. But not so with Big Mouth…their cooks know their way around a burger, fries and onion rings.

Speaking of, onion rings! Barney’s didn’t have any, and we were all getting perilously low on our blood levels of battered-and-fried vegetables. We always order them wherever we can, but this time we didn’t even discuss it beforehand and we ended up getting somewhere in the realm of 73 orders. They use a beer batter on their rings and serve them with a tiny tub of Ranch dressing, but they don’t really need the extra creamy “oomph” to your cholesterol. Very tasty onion rings, with no complaints.

Before we could get all the rings crammed into our crammy-holes, our food began to arrive en masse. Lay back and enjoy, because we’re about to ravish you with hot meat between buns.

For George’s momentous return to the flock, he went hellbent for leather and got…his usual! Hooray for routine! George got his standard regular burger, cooked medium-rare. Big Mouth does their burgers medium-rare as the standard, another point in their favor and what most of us prefer, although you can order it cooked however you want. The burgers come with lettuce, onions, pickles and tomato on the side for you to compile as you see fit and come with an order of their fries.

Gaylord James got the regular Big Mouth Burger, topped with swiss cheese, their spicy chipotle mayo and bacon. A word on Big Mouth’s bacon - you go, Big Mouth. This place has their bacon prep down cold, and they throw quite a bit of it at you. The bacon is crispy without being overly fried and flavorful without taking over the burger. Plus, there’s a ton of it. Personally I haven’t enjoyed bacon on a burger this much since our very first review at Pearl’s Deluxe, way back in the summer of 1912.

Marci ordered up a Big Mouth Burger as well, and opted to go with the spicy chipotle and some barbecue sauce for her toppings. She went with the wheat bun too, just to give it a try.

Joe ordered the wheat bun for his Big Mouth Burger too - then negated any good that may have done by topping it with pepperjack cheese, spicy chipotle and the sweet porky goodness of Big Mouth’s bacon.

Leila…well, Leila was our special little girl on this trip. When she looked at the menu, she didn’t understand that “The Californian” didn’t actually come with meat. What it does come with is eggplant, red and green peppers and red onions marinated in rosemary and olive oil and grilled with provolone cheese on a foccacia bun with pesto sauce. Leila opted out of the eggplant and went with mushrooms instead, but when it came to the table and she realized there was no meat, she made a sad face like a kid who was just told they couldn’t get into the sandbox because somebody had made a boom-boom.

Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t a tasty sandwich - it was. Now, associates have asked if they can tag along on a burger trip, and if it’s okay if they order a turkey burger or - blegh - a veggie burger. And we always respond the same way - you go to hell with your turkey burger or veggie burger. If you want to order that, you go hang out with the San Francisco vegan loser blog, where you can judge meals based on how much karmic damage you did or how much it warmed your heart chakra. This is about burgers made from cows, and the more hopes and dreams the cows had prior to being turned into burgers the better.

But Leila won’t be kicked out…yet. If you know Leila, you know nothing made her more disappointed than seeing that tray come out without a meat patty on it. She stopped just shy of tears, but then asked me for a strip of bacon from my burger to add to her meal, so she could avoid going without any meat whatsoever.

And speaking of my burger…Chris and I both decided to dream the impossible dream and to soar with the eagles for this one. We both got The Hangover, Big Mouth’s specialty burger that takes the others, slaps it around and makes it want to order body-building courses from the back of a comic book.

Sit right back and I’ll tell you a tale, kiddies. Take a half-pound burger. Then top it with some American cheese, the most kickass of cheeses. Then throw a fried egg on top of that, cooked sunny-side up but not too runny. Then slather the bun with the spicy chipotle mayo, for a little extra richness and creaminess. Then take it to the limit and show nature who’s boss by throwing three fat strips of bacon on top.

It’s hard to tell if we were all enjoying our burgers so much because they were totally awesome, or if we were just overjoyed to not be eating at Barney’s…but I’m going to give Big Mouth the benefit of the doubt, because these were some hellaciously solid burgers.

Beefriffic Dreams Of Meatness: once again, they do not grind their meat in-house, but they do order fresh every day and handform their patties themselves. Their grill crew is also well-versed in the art of beef-karate, as they were cooked perfectly to order for the whole gang.

These weren’t the bestest, most amazing burgers we’ve eaten - but Big Mouth has no shame in their game. This is as formidable - and tasty - a lunch burger as we’ve seen, and for plenty of bang for your buck. The Hangover comes in at $9.75, and then comes with fries - and that’s the priciest burger on the menu. For a price like that a gentleman can take out his lady escort for a bite, and still have plenty left over for two glasses of brandy and a horse carriage ride to the clock tower.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Beef Score: 36 hooves out of 42.

Carbs carbs carbs: you can’t go wrong with a place that chops up their own fries, and Big Mouth certainly does it well. Chris got a glimpse into their backroom where all the chopping takes place, and it was a welcome change from the usual backroom situation Chris finds himself in - large men in leather bodysuits dancing to techno music with right-wing propaganda on the walls. Instead, it was a haven of potatoness, where wishes turn into rainbows prior to inspiring naptime in the tummies of all who venture nearby.

The onion rings are also tasty - the beer batter is flavorful but still retains the oniony goodness that inspires your lovers to plant sloppy kiss after sloppy kiss on you. They serve the rings with the Ranch dressing mini-tub, but it’s not really necessary unless you’re, like, totally into ranch, brah. Both the rings and fries get high marks…

Golden Brown Till We Die - Final Carb Score: 11 jiggly chins out of 14.

Overall Motif-Ness: Big Mouth Burger has that somewhat-crammed feeling of a nice local joint you could imagine swinging by regularly if you lived in that neighborhood. It’s not huge or polished to a shiny perfection, but it is welcoming and warm and pleasant, which was aided by the nice reception we got when we walked in.

All the burgers also come served on a small-ish silver pizza pan with the yellow paper, which really helps to make you feel like Lord Dionysus upon your sofa of meat.

Big Mouth isn’t a First Date kind of place, unless you’re starting an awesome relationship with somebody you met at an Iron Maiden concert in the beer line who was punching another dude in the face for cutting in front of them. If that’s the case, head over to Big Mouth to carb up before you go get gnarly at a Gwar show and see who can get covered in more fake blood before being sacrificed to the Sex Worm. And if you are familiar with any of that, let me say hello to those fellow miscreants who wasted their youth.

But for those who never got bodyslammed by a 330-lb. hairy and shirtless mechanic at a concert where most of the lyrics involved hobbits and wizards, you’ll want to take a date there when you’re at that magical period a few months in, when you no longer pretend the other one doesn’t fart or have an illogical fear of zebras or whatever weird stuff people come up with nowadays. I have no idea anymore; I’ve been married for nearly three years and we’re just perfecting the body-grooves in our bed and learning how to master pretending how to look like we’re listening.

Decor el Amor: 77 spatulas out of 91.

Look Upon Me, And Know Thy Future: as always, it’s important to note how a place makes you feel after eating it. Because we’ve said multiple times that this is a really solid lunch spot - but they are serving half-pound burgers, and nothing can make an afternoon of work less tolerable than having a gestating 1/2 lb. of meat inside your tummy, summoning you to plant your face on your desk to see if beef-sweat can finish that spreadsheet in time for the annual report while you catch a few z’s.

A good contingent of our gang did the smart thing and cut their burgers in half prior to their first bites. Yours truly decided the Hangover required more dedication, and therefore went for it like a champion. And I was enjoying myself so much that I present to you the Worst Picture Ever for the Burger Blog thus far, and that’s saying a lot considering James always looks like a goon…

About 20 minutes after finishing The Hangover, I could feel the desire to sleep washing over me like the waves of constricted blood flowing out of my heart valves. I could probably have seen that coming, but the burger was so tasty I couldn’t help myself. Chris had the same experience with his, and everybody that finished their burger reported similar results. Those who cut it in half (and Leila, who chose poorly) had no such issues.

If you’ve got stuff to do and you’re not a competitive eater, chop it in half. I would imagine that if I walked in around 9 p.m. with a belly full of booze (aka “happy juice”) it wouldn’t be such a devastating blow to the nervous system, but you’ll probably be better served by planning on taking out a doggy bag. That said, the meat didn’t make anybody feel bad - just sleepy. It was just so tasty we couldn’t help ourselves, and we paid the price because of it.

Wreckx-N-Effect - Final Aftermath Score: 54 Tummy ‘splosions out of 66.

Final Awesomesessment: Damir (pictured with George above) welcomed us with open arms. We all found stuff we enjoyed on the menu and the food was cooked just how we wanted it. We all laughed and had fun and really enjoyed our meal and we did it all for a pretty cheap price. Big Mouth isn’t the greatest burger you’ll ever eat, but you will have no regrets for stopping by to sample their wares. In fact, I’ve been craving another of those Hangover burgers ever since, and I’ll be back soon to scratch that itch.

Big Mouth gets a TOTALLY RECOMMENDED from the Burger Blog. Thanks to the whole crew for the tasty meal. You restored our faith in not only burgers, but in mankind. With this trip we are once again renewed in our quest to eat our way through every burger we can get our greasy, sloppy hands on. And seriously - if you’re going for the first time I would totally get the Hangover. Both Chris and I were happy campers, even if it did hit me like the Sandman with a gallon of Nyquil.

With that, so closes our 11th review. Thanks to our readers, and if you enjoy the Burger Blog you can also join us via our other locations on the intertubes, where we post even more nonsense just for the heck of it. And hey - tell your friends! We’d appreciate it, and why not share the gift of ways to waste time with those you love?

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And ladies and gents, stay tuned. Our next review will be one for the ages, as we have something special planned that we can’t wait to show you. We’re totally pumped for what’s coming, and it’s going to be an epic entry in a blog series that we think stands as the most epic of burger blogs on the web. It’s going to be awesome.

The Tenth Dispatch From The Pit Of Despair: Mellow Marina Musings

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:58:00 -0400

San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods. And which of those neighborhoods you prefer says something about you as a person. If you enjoy sitting on sidewalks, having the aroma of marijuana waft through the air constantly and bathing only sporadically, then you should go hang out in the Haight. If you spend your free time talking about Lady Gaga, using the word “twink” a lot and finding new and trendier ways of distressing your jeans, you should be in the Castro.

“But wait,” you’re wondering. “I’m a 30-something trophy wife who enjoys pushing my baby around in a high-end stroller while I wear the trendiest workout gear with no intention whatsoever of actually working out, opting instead to go shopping in expensive boutiques. Where do I go?”

Or maybe you’re asking, “I’m a 20-something trust fund bro-dawg who likes to pretend I’m a mixture of Bradley Cooper, George Clooney and Pepe LePew. I really like to hang out in nice areas where there’s plenty of parking for my Lexus that my parents bought me to celebrate that one month where I paid my own rent, so I can chillax and look awesome in my slim-cut suit that’s never been in an office. Where should I be hangin’, brah?”

Well, you lords and ladies, hop in your BMW, make sure your dad paid off your Amex black card bill and get your loudest shouting-into-my-phone voice ready, and head on over to the Marina!

The Marina isn’t shy about being San Francisco’s home of Botox and over-inflated ego, either. Here’s a description straight out of the SF Gate:

“If you’re looking for diversity or an edgy or progressive feel, the Marina probably isn’t your neighborhood. Overall, this is the land of SUVs, chic fashion and killer spa treatments. Love it, or leave it to the pretty young things who call it home or home-away-from-home.”

The Marina is the place where you can see somebody so sure of their importance that they will not only double-park their Range Rover on a busy street, but do so while blocking an intersection so they can casually load or unload their vehicle…

…or you can listen to somebody complain about how they couldn’t manage to preorder the iPhone 4 to replace their nine-month-old iPhone 3GS. I mean, c’mon - right now when they take a picture of themselves doing something awesome, they have to literally turn their phone around in their hand like a peasant. It’s enough to make somebody get into their Audi and drive all the way into wine country to sample glass after glass of the finest, most expensive vintages.

And it is here, my burger brethren, where we set our tale. It’s a bone-chilling, terrifying yarn that will send most of you rushing into the Mission to guzzle cheap bourbon with skinny-pantsed Band of Horses lookalikes or North Beach to watch a grizzled drunk cry by himself in front of City Lights Bookstore. And for those who live in the Marina…well, who are we kidding? They stopped reading ages ago in favor of getting back to talking about how amazing they are.

For a while now, the occasional e-mail would float into my inbox suggesting we stop by Barney’s Gourmet Hamburgers. The Marina has a slew of restaurants, the popularity of which seems to hinge on how much seating they have in visible, prevalant areas where Marina residents can sit for hours, posing for the plebian passerby who dares to inhabit their enchanted airspace. But much like our fighting men and women march into battle without question for the good of our country, so did we sneak our way behind the velvet rope of inherited wealth and found a table at Barney’s to sample the grub.

Much like the majority of restaurants in the Marina, Barney’s has a well-scrubbed veneer of new-businessey polish all over it, from the perfectly stained windows to the most current signage to the attractive waitresses whose uniform seems to be the tightest white t-shirt they can find.

They have both indoor and outdoor seating, and we opted to go outdoors for our meal. We were literally the first customers of the day, because when your restaurant sits in an area where people are either sleeping off the champagne hangover until Noon or meeting with their personal trainer so they can look really good for that job interview they totally plan on having someday, you don’t get a lot of traffic until later.

Even so, our waitress managed to maintain a great sense of disdain towards us, allowing us to realize that we were nowhere near as special or wonderful as the precious snowflakes who wander in to slum with a trendy burger.

Barney’s also has a decent menu of options, from burgers to sandwiches and salads. At least, it’s a decent-looking menu. But I suppose just about everything in the Marina looks great. Whether or not it has any value or soul to it, however…

To start we ordered a variety of sides to sample. Barney’s makes no qualms about their burgers having to be cooked for about 10-15 minutes, and the sides all came out prior to the burgers.

Their regular fries come in either steak or “skinny” fry options, as though eating a deep-fried potato product should ever coincide with the word skinny. We got the steak fries, some skinny fries with a bit of garlic and then an order of the spicy curly fries.

The curly fries had a nice bite to them, but all of this stuff was clearly frozen prior to being dipped in the Fry-O-Later. They also serve the curly fries with a few tubs of ranch dressing, and although I think at this point the American flag could probably be altered to be a McDonald’s logo having sex with a Wal-Mart logo over a river of ranch, it always raises suspicion when served with food other than salad. I know some people enjoy it, but people also liked listening to the Backstreet Boys, and we all see where that got them.

The regular fries - both steak and skinny - were all right. If you haven’t touched a carbohydrate in six months they’ll probably taste fantastic, but at this point in the burger review game if you can’t make ‘em fresh, you’re probably only going to get mediocre ratings at best on the sides.

And hey - no onion rings! Yes, they have sweet potato fries (didn’t try ‘em) and a basket of fried vegetables on the menu, but no actual onion rings. C’mon, Barney’s - it’s not like you’d have to hire somebody else to chop and batter the onion rings. Just make some space in the freezer and get with the times.

Barney’s includes a slew of condiments on the table for you to dress up your burger, including the dreaded A-1:

There are members of my family who like A-1. There are members of the Burger Blog team who like A-1. But as far as I’m concerned, putting A-1 on beef is the equivalent of waking up in your racecar bed, washing your hair with a bar of soap and putting on your best extra-baggy Daffy-Duck-In-Hip-Hop-Gear t-shirt to wander on down to the annual Cornpone-N-Hamhocks Festival to win yourself a Ratt mirror to admire yourself in. Beef should taste like beef, especially if you’re advertising your meat as organic Niman Ranch. If people just want to drench their burger in A-1 they can just swing through a McDonald’s on the way home from work and eat it the way God intended…standing alone at their kitchen counter in the dark.

Shortly after we finished the fries, out came our burgers. What is best in life, you ask? To crush your burgenemies, and see them driven before you. And now for the lamentations of the women.

Joe went with the Chipotle Burger - Jack cheese topped with spicy chipotle sauce, fresh red onion, tomato, lettuce & pickles, cooked medium well. In a move that surprised all of us, not a single one of the Burger Bloggers ordered an option that included bacon. This may be a first for us, and I would research further but my left arm seems to be numb for some reason.

However, we won’t allow the swine to get too comfortable…Chris got the Maui Waui, with grilled pineapple & Canadian bacon smothered in teriyaki glaze. While it’s not the ‘Merican bacon we all know and love and would bathe in if not for the unholy consequences, and while we should all fear our gravy-loving neighbors to the North, I’m glad we could maintain a record of having at least one of us include a pork product in each and every review spot. Chris gets his burgers medium rare, but Barney’s seems to favor overcooking a bit. More on that later.

Leila got the Greek Burger - lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado & Feta cheese in pita bread. Upon her first bite, Leila thrust her hand forward with her thumb extended sideways. The burger’s fate was now in her hands…would she approve and lift her thumb to the sky and the glory of the gods, or downwards and send it to Hades to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity? Read onwards and find out!

Marci got all healthy on us yet again by ordering the Sunshine Burger - sprouts and avocado on toasted whole wheat bread. It’s supposed to come with cheese, but Marci opted out of the dairy. Kids these days, I tell ya.

James got hisself a Blackened Burger, which Barney’s says they blacken with only the finest of Louisiana Cajun dust, which may be a euphamism for speed purchased at a truck stop outside Shreveport from a Waffle House waitress prior to a 19-hour haul to Texarkana. The burger also comes with a red onion, tomato, lettuce and pickle, and James added a slice of cheddar like the Yankee he is.

And like the proud conqueror I am, yours truly sharpened his broadsword, shined up his best chainmail and ordered up the Big Barney’s Burger - a one-pound patty served on a French baguette with red onion, tomato, lettuce and pickle. While I may not have gotten bacon, I think I can hold my head up proudly. At least, the guys at the table next to us were impressed, but that could also be because prior to the first bite I took my shirt off, beat my chest and then toppled over their table while screaming “Victory!!!” over and over again, in my typical Alpha Male style.

Well, maybe not. Possibly because of this blog (and also because of KFC’s nefarious Double Down sandwich) this beach season is a downer for your humble burger blog writer. Eating all these burgers has really put a damper on my typical Adonis-esque body, not to mention my Go-Go Boy career. The chaps just don’t look the same anymore, and old Mr. O’Leary isn’t as quick with the twenties as he used to be.

Although Barney’s website has a slew of positive reviews available for you to read, they don’t include much info, such as the typical size of the patties. I’d have to say most of their burgers are a 1/3 lb., and I wanted to ask our waitress but she seemed perturbed when we asked for boxes for the leftovers, so I figured I could track it down afterwards instead of bothering Queen Fussypants.

Barney’s also says they will not serve rare meat, but as far as we could tell they won’t serve anything medium rare, either - those of us who asked for our burgers cooked at medium rare were served something more akin to medium, and even medium well. Each person’s preference is their own, eat ‘em how you dig - but if a place is going to serve organic Niman Ranch beef and then grill it to the consistency of Joan River’s face, why bother with the Niman Ranch?

Mo Better Beef: all of Barney’s burgers are made with all-natural free-range Niman Ranch ground chuck. It doesn’t appear that they grind their meat daily on the premises, and as I pointed out above they tend to overcook it anyway. Even as I took on the pound of meat on my own burger, I found I wasn’t really getting much of the typical burgery visceral thrill out of it, and overall it was pretty mediocre. At some of the other places we’ve eaten, if you had put a full pound of burger in front of me it would have been like a rabid tiger getting thrown a raw steak. But Barney’s inspired nothing more than a resounding “meh” from myself, and most of us agreed the burgers would rate very solidly at the bottom of our current menagerie of reviews.

Final Beef Score: Barney’s has what looks like a decent selection of specialty burgers, and they seem to be going with a pretty great cut of meat. But to quote the cigar-chomping showbiz agent from a 1940’s Looney Tune that plays over and over in my head, “ya just ain’t got IT, kid.” In a burger world of fire eaters, sword swallowers and bearded ladies, Barney’s burger is a subpar ventriliquist whose twirling bow tie just can’t seem to squirt water anymore. Sorry, Barney - 31 beef tongues out of 112.

Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns: Barney’s is a chain, but more of a localized chain - they’ve got two locations in San Francisco and four more around the East Bay. I’ve been told each one is a little different, but the Marina locale is a nice-looking spot, and it’s certainly nice to have the option of sitting outside. But the combo of the waitress (who must have just broken up with her boyfriend, had her car repoed and dropped her phone in the toilet just prior to walking up to our table) and the general attitude of the Marina clientele we were surrounded by turned what should have been a pleasant lunch into waiting in line for a Porta-Pottie at a Tractor Pull.

First we had a group of ladies seated nearby whose conversation seemed to revolve around loudly talking at one another about the hardships of explaining things to people within the service industry, then treating the staff at Barney’s as though they were convicted sex offenders on work release. On their patio Barney’s has umbrellas, and one of the ladies first asked if they would open the umbrella nearest their table, then waved it away saying something like, “I don’t like it, get rid of it” when it displeased her.

Then a group of bro-dudes was seated right next to us, and all they could talk about was what microbrew was best for bro’ing at lunch so they wouldn’t be too bro’d out at work afterbro’s. After five minutes of that you feel as though you’re trapped in a frathouse during a Madden Xbox marathon whose winner gets to pick what pledge they want to kiss.

Why’d She Have To Walk Into Mine: I’m trying very hard not to judge Barney’s specifically on the neighborhood and the general attitude in the Marina, but as far as atmosphere you’re contending with the verbal equivalent of a loud fart in church. Even if the burgers had been overwhelmingly tasty, you’re still surrounded by Marie Antoinettes screeching into their Blackberries about, “Like, they should just, like, eat cake or something.” Once again, Sorry Barney - Final Atmosphere Score: 3 rays of sunshine out of 37.

These Carbs Just Got Real: We’ve had frozen sides before, and they can still be pretty darn tasty once they’ve been magically dipped in boiling grease and served to the table. If you prefer your carby goodness with your burger, you’d better ask for it, though - otherwise they’ll throw your selection into the fryer immediately and bring it out before your burger arrives. Of the selections we tried, the “skinny” fries were the weakest, with the steak fries a bit ahead and the spicy curly fries out in front. However, none of them are anything remarkable or Earth-shatteringly delicious enough to warrant a trip specifically to Barney’s.

Final Carbrifficliciousness: four Potato Heads out of nine.

It Was The Best Of Times - The After-Effects: while Barney’s and its clientele clearly left a bad taste in my mouth, the quality of the beef meant no disastrous stomach issues following the meal. So, if you enjoy eating overcooked hamburgers while seated next to shrill, unpleasant people, afterwards you’ll feel great as you flee the scene like a bank robber! Always a bonus!

It Was The Worst Of Times - Final After-Effects Score: Three weekends in wine country out of four.

So, should you give Barney’s a try? I’m told the other locations are pleasant, but given our experience at their Marina restaurant you’d probably have to tie my leg to a cannonball and shoot it into their patio to get me back there. It turns out Joe and Marci used to stop by Barney’s regularly, until they joined the Burger Blog and started trying all the other great spots we’ve eaten at and then they quit frequenting the joint. And in Marci’s words, Barney’s makes a burger that you’d probably be happy with at home - but not up to what you’d expect from a place calling itself “gourmet hamburgers.”

Barney’s must be doing something right, because you don’t expand to six locations without pleasing some of your visitors on a regular basis. But after our meal and going for a short walk around the Marina, all I could think about was finding a burger in some dirty dive served to me by somebody who barely spoke English that we’d eat on a plank of plywood stacked on an old chicken coop while somebody outside begged for change wearing a stained Lucha Libre mask.

You win, Marina. Short of jokingly voting me in as prom queen and dumping pig’s blood all over me, I get the message. I’m neither pretty enough, nor self-assured enough in my own awesomeness to hang out in you, and I live a pretty leisurely veal-calf-esque lifestyle. But your burgers suit you - they say all the right things, they look sexy and you want them to like you; but then you dig in and find out they’re unsatisfying and empty and you feel dirty for giving in.

In a city filled with interesting options, Barney’s isn’t going to give you anything remarkable or surprising. We’ve never done this before, but it’s gonna have to be a Skip It. Yes, we may be obvious in preferring places with a bit of grime on them - but I’ll take the dirty character over scrubbed faux-perfection anyday.

And with that, so ends our tenth review! Thanks to everybody who’s been with us for all this time, and especially those who send links to their friends and family and have been spreading the word. We appreciate all the kudos, and here’s to many more reviews of beef between bread.

Movin' On Up - Finally Got A Piece Of The Burger Pie

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:18:00 -0400

You asked for it. You begged us for it. You demanded it. You got passive-aggressive about it and said something like, “I’m glad you enjoy ignoring me so much, it must be fun for you.” You got bitter and said you’d go read somebody else’s blog about hamburgers. Then you came crying back, because ain’t nobody got the goods like us, baby. We’re sorry we hit you, it won’t ever happen again, baby - we swear.

But it could not be ignored. Sitting on one of the top floors of one of the biggest shopping centers in San Francisco, like a beacon of deliciousness, was Burger Bar. Created by a famous chef and offering some of the finest meats available, we knew that eventually we’d have to take it on and see what they had to offer. Today was that day. Each and every one of us woke up this morning, pulled up our big boy (and girl) pants and prepared ourselves for the quest.

In fact, just about every single one of us avoided all but basic nutrition up until the point we walked into Burger Bar. Personally, I had some yogurt and an apple. James only had seven strips of bacon and one stack of pancakes at breakfast, and he typically throws at least a half-dozen eggs on the stack before coating it in syrup and whiskey. But we were all very excited for this one. Here’s James at work, just a few minutes before we left for Burger Bar:

James is either counting the seconds until the meal, or auditioning for the role of “Hectic Lawyer #2” in an upcoming episode of “Law and Order: Hospital Patrol.”

To get to Burger Bar you have to go through Macy’s in Union Square. However, there’s a special elevator to take you directly to the restaurant on the 6th floor so you can feel like a Fat Batman on your way to the Calorie Cave.

We all giddily climbed into the exclusive “Burger Bar” elevator. But the class did not end there, friends…

That’s right - there’s even a sign on the correct button. So even if you’re 93-years-old, recovering from a boxing match and you’ve been freebasing Oxycontin for three days straight, you’d still have a hard time NOT finding your way up to Burger Bar.

And once you get off the elevator, it’s all sunshine and roses.

If you’re looking for the perfect view to enjoy a burger, Burger Bar ranks pretty high. I can only think of a few other options that might be better.

(a) the bow of an ocean liner traveling the Pacific at a table with Abraham Lincoln, Olivia Munn and a drunk Ghandi.

(b) the driver’s seat of your new Lamborghini as you run over the worst boss you ever had and cops nearby cheer you on.

(c) a never-ending loop in which you relive the final scenes of “Rocky,” “The Karate Kid” and “Rudy” thanks to a Wizard.

The crew at Burger Bar put a couple tables together for us immediately and seated us next to the window. Being that we’re all ballers who tip in gold kruggerands, we often comment to one another that it would be interesting to find out what the “common people” do in their spare time. This excellent view of Union Square allowed us to see just that, but from afar like nature intended. Turns out, they mostly eat sandwiches while sitting on grass, talk on their phones or, in the case of one disheveled gentleman, wander back and forth on the same 20 feet of sidewalk and yell at other people for about 90 minutes at a time.

True to the name, Burger Bar features a fully-packed supply of liquor. As we all hunkered up to the table and began perusing the menu, a few of us ordered beers. They also offer specialty milkshakes - AND specialty milkshakes with liquor, which none of us tried. While we’re chocked full of true grit and dedicated to our quest, pounding down a half-gallon of dairy and liquor combined is more of a Friday activity than a Tuesday-at-lunch thing. Well, not always - but I had things to do that afternoon that included driving and talking without slurring. Next time, I promise.

We also ordered up some of Burger Bar’s basic fries and onion rings while we took the time to peruse their extensive menu. Both the onion rings and fries were very tasty - fried to the point of perfect crispiness and very flavorful. The onion rings were even done so well that they didn’t have that trait of, when you bite into them, the onion inside pulls out of the batter and causes you to have a slimey trail down your face - not to mention leaving you with a handful of circle-shaped fried batter. Although I think at this point in American cuisine we’re just counting down to the first restaurant offering a basket of nothing but fried batter to dip into a gallon of buttermilk ranch and selling it as a side to a double-fried chicken steak sandwich.

And it did take us a while to make our decisions. Burger Bar has a few specialty burgers on the menu to choose from, but they also have a pretty epic Do-It-Yourself menu. You pick a type of meat and then select from toppings as varied as cheddar cheese to foie gras. They also have a Surf-And-Turf burger where they top the half-pound patty of beef with a lobster tail. Kudos to you for sheer ridiculousness, Burger Bar.

For a full look at all the options, which is pretty huge, you can go to Chef Hubert Keller’s website. One burger we all took note of - but nobody was willing to pony up for - was the “Rossini.” For $60, you can get a Kobe beef burger covered in sauteed foie gras and truffles and then drizzled in a rich sauce. Personally, I think this burger should only be eaten while seated at a table by yourself, wearing a tuxedo and a silk sash with “Champion of the World” written on it and facing the window, and you occasionally walk up to the glass and look at all the people NOT eating the Rossini and loudly shout, “VICTORY!!!”

After much deliberation we all made our choices. Extend your pinkies and open wide, babycakes. Here comes the burgergasm.

Above is Leila’s burger - Country Natural beef on a Country Nut bun with mozzarella cheese, baby spinach greens and a pesto sauce cooked medium. Every burger is a standard 8 oz. (half pound) patty, and you choose from six types of bun. But look at that gooey, oozy goodness. Every burger also comes with lettuce, onion, tomato and pickle.

At this point no regular reader has to wonder what George got, but he did go for the gusto with the burger and ordered the Kobe Beef. The Kobe cows spend their lives being massaged and told they’re special and how someday they’re going to be something, and not just a graduate from a state school - they’re going to the Ivy League! In other words, they’re allowed to have hopes and dreams, and that brief glimpse of happiness helps to turn their flesh into melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness once they’re properly butchered and transformed into burger.

And for those new to the blog, George always gets a plain burger with fries. He got his Kobe medium-rare on a sesame bun.

Yours truly went with the Country Natural beef, medium-rare, topped with Monterey Jack cheese and a fried egg (I rule) on the Ciabatta bun. It was funny that we all spent so long debating what to order, because we had all spent hours earlier IM’ing one another about what we were going to get. After looking at the menu for fifteen minutes I went with exactly what I’d decided on ages ago, but it sure is fun to peruse and consider all the options. And I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t get any pork products on this burger, but I couldn’t deny the fried egg. For the record, the egg was perfect for the burger - one little push on the bun and the yolk broke and dripped down the sides of the burger and soaked into the top of the bun.

Just looking at that picture makes me want to do a jig of happiness. But I better not, for fear of sweating and breathing heavily.

James is nothing if not a middle-aged female housewife who enjoys cuteness, and so he went with Burger Bar’s special sliders. The three mini-burgers are all made with different kinds of meat. One is buffalo with caramelized onions, another is an Angus with plain bacon and the third is Country Natural beef with American Cheese. All come on a standard bun, and James decided to try the thick-cut fries. Not only are the burgers delicious, they are petite enough to allow for maximum dandy foppery.

Chris swung for the fences on his selection - Kobe beef, medium-rare with Swiss cheese on the Ciabatta. Upon his first bite he was completely in love, so much so that he quickly told James that he had to take a piece of the meat to try. James obliged, and after trying a small piece just said something like, “it really does just melt in your mouth!” To which I creepily said, “it’s like the meat gave itself to you.” Then Joe laughed. And we all learned a valuable lesson about ourselves. Mostly that we have twisted senses of humor.

Speaking of Joe and his evil Italian heritage, he ordered the Black Angus beef cooked medium-well, with the Jalapeno Bacon and Chipotle sauce. Yes, they have Jalapeno bacon. Burger Bar has three types of bacon, in fact, and they also offer prosciutto. If you’re indecisive and prone to overeating, just reading over Burger Bar’s menu could make your head explode. And if you go ahead and indulge yourself and order everything you want on your burger, you may also experience sharp shooting pains in your left arm, followed by darkness. Be aware.

Marci got the Country Natural beef cooked medium on the wheat bun with Jalapenos and Chipotle sauce. She really liked the sauce and said the Jalapenos were very spicy and fresh and complimented the meat nicely.

Each and every one of our burgers was cooked perfectly to order. The toppings were all fresh and cooked perfectly as well, but believe me - all of this does show up on the bill. When we all decided to join together to battle the forces of normal human waistlines in our burger quest, the original goal was to find burgers under ten bucks. That quickly went out the window in favor of just trying the best burgers we could find, because we’re all made of money. But Burger Bar is by far the most expensive place we’ve visited.

But during the eating, none of us thought about the inevitable forking over of cash. Onto the specifics…

Beeferosity: Burger Bar grinds their own meat daily, meaning a great, fresh flavor. Being able to choose from a variety of meats means you can vary your choice depending on cost, animal preference (they have buffalo and turkey burgers too) and general desire towards respecting your health, if you’re one of those who plans to live until you’re 109 just so you can watch all your friends die and dance on their grave while eating a salad with a light vinagrette.

The topping selections are also epic. While it’s not uncommon to get a choice of cheeses or maybe a sauce or two, you can really feel like a God among men by ordering some black truffles and half of a grilled lobster to accompany your burger. All of us began wondering what kind of damage a fat man with an unlimited cash supply could do in that restaurant, and before long we harbored fantasies of being able to order the $60 Rossini with a big plate of fried cheese, washed down with buttermilk and a tub of homemade Ranch dressing and even being able to order your waiter to sit and watch you eat it all like an Emporer of Obesity.

Burger Bar knows their meat, and nobody had any complaints about their choices.

Final Burgerness Score: 199 Cows With Hope out of 200.

Carburating: Upon trying his first “skinny” fry, George declared them as close to perfect as he’s ever tried. Imagine a McDonald’s french fry without any of the problems of cheap, lousy production or having to stand in line with America’s Squashed Dreams and you’re on the path towards the flavor. The onion rings were none too shabby either - great batter coating the rings, fried to a golden brown and nice and crunchy while retaining the onion flavor.

We also ordered up some of Burger Bar’s buttermilk zucchini fries, because once you’re really set on going to town on the calories, you may as well go hellbent for leather. And I’m happy to report these were also great - still retaining the zucchini flavor while doused in a delicious buttermilk batter and deep-fried. And Burger Bar doesn’t bother to haul out a tub of creamy sauce for you to dip them in, nor do they need to. Unlike a plate of T.G.McGilliCuddy’s Happy-Hut and Chowporium’s Jala-Spice Explodo-Ranch Onion Wings, you will require no sauce to lube these down your throat holes.

Shake Your Food Thing: the carbohydrate options to accompany your burger at Burger Bar are brownriffically magic. Much like every other aspect of the restaurant, they’re geared towards comfort food heaven and they hit the spot. The sides aren’t that pricey - especially compared to the rest of the stuff on the menu - and they’re great. 77.239 Atkins points out of 80.

Atmospherical: You take a special elevator to the 6th floor of an upscale shopping center. You get off and are greeted by big LCD screens with pictures of beautiful people loving life while eating hamburgers. You walk into the restaurant to see an amazing view of downtown San Francisco and the skyline around it and then you sit down to eat a delicious burger. The only way they could ruin this is by bringing in a busload of drunken senior casino gamblers to hold a seminar on “Proper Denture Cleaning” and “Maximizing Your Complaining” while feeding them cocktails made with stool softener. It’s one hell of a view in one hell of a location.

SanFrantasticness: 4.5 burned-out hippies in Golden Gate Park out of 5.

Know When To Hold ‘Em: There’s always danger in the air when a place serves up a half-pound burger as their standard. Most of the crew opted to slice their burger in half for the sake of safety, but Chris and I both decided to live like the Warrior-Poets we are and we ate every bite of our burgers. Following the feast, both Chris and I felt great. No cramps, meat-agony or pangs of regret. Actually, everybody felt great and the only person who reported any listlessness or beef-ennui (I’m smart!) was George. But take this into consideration - George spent the holiday weekend eating other burgers and barbecue, and while the rest of us were in calorie-limiting mode for at least a day prior to Burger Bar, George had a nighty-night snack the evening before of ribs. While I applaud his dedication to showing the livestock who’s boss, I think his lack of energy that day has more to do with eating like King Beefypants of LiveForevervania. You won’t be finding yourself agonizing afterwards, unless you insist on behaving like George and wash down your Bacon Muffin with a tall glass of gravy for breakfast.

Know When To Fold ‘Em: No problems. 274 stomach hugs out of 275.

Fork It Over: the cost. We rarely discuss how much a place will set you back, at least in any depth, because we all sleep at night on top of piles of twenties. In this case, though, I’ll make an exception because it should be something you’re aware off before you walk in. Everything about the food here is impeccable - great preparation, quality ingredients and remarkable service. Hell, even the waiters and waitresses are gorgeous. But you are definitely paying for that quality. George hit a record for the amount spent for a single person on one of our burger trips, and the rest of us weren’t too shabby either. You will enjoy your burger immensely, but you will also be paying substantially for that burger. Know that going in and be ready for it. This is an Event Burger for special occasions, but if you’re a big fan of red meat between buns, then you should probably give it a shot.

Final Verdict: Recommended, but save your sheckels before you go.

Thanks for reading, folks. If you have the inclination we’d love to have you join us on Facebook or Twitter, and if you like the blog please spread the word. We really appreciate all the love and we’ll be back soon with even more - in fact, coming soon - our TENTH review. Yay!

A Million Burgers In The Naked City

Tue, 25 May 2010 08:59:25 -0400

All of us here at the Burger Blog have found that, since starting this and rocketing to worldwide fame, we get a few questions on a pretty regular basis from people.

The first one is almost always, “are you afraid you’re going to die?” Well, we all have the metabolisms of vikings, so we’re fine. Pass the bacon spread, this bacon sandwich is dry - and are we out of Krispy Kremes? This wheat bread won’t do.

One of the questions that usually follows is, “do you ever get tired of hamburgers?”
Simply put, no - we don’t. After all, each and every one of us is a true red-blooded American. A day isn’t complete without at least 18 ice-cold light beers, a pre-1984 Van Halen record and a healthy dose of red meat. You should hear us all when we’re together - all we talk about is our preference for extreme right-wing ideology, what a shame it is Michael Bay hasn’t won a Best Director Oscar and all the great places we can find cow flesh.

We all love it so much that occasionally, one of us wanders into a restaurant all by our lonesome and eats a solitary burger.

And that is exactly how our latest review site came to our attention. For that contingent of readers who don’t live in the Bay Area, the Union Square region of the city is magical. In one square block you can find high-end fashion, meaningless touristy nick-nacks and, on occasion, an insane homeless person who greets strangers with their genitals. Walking there the other day, within five minutes I had been called a racial slur whose race I have no attachment to, AND saw a man holding a sign that simply said, “Love Yourself!” Ahhh, San Francisco.

But when a young lady with a pep in her step and an urge for shopping looks for the place to peruse the latest in handbags, garish boots or gigantic sunglasses, she heads to Union Square. And that’s just what our own Leila did just a few weeks back. Actually, she does that somewhat regularly. But it was on that particular trip that she found herself standing outside a newly-opened burger restaurant.

Being the intrepid woman that she is, she didn’t back down from the challenge. She walked inside, proudly ordered and hunkered down to sample their basic burger all by her lonesome. Revitalized by burger she then marched around Union Square like Popeye on Spinach as she hunted for bargains on leggings and Mukluk boots, and it was decided that we all must sample this cuisine.

Burger House is connected to a little mini-conglomerate of food, including a cafe and a pizza spot. They do seem to take the burger-making seriously, as they’re using pretty solid ingredients. And plus, they have cutting-edge viewscreen menus, so you can pretend you’re ordering hamburgers on “Star Trek.”

Anytime you can hunker up to a counter and make your selection from a brightly-lit LCD screen instead of a boring-old printed menu, you’re earning points from me. I look forward to a future in which we all wander around silently with our touchscreen phones and iPads and whatever else encasing us in electronic convenience, like a sterile cocoon of light and happiness where nobody can touch you and episodes of “The Wire” are always 99 cents.

From ordering at the counter you’re given one of those little number signs to signify your identity through tags - just like the Lord intended! - and you can grab a seat in the shared dining area for the three restaurants.

And with that, let’s slide on down the rabbit hole into a mystical world of fantasty and meat. And yes, that does sound a little gay.

George got the same thing he always does - the FDR special, with a side of prohibition and a bowl of Women’s Lib. Well, actually it was just the normal, plain burger with an order of fries and a bowl of chili. But it’s fun to make fun of George’s age. Last week a 24-year-old made fun of me for mentioning “Mr. Belvedere” and having owned a Sega Genesis, so this is my way of taking it out on the world.

Burger House does a 1/2 lb. burger as their standard, and considering we were all walking in pretty hungry, we were pretty enthused at this. Because the only thing better than reviewing a burger is getting to review a half-pound of it.

James got the Philadelphia Burger, featuring provolone cheese, griddled onions and some hot peppers. As you can tell, he’s very excited about it. And if he did that in Philly, they’d probably punch him in the face.

After going for a normal cheeseburger on her first visit, Leila went with their Cable Car Burger - lettuce, tomato, bacon and typically swiss cheese, although Leila switched it to provolone because she’ll forever hate the Swiss for their claims to timemaker superiority and chipper songs during Nazi rule.

The Cable Car also includes fresh avocado, although just about every restaurant in San Francisco just uses some Cali-esque term as shorthand for “and here’s some avocado.” Ordering a Surf’s Up omelette? Get ready for a big dose of avocado. Settling in for a big West Coast Panini? Hope you like avocado! Getting a Bro-Ham Gnar latte? Open wide for a tall glass of avocado juice. You get the picture.

Joe got the Buffalo Style Burger. It gets slathered in a healthy dose of hot sauce, covered in grilled onions and then doused with bleu cheese dressing. For those times when you want to eat a big plate of hot wings, but you also need to ingest a half pound of seared hamburger. It’s a hell of a country, folks.

And I also got the Philadelphia Burger, the same as James. That normally doesn’t happen, because while we’re nowhere near as organized as people seem to think we are, we do usually at least confer before ordering. On this trip, though, we were briefly split up for a while. Picture the middle chapter of “The Lord of the Rings,” except Leila and I were Merry and Pippin and George was our Gandalf - wise, bearded and prone to wearing lots of white. Also, kissing dudes.

But we showed up in waves, mostly because Joe wanted to stay at the office late to watch a space shuttle launch. I may be able to pull a Tolkien reference from memory, but Joe is a Grade-A space nerd of the highest order. He plans to give any children he ever has, boy or girl, the middle name “Buzz” and he calls his car the U.S.S. Asskicker. But that could also be because he only listens to REO Speedwagon when he drives.

We got our usual assortment of fries and onion rings, because we’re go-getters who achieve things, goshdarnit. The fries are actually chopped and peeled fresh every day, and the same goes for the onion rings. I know people think the Bay Area is filled with nothing but health nuts and organic food, but as somebody who has managed to gain weight since moving here from the Midwest - America’s Home Of The Frito Pizza - you’d be amazed at all the places that take the time to make junk food well. If you’re going to harden your arteries, it may as well be from fresh potatoes soaked in duck fat and dipped in a creamy sauce made from organic goat cheese, and not congealed Little Debbie hate-goo pumped into your heart via a plastic syringe you bought in a vending machine.

The batter on the rings was good, but if I had any complaints I’d have to say because they’re sliced so thin, they get cold relatively quickly. The thinner approach is one we hadn’t encountered yet for the blog, and one we were excited to try - but after about five minutes they were starting to get chilly. They serve the rings with a creamy dipping sauce, but as the rings got cold the batter flaked off and soon the cup of white sauce was filled up with scabby chunks of the batter.

The fries, however, were pretty great. A nice thick cut, but still crispy throughout the entire fry. They were hot and tasty without being greasy.

Qualibeef: Burger House uses Niman Ranch meat for their burgers, and again - they do a 1/2 lb. as their standard burger. The beef itself is good and the quantity is nothing to sneeze at, especially considering the price - none of the burgers costs more than $10, unless you count the “King Salmon” burger, but unless it could “moo” and know the kinky thrill of being branded, it’s not a burger - it’s a fish sandwich. Sorry, Salmon.

All of us were in agreement that the joint could use a few more specialty options, and the woman who took our order said that was something they were looking into. They do offer a Napa Burger, which comes with fresh goat cheese, watercress and meyer lemon honey mustard - but c’mon; nobody in our group was going to order that. We all knew if we sat down and said, “I got the Napa Burger with fresh goat cheese and watercress!” it would be the equivalent of throwing the Dandy Fop to the Lions. I’m sure eating that is as delightful as pulling on a pair of clean pantaloons, tying up the chest upon your ruffliest shirt and frolicking on down to a field of daisies to write sonnets with a quill on only the finest parchment, but even the female contingent of our group avoided it.

Burger House has a stadium-quality condiment bar, except you won’t have to deal with a shirtless guy with a logo painted on his chest stumbling in front of you to get ketchup as he drunkenly mumbles to himself about RBI’s or something. Some of Burger House’s specialty burgers come with their own specific sauce on it and don’t really require much additional topping - but the option is nice. They also use an egg bun that they get shipped in fresh daily from a local bakery - and we all liked the bun.

In our final assessment, the quality of the beef was good, but couldn’t maintain over the toppings on the burgers themselves. James and I both agreed that the best bites of our Philly-style burger was at the end, when the cheese and peppers were mostly gone and just the beef was left. George enjoyed his plain burger, but we all agreed that these were better than good - but still not great.

Beefitude Score: 77 out of 93.2.

Starch-Nemesis: The fries at Burger House are really tasty. Once again, we’re reminded of the importance of chopping your own fries.

None of us could come up with a negative thing to say about the fries - they were crispy without being burnt, flavorful without being too salty and big without being overwhelming. If you enjoy a big french fry, you’ll love Burger House.

But again, the rings - they cut ‘em fresh, and the batter was good. The rings aren’t greasy, either - but the thin-cut and light-on-the-batter preparation means they get cold very quickly. What tasted great when they were first brought to the table get kind of mushy within a matter of minutes, and it’s a shame because they’re obviously looking to put their best foot forward. Because the place is new, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a retooling on the rings soon, but in the meantime - get the fries. You’ll be happy.

And for the sake of completism, there’s a picture of George’s chili. It also got good marks - not too spicy, but still very flavorful and savory.

Carbrifficness: The fries go high, and the rings get low. They’re the Salieri to Burger House fries’ Mozart. They want to do well. They mean to do well. But they just fall short. If the fries at Burger House die from exhaustion while writing their final opera and end up in a big pit covered in de-lousing powder, you know who did it. The sides get three altos out of five, and my pretentious “Amadeus” references get one.

Atmospherics: since the restaurant is in the middle of Union Square, it goes without saying that space is limited. There are definitely three different decorating schemes at play at the front - cafe, burger joint and pizza slice stand. All three then siphon off into a decently-sized dining area that is decorated in a relatively trendy motif. It’s comfortable and you get to be around a weird mix of people - while we were there we sat next to a table of Germans who didn’t know how to ask for ketchup, then also poured sugar on their spaghetti. If you forget about the aggressive streak, Germany could be the world’s wacky neighbor.

The eateries around Union Square tend to fall into one of two categories - somewhat ghetto, and chic and expensive. Burger House is a clean, pleasant restaurant attached to two other similar restaurants that won’t assault your senses with trash or a bum painted silver listening to “Mama Said Knock You Out” on a boombox with blown speakers. Yes, that happens.

Final Appearance: not too shabby. For the price it’s a nice, clean restaurant that keeps tidy. If you have to use the restroom, you will have to ask for the key - but that’s part of eating around Union Square. Everybody with a bathroom has to deal with an assault of wandering tourists, shoppers drunk on brunch mimosas and hobos who live on a diet of 22-proof malt liquor and garbage noodles, and they have to battle at their gates to keep the hordes from invading. If you’ve ever had to use a Carl’s Jr. bathroom, you’ll be grateful for having to find an employee to get the magical spoon that grants you restroom access.

The aftermath: With a half-pound of beef, you’re running the risk of several problems. Firstly, it could whisk you away to nappy land, where you gestate and allow the fat and protein to gel into the lovely extra inches you get to carry around until you get obsessed with yoga or die.

Second, you could give yourself a lovely case of what my Filipino mother-in-law calls “sour stomach,” but the rest of us would probably call the Screaming Meemies, Montezuma’s Revenge or the Green Apple Splatters.

Burger House goes for the quality beef, which kept most of us happy. We were all full, yes, but only one of us - Joe - didn’t feel too great. That’s mostly because Joe starved himself all morning long, barely touching anything and then upon getting his burger, crammed it into his mouth like he was competing in an eating contest. Seriously - George, Leila and I had all gotten our burgers prior to James and Joe even arriving, and Joe finished his before any of us were even close to the last morsels.

So while we were all sympathetic to Joe’s inevitable moans of not feeling so great, I think that one is all on him. The rest of us felt fine, and I even had hot peppers on my burger. Although none of us ate much the rest of the day, these burgers won’t destroy any chances you have of walking around afterwards, avoiding awkward social interactions or just plain leaving your digestive system in ruins. Unless you starve yourself for twelve hours and then swallow it whole like a donkey, in which case plan on heading home to rock some PJ’s and question your life decisions.

And don’t get me wrong - the burgers have some greasiness to them. Above is a shot of the napkin party I had to throw to keep my hands clean, and after having to throw out a shirt following our last review and the gallon of milkshake I spilled all over myself, George and I both went with putting a napkin in our collar like we were Looney Tunes characters having dinner. But the burgers manage to maintain that fine line of being greasy - but not too greasy. Think Donald Trump in season one of “The Apprentice,” as opposed to current Trump who keeps Bret Michaels around. Eat these burgers with the knowledge that you’ll be fine - but be aware that they are a 1/2 lb. If you’re not a huge eater, you should probably leave some on the plate.

So: looking for a hearty burger near Union Square and you don’t want to do a lot of walking or pay a lot? Burger House will satisfy. There are other burgers not far away that we enjoyed more - Pearl’s Deluxe, Mo’s Grill - but for a convenient burger spot a step above the fast food not far away, Burger House will fit the bill.

Burger House also has the advantage of being located nearby a San Francisco booze haven, the Gold Dust.

The Gold Dust was opened in, let’s say, 1844. For some reason, they put carpet on the floor. Then after ninety years of people smoking, fighting and vomiting in there, they banned smoking indoors in California and then kept fighting and vomiting but decided cleaning the carpet was for pansies and that the smell of millions of Pall Malls wafting through the air from below was the scent they’re looking for. They also have a resident band consisting of players who were probably learning to play guitar when Eisenhower came up with the “I Like Ike!” slogan and who still call Creedence Clearwater Revival “young whippersnapper” music. The place sucks you in like a vortex, and before you know it sobriety is a long-lost memory of times gone by. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend stopping by for a beer. It’s one of those little San Francisco spots that still endure, but don’t require somebody to wear a costume…

…and we can all get behind that.

Thanks again for reading, folks. Looks like we’ll have some announcements coming soon, and in the meantime we appreciate it if you tell friends or hook up with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Pressed Between The Patties Of My Mind

Mon, 03 May 2010 22:00:18 -0400

Just a few short days from the time I write this, your humble Burger Blog writer will be celebrating a birthday. The picture above was taken when I was about ten years old, and as you can tell from my sweaty, stretched-out California Raisins t-shirt, not only was I quite the adorable little butterball as a kid, I am clearly old enough to look back fondly at eras decades past.

I grew up in a simpler time. Mobile phones still required their own briefcase to carry, the fanciest car doors opened upwards and not out and Sylvester Stallone was the greatest actor in the world, having charmed us with “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “Over the Top,” which clearly lived up to its title.

To be a child in the 80’s in America was to see the world as nothing but opportunity and prosperity. You could be a mediocre actor and still go on to become a mediocre President. Music was about being awesome, hair was big and both men and women could reveal their midriff and still fit in at a Skid Row concert. It was no longer “Mad Men”-chic to sip martinis at work, but to make up for it everybody was on cocaine. Truly, it was a fantastic time.

Then the 90’s had to come along with its constant irony, flannel as a fashion statement and the internet, making it possible for people with the screen name “wookieslut778” to tell you why you’re an idiot for liking “Batman and Robin” better than “Batman Forever,” even though both movies seem to think people painted like neon Juggalos would be suitable villains.

And so, as I prepare to watch another drop of sand fall through the hourglass, I enjoy reminiscing about childhood. Also, I offically enter that last sentence into the running for “The Pretensy’s,” the annual awards system for recognizing the most pretentious sentences on the web.

As it turned out, my sentimentality would pay off in our choice for our latest review at Bill’s Place - a San Francisco burger joint that is celebrating 50 years of business. You won’t find Bill’s mentioned on many “Top Burger” lists in San Francisco in a Google search, but after seeing the clientele of Bill’s, I doubt most people who frequent the place are smartphone-wielding, Twitter-happy netfiends. Actually, I think most people who know about Bill’s probably remember when going to a movie involved tipping the piano player who played while Charlie Chaplin jitterbugged on the screen.

Bill’s will never win any awards for Classiest Restaurant, Fanciest Decor or even having employees with an average age underneath 55-years-old, but they do feature one hell of a menu, some old-school charm and some really solid burgers.

Above is a shot of the inside of Bill’s menu, and almost all of that is specialty burgers. They’ve named them all after San Francisco celebrities, most of whom passed away before the price of a Cable Car ride rose above two bits and a hunk of charcoal-flavored blowing gum. The normal Bill’s burger is a 1/3 lb., but you can very easily find yourself eyeing a 3/4 lb. burger, as James did, and they even have a special 50th anniversary burger that comes in at 21 ounces of meat, five slices of cheese, four slices of bacon, curly fries, onion rings AND Bill’s homemade french fries. Not a single one of us dared to take on that behemoth, mostly because all of us had aspirations of engaging in other activities in the course of the day - like walking, breathing and not sweating while participating in rigorous activities like talking on the phone.

Just walking into Bill’s Place is an experience, and one that I can imagine falls squarely into the Love-It-Or-Leave-It category. For our group, we loved it. Random Christmas decorations on the walls, chandeliers hanging over old tables and the long counter with the bolted-down stools…it was fantastic.

We all hunkered down, grabbed a menu and began pondering. Which burger defined us as a person? I’m not one to overanalyze a menu, but it took all of us a little longer than normal to come up with our selections. But our waitress was an efficient, quiet older woman who handled our prissiness without missing a beat. I’m sure I sounded like Dom Deluise as I ordered a burger, fries, onion rings AND the shake. Bill’s shakes are supposed to be great, so they needed to be sampled. And sample we did.

Our waitress recommended the cookie-flavored shake, and if there’s anything an overweight man can’t resist it’s a beverage that mixes the flavors of rich dairy and cookies. It’s the caloric equivalent of freebasing in a gutter. The shake was delicious, fresh and tasty. However, it does come out in the large metal mixing container, which can be dangerous if you’re not being careful about consuming it. More on that shortly.

In the meantime, time to make with the hot slabs of beef-on-bun action. Roll that beautiful meat footage…

This is James’ burger, Bill’s Famous Cheeseburger #2. While I don’t imagine anybody who reads this blog is perusing the burger pictures while running on a treadmill, if you aren’t already propped up in a chair or leaning back on a couch with your laptop on your belly, you better sit down before I lay out the description.

Ready? Okay, here we go - a total of 3/4 lb. of meat in two patties. One slice of American cheese, one of Jack. Two strips of bacon. Comes with the fries. Ye gods. Once again James stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. While others are happy to single with a 1/3 lb., or maybe double with a bacon cheeseburger, James goes the extra step for glory, and later on that day his stomach experienced what can only be the gastronomical version of the movie “300” in his tummy. Tonight we dine in hell - or at least call it good to pop some Tums and just have a glass of water.

Marci opted for the 49’er burger - a 1/3 pounder topped with bacon and avocado, and she also chose to have it on an English Muffin. I’m not exactly sure why, but we all have suspicions that Marci spends her weekends at Renaissance fairs, playing the lute and urging guys in cardboard knight costumes to slay dragons.

Joe opted for the Giants burger, which is also a 1/3 lb. patty with avocado and bacon - but a slice of cheddar added on top of it. Bill’s manages to have their cheeseburgers achieve that wonderful gooey texture with the cheese, where it’s melted just right and beginning to ooze over the edges of the burger.

Bill’s also grinds their own meat daily, not to mention chops up their own fries. The fries come standard with the burgers, although you can also choose the potato salad or cole slaw. The most expensive burger we ordered that day was James’, but that still only came in at just over $13, which is still less than I’ve paid for a martini at an upscale bar in downtown San Francisco. Although that may have been the bartender just trying to take advantage of me. That’s what I get for walking in without a shirt.

Chris saddled up for the Paul Kantner, named after the guitarist and cofounder of the Jefferson Airplane. It’s a cheeseburger topped with grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing. As anybody would hope with a burger named after a seminal psychadelic band, the burger encouraged Chris to tune in and drop out, although after about half the burger Chris realized he had a problem with pills, then he pulled the ultimate sellout move and wrote a song called “We Manufactured This Urban Living Center…” which may have been a hit initially, but he later regretted it. Look for Chris to be touring state fairs this summer, filling old fans with disappointment just by using the phrase, “this next one’s off our new album…”

Leila got the Al “Jazz Beaux” Collins burger - a bacon cheeseburger on a kaiser roll, and she got the grilled onions on top of it. Al Collins is perhaps best known for his “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges” routine, but most people under the age of 60 probably don’t remember it. Hell, most of the people ABOVE the age of 60 probably don’t remember it anymore. Just reading the Bill’s menu is a trip back in time and through San Francisco history, and I think just about everybody named on the menu made their last appearance in a newspaper when they died - most likely in that mystical era where Bill Clinton blowjob jokes were still hilarious, back in the dark and spooky mid-90’s.

I got the Carol Doda burger, named after the woman who introduced topless dancing to the city. It’s two 1/3 lb. patties served open-faced on a bun, with two olives placed in the middle of the burgers in a coy reference to ladyparts. In a testament to my age, I believe I was more turned on by the appearance of this burger than anything I witnessed the last time I found myself in a “gentleman’s” club. Of course, in those joints a lady named Toyota or Candygram tries to convince you to fork over wads of twenties so she’ll pretend to like you, whereas in this case for slightly less than ten bucks I got 2/3 of a pound of meat and fries. I did miss the soundtrack of Motley Crue and the scent of desperation in the air, but I didn’t have to sit next to any sad, sweaty men who occasionally get up to call their credit card company in an effort to get a line of credit to help pay for Sharondae’s “law school tuition,” aka her boyfriend Tutter’s metal band demo sessions.

George went the way he has since before the allies defeated the Kaiser - regular burger, no cheese, bowl of chili to start. George also put on quite the show for us of general human neediness…first, asking for his glass of water to be replaced with one without ice. Then, chili with no cheese, with a dish of extra diced onions. Then extra napkins, followed by a request for some extra pickles. The dude had quite the array of small dishes and plates around him by the time the meal was over…

No matter what George threw at her, our waitress responded with steely, cold efficiency - she was no spring chicken, and if Bill’s Place were an 80’s action movie she would be the grizzled, experienced cop telling the young rookie who ignores the rules that she is getting much too old for this s***.

It would also be underplaying it to say that George arrived for the meal in a bit of a testy mood. Shortly after we all dug into our burgers, George spilled some goo on his nice shirt, which made him even more angry. Being a jerk, I laughed at his anger until my wife pointed out that I had also spilled - a huge amount of milkshake all over my white shirt. So suddenly George was united with King Dumbypants of Spillytown, we had a good laugh and life went on.

In fact, from that point on we were all in a pretty good mood. The burgers were handformed, the fries were great, and the onion rings were delectable.

So, without any further ado, let’s move onto our typically scientific, well-researched and always accurate ratings system for Bill’s. If you’re new to the Burger Blog, it goes like this: we judge based on whatever we want and whatever we feel like discussing at the time. Like I said - scientific!

In honor of Bill’s dedication to the old school, we’ll try to keep it on an old-timey ratings style.

Qualitey Of Bovine Meats: Not only does Bill’s grind their own meat daily, they do hand-formed patties. Despite this, they all came out pretty uniform. They were also cooked to order like crazy - here’s a shot of George’s medium-rare burger. Notice that despite the thinness of the burger, there’s still traces of pink inside. That’s the work of one hell of a grill man.

We were all very happy with our burgers, and George said he believed it was the best quality beef we’ve encountered so far. Not all of us agreed with that statement, but the beef is up there among the best we’ve had.

Final Beef Score: They get 56 hula hoops out of 59.

Potato And Sidey Goodness, Like Grandma Used To Make: C’mon - Bill’s chops their own fries. We didn’t ask about the onion rings, but if they’re frozen I couldn’t tell, and they rank up there with the Bullshead and Mo’s rings from earlier trips. The fries were my personal favorite of all the joints so far, and everybody else was really happy with them.

You’d have a really hard time making an argument against the Bill’s fries, and if it came to words I’d be happy to give you a raspberry on the old coconut before the constabulary rang about and carried us to the stoney lonely. In other words, the carbrifficliciousness at Bill’s is pretty great.

Heartiness of Additional Fooderies: four well-dressed gentleman at the Explorer’s Club out of five. I’m only taking off a single point because some of the onion rings tasted a little overdone.

Quality of Establishment, Serviceness: I can totally see how some people would walk into Bill’s, or simply look in from the window, and say something like “I’m not eating in there. Yuck.” Those people would be the types of douchebags who think quality restaurants have to cost a billion dollars to be good, should have shiny lights and dance music blaring and that your waiter should be named either Stefan or Lucas G., and he should sigh judgingly at everything you say.

Bill’s is the kind of place you don’t really find in San Francisco anymore. Hell, you can’t find this type of place in most of America anymore. Bill’s has been doing things their way for fifty years, and they’ll be damned if they’re changing anything. For that alone, I appreciate their moxie.

Our waitress was also an older lady who approached our table with a no-nonsense style and couldn’t be shaken by our requests or questions. She had no need to look at the menu or for any reminders, and even when I thought she’d forgotten an order of onion rings, she just reached back to the counter, grabbed the already-finished order and slid them in front of me without a comment. She knew they were coming. Shut up, and they’ll get you taken care of.

Again, I can totally understand how some people wouldn’t like Bill’s. I disagree with those people, but they’re entitled to their opinion.

Atmospherioty and Waitressmitude: Fourteen wagon wheels out of seventeen.

Final Outcome: More than once (probably waaay more than once, sorry guys) I mentioned that these burgers and fries took me back to eating dinner on a Saturday night as a kid with my Baptist grandparents in the small town I grew up in in Michigan. I also happened to spend quite a bit of time at a bowling alley my parents managed when I was very young, and the kitchen there did the fries almost exactly like the ones at Bill’s.

Whether due to sentimentality, great food or a combination of the two, I loved it. Bill’s isn’t the best place we’ve eaten so far - but it’s good. And it’s worth the time of any burger lover in San Francisco. Seriously - in a decade or so, every place like Bill’s will be gone, replaced by postmodern architecture, flatscreen TV’s blaring ads disguised as music videos and WiFi blanketing every corner of the galaxy as we all ignore the people we’re with to see what’s happening on Facebook, Twitter, Fartspace, GlippleGorp or whatever the hell comes next.

Bill’s is very much a trip back in time, and it’s one that doesn’t require a DeLorean, a crazy old professor or running away from 50’s-style bullies who are also trying to molest your mother, who happens to be trying to molest you. And yes, that movie seems really twisted when you describe it that way.

So - Totally Recommended!

Once again, thanks to everybody for reading. We always appreciate the comments and e-mails, and we’re glad people seem to be enjoying the Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you enjoy the blog, please tell a friend!

In the meantime, we’ll see you for the next burger review. Thanks again, everybody! Now, does anybody know a good dry cleaner who can remove a half-gallon of milkshake out of a white shirt?

Mo's Gabba Gabburgers (or) A Party In Our Tummies!

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:28:31 -0400

When I was but a lad of nine years old, my grandfather took me on his knee and gave me a few tidbits of wisdom. Rule number one: when in a knife fight outside a tavern in South America, the man with the most amphetamines in his bloodstream wins. And number two: beware the quiet ones. While a narcissistic douchemonger like myself may chatter away like a monkey in a tree, giving away every detail, the quiet ones are lurking in the shadows and taking notes, biding their time and wringing their hands ever so supervillain-y. And when they strike, look out.

Such is the case with our own James. From the outside, James appears to be a mix between the nicest 6th Grade Camp Counselor you ever met and Boo-Boo Bear. He remains quiet and pleasant, perhaps only pilfering from your pic-a-nic basket - right up until the moment he goes all Clint-Eastwood-at-the-end-of-“Unforgiven” on you and drops one hell of a line. And at our most recent review site, which we were all very fond of, he had perhaps the best bit of criticism:

“My only complaint is all the laughter of children.”

The reason we were exposed to the laughter of children is because for our review we found ourselves at Yerba Buena Gardens in downtown San Francisco. The area was founded around 1835, which is a great factoid for geeks. The name also translates from the Spanish for “Good Herb,” which is a great factoid for our 4/20 followers. Yes, this is another thing you can equate with marijuana. Although you probably find a way to include marijuana in every conversation. Dude, did you know Citizen Kane is all about how everybody should just chill with some hellafied chronic and stuff? Yeah, brah - that’s what Rosebud signifies, not a sled, dude. Now your mind’s more blown than, like, a bomb or something! Man, have you ever really listened to the lyrics to the Mister Rogers theme song? It’s like, a metaphor for worshipping ALIENS, dude…

Now, it has come to our attention that not all our readers are residents within the Bay Area, nor do many have any plans to travel here. That’s fine - we’re total whores for readers. Tell your friends! E-mail it to your grandparents, and they’ll try to burn it to a Betamax tape and watch it on their 8-Track stereo in between Henny Youngman albums!

However, if you haven’t been to San Francisco then you wouldn’t be familiar with the general greeniness of the city. Many years ago, some city founders thought out loud to one another:

Ye Olde City Manager: “I say, old boy, this city has plenty of haberdashers, opium parlors and bootblacks. But you know what will make us the envy of the ivory coast?”

Colonel Earl Duke VonOldentimes III: “Why, no! What could it be, old boy? Surely not another string of drinking taverns filled with ruffians whose fisticuffs offend the ladies of the night, out to pick the pockets of the gentleman?”

Ye Olde City Manager: “Certainly not, you roustabout! Nay, what this city needs is parks! Parks as far as the eye can see, where a man down on his luck or simply full of homemade wine can sleep for days, occasionally waking to tell passerby that he needs a three-pence to afford a bracing shot of absinthe, or to randomly shout to passerby that he is their lord and saviour, and they should purchase him one of those new-fangled sandwiches!”

And so it was that San Francisco would end up having a slew of parks and green areas all over the city, Yerba Beuna included. Yerba Buena’s general area also has a waterfall dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights, a Merry-Go-Round, a movie theater, an ice rink and a bowling alley - for those who enjoy sports, but also like being very drunk while participating in them.

For our purposes, we pulled up our bloomers and marched into the breech once more to venture to Mo’s Grill, a lovely little spot on the second level above the skating rink near the kid’s play area. This is a restaurant that yours truly (Drew) and my wife (Leila) had eaten at many moons ago prior to catching a movie nearby, and one of you (a reader!) suggested it again. While my memories of it were mostly fond, I do tend to drink - so we decided to make it our target for this adventure, like a fat A-Team out for vengeance. You’ll pay for giving us diabetes, beef - by giving us MORE diabetes.

Mo’s is by no means a large restaurant, and it’s also in a pretty busy area - but we got there around 11:30 a.m. and there was only one other person in the joint - an old guy grabbing a salad. This is usually not a good sign, as great food will often draw a crowd regardless of location. For instance, if you’re in the Mission and wondering what taqueria to grab a burrito at, walk right past the clean, well-lit spots with windows unfettered by blood spatters or pornography advertisements on the walls and queue up at the one with the line outside the door with the cook who looks like the bad guy in an Adam Sandler prison comedy, and you will most likely get the greatest burrito you’ve ever eaten.

However, Mo’s may just be a well-hidden and forgotten burger treasure in the middle of the city. They have a lot going for them.

Take a gander at the loveliness above: a Hobart grinder. Not only do they grind their own meat, they use one of the best grinders to do it. Upon seeing the Hobart, George got very, very excited. For one thing, George knew what Hobart was, whereas the rest of us had to look it up. For another, George knows his quality gadgets. The dude’s apartment could double as a remote control plane museum, and his home stereo equipment would make a teenage boy’s head explode. Then there’s the menu…

That’s a solid selection of specialty burgers, but I’m also fond of the generic clip art. Like a cheap banner at a roller rink birthday for a 6-year-old, or the invite for a senior citizen retiring from their job as a Wal-Mart greeter, the generic clip art says, “I want to make this special…but not TOO special.” Mo’s is generally decorated a decade or so behind the times, which is just fine with us. And as far as we’re concerned, they can install shag carpeting and wood paneled walls if the burgers are solid. And Mo’s did not disappoint.

Our efficient waitress took our orders and almost immediately, stuff started happening. Just about everybody settled on a soda or water, but George is no regular man. He doesn’t always drink beer, but he does enjoy one with a burger…

Not to mention, if you’re going to enjoy a burger, why not warm up with some chili first…

There are actual hunks of steak in that chili, folks - and our waitress didn’t even bat an eye when George gave his usual routine of “No cheese, extra onions!” In fact, our waitress was like a steely-eyed Terminator of waitressing. More on that later. For now, let’s stop all this fussin’ and a fightin’, and get with the burger love.

This is Leila’s Western Burger - cheddar cheese, bacon and barbecue sauce. She went with the regular fries, and she gave high marks to the barbecue sauce itself. Mo’s serves their burgers with a healthy (i.e. unhealthy, yay!) dollop of mayo underneath the burger, then patty and toppings with a dry bun and allows you to stack up the veggies and other condiments as you see fit. Or, y’know, just start jamming all the meaty, fatty goodness into your body as you laugh at the vegetables and shake your fist at God.

This is Chris’ burger - a standard cheeseburger with swiss, and he gave the cole slaw a try as well. Mo’s burgers are 7 ounces, just shy of a half-pound, and again - they grind their beef daily and use center cut chuck beef. Chris enjoyed the cole slaw and had nothing but good things to say about his burger.

This is Joe’s choice, the Alpine. Stacked with Swiss cheese and mushrooms - and not just ANY Swiss - imported Swiss. This cheese came directly from singing songs with runaway Nazi kids, and partners great with the mushrooms. Joe also opted to try the garlic fries, which were quite tasty.

George went with his tried-and-true order - regular burger, no cheese, medium rare. He briefly considered trying one of the specialty options, then remembered that he’s been ordering this same option since the day Lincoln was shot, and he’s not changing it anytime soon.

Here’s James with his BBQ burger. James also went the extra mile and got bacon on top of it. After he asked for the extra bacon, we all joined in on a chorus of Bette Midler. James is indeed the wind beneath our wings.

We also all enjoyed the way they serve the burgers on a silver platter. We are, after all, captains of industry whose monocles shine like the gold kruggerands we buy them with. But deep down, if you’re going to ingest nearly a half-pound of beef with toppings, you want a big metal tray to eat it off of.

And here’s my bacon burger. Clearly, a complicated process went into cooking this:

Step 1: Cook burger to order (in this case, medium rare).
Step 2: Fry up two large thick slices of bacon.
Step 3: Place bacon on top of burger.
Step 4: Serve to large man with greasy face.

In our last review, I managed to choose a burger that didn’t include bacon. But like Keanu Reeves at the end of “Point Break,” I can’t help but grab the pistol and jump out of the airplane without a parachute. But instead of chasing after brah-dude Patrick Swayze, I’m just jumping for the joy of pork products. Someday a doctor is just going to pull up this website and start quoting reviews at me when I ask him why I need to take so many pills to keep my heart from exploding.

And as all longtime readers will know, we order the onion rings at every location possible. At Mo’s we had three orders of them on the table, and we were not let down by these golden rings of fantabulousness.

These were the standard side order size, and even amongst all of us I don’t think we finished a single tray. When they started bringing out our trays of rings, we started ooh’ing and aah’ing like drunk Vegas tourists at night in front of the Bellagio fountain show.

We dug in, and the results were good. Everybody was pleased with their selections, and the burgers were cooked precisely as we’d ordered. In fact, we’ve been hoping for somebody to whiff our order so we could turn up the snark volume, but Mo’s would not be denied - they rode us hard and put us away wet.

And with that, let us once again grade our burger experience with whatever criteria and point system we feel like.

Cowrifficness: the beef quality was good, and it’s hard to argue against a place that grinds their own. We were all very happy with our burgers, and they cooked them perfectly to order. Hell, even the bacon on top of some of our burgers was a perfect crispiness and complimented the beef.

Because people like a number system, I’ll go with an 88/103. The size was good - not too big, not too small. Both George and Leila cut their burgers in half to enjoy later and they were very satisfied, but the rest of us couldn’t resist and plowed through the whole thing. Mo’s beef is among the best we’ve eaten so far in this journey.

Carb-o-tasticliciousness: Their fries are decent. The garlic fries are also tasty, without having an overwhelming garlic flavor to them. But “Exhibit A” has to be the onion rings.

These lovely orbs of golden brown goodness came to party, and unlike some other locations we’ve eaten at they didn’t even attempt to include a dipping sauce. As we’ve established in prior entries, ranch dressing usually means a hot mess of frozen garbage. A “special sauce” is a nice touch, but with a solid ring you don’t need any extra. Batter it up, dip it in boiling grease and serve it, calories ahoy! Mo’s rings are up there with the likes of the Bullshead’s. Because of their dedication to the art of fried vegetables, they get a carb rating of four XL’s out of a possible 5. We salute you, Mo’s Grill.

Fancy-Schmanciness (and) Servicatude: As a group of ballers, we all like to live our lives as closely as possible to the lyrics of our generation’s greatest songwriter, Taco, and his seminal work “Puttin’ On The Ritz.” High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars - that’s us. Now, nobody could possibly call Mo’s Grill a hoity-toity spot, but the environment is pleasant, bright and clean, and the view is pretty great. They have some outdoor seating, but there’s also wall-to-ceiling windows in case it’s chilly outside.

And the waitstaff…our waitress appeared a bit bewildered at our overly-chipper entrance (we all run in like a class of 2nd Graders that just mainlined a case of Pixie Stix) and wasn’t sure what was up as we started snapping pictures. But that never stopped her from kicking ass on the service side. Again, our food was perfectly prepared to order. It came out fast and at the same time, and even George’s occasionally Princely demands for more napkins didn’t make her flinch. She was at the ready with drink refills and kept nearby without hovering. And when we asked to split the check up, she didn’t bat an eye - she took our demand and schooled us. Check this out:

That, my friends, is what you call Dropping Some Science. She put down individual totals, then assigned a number to each - and THEN she gave us a diagram of what numbers are which, even including the window. If we’d walked in from a three-day binge of gas huffing we still wouldn’t have been able to mess up paying our checks. In fact, although I tipped 20 percent I think I may have to go back and tip her some more. While she was obviously bewildered by our general idiotic behavior, she kicked some serious butt. Mo’s Grill, you get the San Francisco Burger Blog’s first-ever Mr. Belvedere award. Not only did you make our meal pleasant, but you taught us all a lesson in the process. You taught us how to love.

Greasiness: Mo’s treads the grease line very, very well. Look again at those onion rings - they’re crispy and hot when they come out, but they’re not turning the paper underneath into a replica of a 17-year-old’s pillowcase. The burgers had a touch of the grease, but the buns are slightly-toasted rolls that can take it. Nobody’s burgers fell apart in their hands, although Joe’s gooey Alpine did start oozing a bit. The regular fries were crunchy without being a mess, and the garlic fries had a little more juice to them, but nothing ridiculous. We all felt great afterwards - full, but not like we were in for three or four hours of regret, like that feeling after you pull into Reno. Mo’s grease rating is 779 out of 1587.

Mo’s Grill final outcome: Recommended. We all enjoyed our meals immensely, and if you’re in the area of Yerba Buena Gardens and looking for a burger, you’ll be a happy camper at Mo’s. Extra bonus: as we proved, you can generally act like morons and they’ll still treat you like royalty. Thanks, Mo’s! Why, we even felt so good afterwards that some of us went to see “Kick Ass” at the nearby theater, and we had enough energy to continue our streak of idiocy.

That’s Leila, in a car made for kids. Leila happens to be Filipino, so she can easily be stored in cupboards, shoeboxes and laundry hampers.

And at the movie theater, Chris gave the “Marmaduke” promotional standup the respect it deserved. As he posed for this, a nice looking Asian couple walked by and we were sure they were going to look at us like we were being inappropriate or immature (we were).

Instead, their response: “Awesome.”

Awesome indeed, Burger friends! As you may have noticed, Marci was absent from this review. Unfortunately, an English lord invaded her countryside farm and savagely murdered her favorite pet goat. She has begun swordsmanship training and has sworn a blood oath to avenge the goat, no matter how long it may take. We expect her back for the next review.

As always, we love comments, and please follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook - there are links underneath the profiles. Thanks for reading!