My critique of THESE BURGERS.
PUB BURGERS: "Large patties usually no smaller than 8 ounces, often 10 ounces or more. Typically ovoid in shape rather than flat. Most often seen in pubs (hence the name), where they're often broiled. Until the 2000s, most of New York City's most-loved burgers were pub burgers—Donovan's, McHale's (RIP), Molly's, and, yes, the Corner Bistro."
When I first moved to Brooklyn in 1998 I was thrilled to find these over-sized burgers (the formula being I like burgers x as much burger as possible in my paws = good) at places I could also drink beer, and enough time had passed since the days in which my generation's mothers famously would eschew McDonald's exciting-because-you're-at-McDonald's thin burgers for homemade bowling balls of dry, gray beef (added bonus: no french fries! hell's yeah!!), that "wow, it's so big!!" was a thrilling idea for a cheeseburger or, I would imagine, a new lover's penis were I into dudes. But after the initial thrill, I learned 1) a lot of these burgers are just as tasteless as my mom's 2) if I was looking to quaff a few pints, did I really wanna be filling up my gut like that? I'm at the bar to drink, not take a nap - that's for the train ride home, waking up 32 stops too late at Coney Island with the front of my pants covered in, hopefully, "beer."
GRADE: B- if you're there to actually eat/F if you're at the pub to
FAST FOOD BURGERS: "Do I really need to define this one for you?"
The funny about fast food burgers is a lot of times these days they're overshadowed by the other stuff on the menu - chicken sandwiches, chicken mcnuggets, fries, tater tots, curly fries, fried curly tots, fried curly tots with cheese, fried curly tots with cheese battered with chicken mcnuggets while some fucking retarded asshole insists on spending 10 minutes mopping under your table ("excuse me...excuse me...move your feet please...excuse me...") even though there's not another human being sitting and eating in the entire place, chili, jalepeno poppers, etc etc. In general, McDonald's burgers are rarely satisfying. The Double Whopper at BK used to be my slice until they started charging $19 for it (how much ARE they paying that creepy King dude on tv??) Right now, there is no comparison - Wendy's burger is by far the best (I get the double: the single is for little girls, and the triple is the one I actually get but to make myself look better to you I just lied and said double...that's what I've become; I actually think that sticking to the double would be admirable/sexy. Christ.) Hardee's is fine, but you're better off getting the chicken anyway. I'll tell you what used to be a good burger, was Dairy Queen's Ultimate Burger. Was my thing in college. Along with, hard as it is to believe, fucking girls. Which, just like the Ultimate Burger, does not seem to have existed since.
GRADE: N/A
FAST FOOD STYLE: "We've always used this term on AHT to denote burgers that seem to take their inspiration from fast food burgers but that are somehow better—either in terms of ingredients or preparation or both."
These places take the best thing about fast-food burgers (the size/flatness) and actually uses real beef instead of scotch tape and rat fur with "grill seasoning." The best burger I've ever had was at Shake Shack, and Five Guys is a close number two. Speaking of "number two," remind me sometime to tell you about the first week I lived in Brooklyn and bought 5 lbs of ground meat for 99 cents. As for In-and-Out, I have never had an In-and-Out burger, but did once do the ol' in-and-out and in-and-out and in-and-out and in-and-out and in-and-out-and-pretend-to-cum-so-I-can-get-back-to-my-ultimate burger-with-battered fries with my girlfriend in a Dairy Queen bathroom. Flush.
GRADE: A
SLIDERS: "People, a slider is something very specific. It is not just a mini hamburger. It's a thin, thin slip of beef, cooked on a griddle with onions and pickles piled atop patty. The steam from the onions does as much cooking as the griddle. The buns are placed atop the onions, absorbing the pungent aroma and flavor. A slider is at once a hamburger and, yet, something more. (Maybe because you eat a bunch of them at one sitting.)"
I'm not sure I've ever had a slider that wasn't from White Castle. And NYC had a somewhat recent turn wherein every fancy club in town tried to out-cute each other with fancy little sliders, I guess so that when you're grooving to Radiohead and trying to hit on a chick the tiny burger makes your hand look HUGE, therein obviously making the chick think you a whopper in your pants and will follow you home for some fizz-ucking. Of course once she finds out that you actually have a slider in your pants she will be disappointed, especially the next morning when, ironically, she feels like she's had a bunch of White Castles: utterly disgusted, covered in "grease" and in desperate need of a toilet.
SLIDERS: C. Like trucker hats, or owning property: bit too "hip" for me.
MINI HAMBURGERS: "Any diminutive burger that does not meet the definition of slider (see above), often because it has been grilled or broiled rather than steam-griddled and almost always because it lacks the bed of pungent onions. There was an annoying trend, roughly from 2006 to the middle of 2008, whereby every damn chef was putting mini burgers (often misidentifying them as "sliders") on his or her bar menu. It seems to have ebbed as of late."
These have always seemed like a waste of time to me, since, like trying to fuck a fat girl, it seems impossible to not have an overwhelming ratio of bun to beef. The only ones in recent memory I've had were HERE at Yankee Stadium; after my first 7 or 8 dozen I started dispatching with the top bun, as it was just a ball of bread otherwise.
GRADE: D. What's the point? "Oh look, I have a tiny version of a burger!" Wow, you're cute. Have they come out with "mini french fries" yet? "Scuse me, I have a fry stuck under my fingernail." Maybe then you can shit it all out in your mini-toilet? Then have a mini-heart attack and drop dead? Fucking assholes. What're we, eating with fucking bunnies or something? Alright, calm down big fellah.
STEAKHOUSE BURGERS: "The steakhouse burger is defined more by where it's served than by any other unifying characteristics. Though there are some general observations you can make, however. Steakhouse burgers are usually made from the beef trimmings of the various steaks on hand and as such are ground from prime, aged beef. They're almost always massive, hearty burgers on par with pub-style burgers. And they're often broiled. You'd think this all would make for some fine burgers, but you'd likely be wrong."
I guess my best example of this would be Peter Lugers. For a brief period of time some of my friends and I were a-tizzy that Luger's had a $7 cheeseburger for lunch. So we'd go and be all jazzed about it. And it was a good burger. Until you'd see all the tables around you being served with huge slabs of the greatest steak in the world, and you'd think why the fuck am I gnawing on this fucking burger? In other words, kinda like when Megan Fox woke up and realized she's dating David Silver. I mean, camon.
GRADE of actual burger: A
GRADE of ordering the burger instead of steak: F
KOBE BURGERS: "And here I will repeat, a Kobe burger is always, always a bad idea. When cooked rare to medium-rare, as most chefs who put these on their menus usually recommend, the texture inevitably renders as mushy. It's like moist cat food on a bun, with the meat oozing out the sides and back as you try to eat the burger. Why turn a glorious piece of beef into minced meat?"
I have never had a Kobe burger. Nor will I probably ever, since I have a firm "Will Not Eat Burgers Named after Rapists" policy (easy, easy - I am not a hero. Just a man (with perfect lips.)) Which is ironic since I would hafta play in the NBA to be able to afford one anyway. My brain just lapped itself.
GRADE: N/A, but pretty cool that Kobe likes to cum on girl's faces, something we both have in common (except that he's probably actually done it, and will do it at some point in the future before he dies.)
FANCY-PANTS BURGERS: "Price is a pretty good indication you're eating a fancy-pants burger. But since price varies from city to city, it's difficult to set a hard-and-fast dollar border. Let's just say that if it costs double what a McD's QPC Value Meal does, you're probably in fancy-pants land."
I'll give you one guess re: how many of these I've eaten in my life.
GRADE: N/A
MEGABURGERS: "Any burger whose sole purpose is to break a record—most often weight, but sometimes price. Typically the result of tired publicity stunts, megaburgers have rapidly increased in number in the last few years thanks largely to social media—it's almost guaranteed the blogging-Twittering-Facebooking masses will blab about you and your three-ton burger that you need a forklift to flip."
Like my college girlfriend: uneatable.
GRADE: N/A
EXTREME BURGERS: "Similar to megaburgers (see above), but here the point is less about sheer size than it is caloric overkill, stuffing as much gut-fattening, artery-clogging shit on and about the hamburger sandwich as possible."
Like the Republican party, these always seem like an exercise in stupidity done by people who have way too much money. Tho if one of those grilled cheese-as-buns joints fell into my lap, I think I would enjoy it. Thumbs down on any burger involving a glazed donut; I do not need to be looking at Rosie O'Donnell's face when I'm trying to eat a gotdam cheeseburger.
GRADE: A on the grilled cheese one.
STACKED BURGERS: "Anything with two or more patties. Popular examples include In-N-Out's Double Double, Wendy's Double, or Burger King's Stackers. Props to any stacked burger that uses an interstitial bun, like the Big Mac."
Like I said, I like the Wendy's stacks. I would assume if I like one burger, I'd like more than one stacked up. I also don't know what "interstitial" means, although I see that if I had the time to do it, I could make an anagram of it that includes 'TITS." But obviously with The Fresh Prince being on and America still being dependent on foreign oil, I don't really have time for that shit right now.
GRADE: A
ooooooohhhh...."stacked" and :"tits" in the same critique!!!!!
DEEP-FRIED BURGERS: "Just what it sounds like, folks. Forget the griddle, throw water on the grill. The patties of these burgers take a dunk in hot, hot oil. Dyer's Burgers in Memphis is perhaps the most famous deep-fried burger emporium"
Just like the female orgasm or black people that can swim, when I first heard of this I thought "if this actually existed, wouldn't it be EVERYwhere?" In theory it sounds amazing, but why are these hard to find? There's burgers everywhere. There's deep-fried food everywhere. Why don't they just make the fucking airplane outta the deep-fried burger then? Weird.
GRADE: potentially A+. But, like seedless fruit, baffling.
SMASHED BURGERS: "In truth the burger style we've taken to calling "smashed burgers" can probably found wherever greasy-spoon short-order cooks are serving up sandwiches made from fresh-ground beef cooked on a superhot griddle. But I've seen this technique applied most consistently in mom-and-pop lunch counters in the Midwest, so it's classified here under "regional styles."
I've been smashed. And I've had a burger. But I've never had a smashed burger. Hey, wouldn't you think that's what they'd call kobe beef? Hmm.
GRADE: never had one, tho I'm way into flat & crusty. But enough about my first girlfriend, let's move on.
STEAMED BURGERS: "They are, perhaps, an acquired taste,"
I do not want my cheeseburger to be such a fucking mystery that it has to be an "acquired taste." Living with the bitter disappointment of complete failure and having no hope, that's an acquired taste. A burger should not be.
GRADE: D+. AND now I'm depressed I turned down that job offer from Pfizer in 1996. Could be a millionaire with a 24/7 erection by now. Sigh.
CHEESE-STUFFED BURGERS: "If you've ever tried to duplicate one at home, it's trickier than it would seem. You've got to seal in the cheese securely so you don't have a blow-out, and, as the cheese melts and puffs up the patty, you've got to prick it quickly with a toothpick right after you flip it to let the steam escape. It's better to leave it to the experts."
I have no interest in gnawing on some meat until some white liquid-y stuff shoots out. Unless, of course, it's a dick. But only then. (And if we're "serious.")
And a "Juicy Lucy"? Why, of all burgers, is THIS the one named after a woman? Fascinating homo-guilt psychology going on there.
GRADE: C
GREEN CHILLE CHEESEBURGER: "Indigenous to New Mexico, where grows the Hatch green chile, these burgers are topped with chopped roasted peppers trapped in a gooey, oozy matrix of melted cheese—usually white cheddar as happens to be the case at the Bobcat Bite in Santa Fe."
The only thing I have less interest in than green chile is New Mexico. Aka "Arizona's little friend that eats boogers." Blech.
GRADE: -
ONION BURGERS: "These are a variation on smashed burgers with a little bit of slider thrown in. Edge points toward the Depression as the harsh inspiration for these burgers, as throwing half an onion, sliced into rings, into the mix helped make the meat go further."
Hey, inspired by depression. Sounds like how I got the last 6 girls I've slept with in bed.
GRADE: I'm really starting to hate burgers, this blog, and freedom.
GUBERBURGERS: "Burgers with a generous dollop of melted peanut butter ladeled on."
Why is the governor's race called the "gubernatorial race"? where the fuck did that come from? Jimmy Carter? Strange.
GRADE: I hate my fingers. And keyboard. God I'm sick of this fucking post.
BUTTER BURGERS: "It's no surprise that butter burgers reach their apotheosis in Wisconsin, the Dairy State. As if a juicy hunk of meat ain't enough moistness for you, folks around these parts cook the patties in butter and then slather on a hefty dose of the stuff right after it hits the bun. Solly's Grille in Milwaukee is a famous spot for this style."
Now THIS is more like it!! This is a burger I could fucking get into (not a burger I could get into fucking.) Also, the owner of Solly's Grille in Milwaukee naming the restaurant as a joke re: how Pat Morita from Arnold's would apologize to his girlfriend = priceless.
GRADE: potential A+
PIMENTO CHEESE BURGERS: "If you're not from the South, you may not even have heard of pimento cheese, much less pimento cheese burgers. As I've heard from all my Southern friends, pimento cheese (a mixture of grated cheese—usually cheddar—pimentos, mayo, and spices) is a sort of Southern comfort food that spans all classes and ages. Pimento cheese tea sandwiches are often served at high-falutin' functions—most famously at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia."
I seem to be the only person from the South who has never had pimento cheese. But then, I don't hate niggers, so who knows how these things go? The South: Nature's Dirty Riddle!
LOOSEMEATS SANDWICHES: "For those not familiar with the popular Iowa hamburger-influenced sandwich, a loosemeats, or Maid-Rite (and sometimes referred to as a “tavern”), is basically a deconstructed hamburger, or a sloppy joe without the slop. The recipe is simple: fresh ground-on-premises beef is steamed and crumbled in a cast iron cooker. Nothing is added but salt."
I thought that this, like Tom Arnold, was entirely made up by the show Rosanne. I dunno, crumbled ground beef, on a bun? Sure, I guess. Why not. I can't think of any reason not to like it. Bonus points for it being a cool place to take a first date; shit would keep crumbling down on her titties for you to peep at. YOU'RE WELCOME, FELLAHS!!!!
GRADE: potential A, A+ for potential titty-viewing
SLUG BURGERS: "What they all have in common is a frugality born of the Depression (much like the onion burgers of Oklahoma), when folks in Mississippi learned to use fillers—bread, flour, potatoes, crackers—to extend their meat supplies."
I don't know what these are, but they sound like something my mother might've tried to give us, a la The Unfortunate Instant Mashed Potato Incident of 1983. Otherwise, it looks like I'd rather just eat the fucking bun. Ugh.
GRADE: F
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