NYC photos up!

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NYC FEB2009

Finally! - The Burger Joint

In the lobby of the posh Parker Meridien hotel, there’s a little curtained hallway behind the front desk. It looks like an employee entrance to something. Down at the end of the hallway is a little sculpted neon burger. Ignore the looming dudes with earpieces and the disapproving stares of the desk staff. Walk towards the neon. Turn into the doorway on your right, and there it is. The Burger Joint. The secret greasy spoon hidden away in this tower of $350/night single rooms and $28 omelets. I’ve been wanting to eat here for years.

Bottom line up front:

Go. REALLY good burger. Good fries and shake. But the place itself is the draw. It's a wondrously dive-y enclave in the midst of all the glam. EXACTLY the meal you need in mid-town.

Details:

Pleen and I arrived about 11:30 and the place was empty. We managed to snag one of the few booths with a view of the door and the kitchen. The guys in suits started filing in around 11:40. By 11:55 there was a line out the door and down the hallway. Things got rolling for the crew behind the counter quickly, but they remained nonplussed - calling orders and scolding slowpokes

Cheeseburger with the works. Fries. Chocolate shake. What more does one need in life?
They make a really good burger. The meat is nothing like the quality of Ray’s Hell Burger, but it’s fresh and flavorful and gently treated. The grill itself delivers significant char flavor. And the cheese actually adds flavor rather than just fat. Although frozen, the fries are good. Long cut Idaho ¼ inchers. They could use a stiff hit of salt & pepper while still glistening next to fry-o-lator before they go in the bag. Their milk shake is the shake of my childhood - just vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s syrup, & milk. I like it a lot. If you have a different point of departure it may strike you as a bit . . . hollow. Pleen, as an example, found it not chocolaty enough compared to the likes of Talyor’s Refresher.

I’m definitely coming back.

Burger Joint
118 W 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-708-7414
http://www.parkermeridien.com/eat4.php

Back Home for Lunch

Two days back from a month-long Asian eat-fest. One day before Thanksgiving. So where did I force my buddy SV to take me for lunch?

Need you even ask? It’s Ray’s Hell Burgers all the way!

Look, I’m as American as the next kid. I’ve been gone for thirty-two days! I needs me a burger. I’ve been dreaming about one of these 10 ounce bad boys since I got on that big 777 in Singapore.

So how did Ray’s perform?

They’ve definitely still got it. They’re turning out a hell of a burger. All that grand good fat accented with the charred jalapenos and the roasted red onion? God. Bless. America!

If there's a better burger in the Nation's capital, I'd like to hear about it.


Ray's Hell Burger
1713 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22209
703-841-0001

Elevation Burger

More exploration of the burger scene in NoVA required a trip to Elevation Burger. People say nice things and Ray's Hell Burger isn't open for lunch. So . . . my buddy DG and I ventured over yesterday to check things out.





Bottom Line Up Front:

Reminiscent of In-N-Out Burger, the Elevation Burger product was pretty good. If Ray’s Hell Burger isn’t an option, I’d still probably choose a Clyde's burger over Elevation. Their fries are a real limiting factor.

Details:

We arrived in the midst of a modest lunch rush. Still, the service was friendly and quick. The space is bright, airy, and attractive (i.e. this ain’t Five Guys). Prices seemed reasonable.

I ordered a basic cheeseburger presented “Original” style - pickles, lettuce, tomato, & Elevation sauce. Fries and a chocolate shake composed the classic accompaniments (Do ya hear that Ray’s? FRIES!).

A request for medium rare was met with a polite and pained explanation of “We cook all our burgers to X temperature in order to ensure. . .blah, blah, blah.” Given that this basically boils down to “Our lawyers make us do this,” I can’t complain about the guys behind the counter. However, it’s a continuing bummer to be denied a pink hamburger; ESPECIALLY in the day and age where everyone (including Elevation) is crowing about their grass-fed, organic, hyper-tasty beef. It seems a waste to use beef that tastes like beef if you’ve got to cook it ‘til it’s gray.

In any case, the resulting burger was tasty enough. Significant amounts of black pepper seem to be involved in their preparation and that happens to be a flavor I like. It might strike others as a bit much. The bun was light, but held together well. The delivery in a simple waxed paper wrapper and the fresh toppings reminded me of In-N-Out. The entire thing had a bit more grease happening than the west coast chain, however (the bun itself was shinny with it). In fact, you could think of this product as Five Guys meets In-N-Out.

The chocolate shake was good, although a bit more complex than it needed to be. I bet money that either the chocolate syrup or the ice cream they use has something fancy in its name - “Dutch” chocolate or “European-style" vanilla for example. I don’t see why people feel the need to overly complicate something that works as is. Still, not something that was tough on the taste buds.

The really questionable item, in my opinion, was the fries. Their menu makes a big thing out of the fact that their fries are done in olive oil. Their use of the term “heart healthy” leaves me to assume they think there’s some health benefit in using olive oil as the frying medium. That’s a nice concept, but there’s a problem of physics. Olive oil’s relatively low smoke point makes it poorly suited as a deep frying medium. If you try to fry potatoes in hot (but not burning) olive oil, you get what they have at Elevation Burger. The result of cute marketing and poor science: brownish, characterless, sodden, oddly flavored fries. A poor trade for some perceived “heart healthy” gain.

Summary:

Elevation Burger is fine. I won't drive across town for one and I won't eat their fries again until they put some peanut oil in that fry-o-lator. If Ray’s Hell Burger would just decide to open for lunch (and add fries to the menu!!), we could stop messing about and just head there whenever the burger mood strikes. Until then, we’ll be compelled to choose among the also-rans.

Elevation Burger
442 S Washington Street
Falls Church, VA 22046
703-237-4343
www.elevationburger.com/

Ray's Hell Burger
1713 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22209
703-841-0001

In-N-Out Burger
www.in-n-out.com/default.asp

Clyde's
1700 N. Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703-820-8300
www.clydes.com/main/index.cfm

Paying for Burgers

The Cost

It turns out that JB neglected to mention two things about today’s hike until we were well into it.

1. Apparently it’s common practice to add a mile to the distance estimate of a hike for each 1000 feet of elevation change. So when he said, “It’s 9.6 miles round trip. Is that cool with you?” what he meant to say was, “It’s 9.6 miles round trip, but there’s 3000 feet of elevation change on each leg. So that’s the equivalent of walking 15.6 miles. Is that cool with you?”


2. When he’s training for a race (like now) this is a path that he RUNS on light days away from the weights and bike.

I believe that both not-so-accidental oversights were attempts to avoid intimidating my flabby citified self. I don’t think he needed to bother. By mile 3, my mind was much too focused on respiration to bother with intimidation.
Maxed out heart rate and all, the trip was more than worth it.

The Reward

In need of serious refueling and hydration, we made a beeline for a joint on JB’s must-visit list: Billy’s Giant Hamburgers.

Now I can’t say for sure what impact the afternoon’s exertions had on my opinion, but Billy’s might just be serving a perfect burger.

This admittedly isn’t rocket science, but it’s remarkably hard to find a place getting it right. Billy’s is one of those places. Their half-pound chuck patty is gently formed and tastes like grilled beef – not liquid smoke, not some “secret blend” of spices, but simply good quality well prepared BEEF. The cheese actually adds flavor instead of just fat. Nice fresh tomatoes and iceberg lettuce provide texture contrast. Just a shmear of mayo helps hold things together with a hint of richness. And finally, a bun robust enough to avoid falling apart without getting in the way. This is a truly great hamburger.

Note: The beer also apparently contains an analgesic called CH3CH2OH that works remarkably well on large muscle groups inflamed by high altitude exertions.

Billy’s Giant Hamburgers
55 N Cache St
Jackson, WY 83001
307-733-3279

www.cadillac-grille.com/Billys.html

Chicago Burgers!

So after the various frustrations of experimenting with restaurant burgers, my buddy JB’s homemade burgers were a welcome reminder of what we’re really trying to capture. A simple summer Boy’s Night dinner at his place turned out a perfect meal.

JB fired up his grill to flawlessly prepare grass-fed beef burgers with Vermont white cheddar. We toasted some fresh buns. There was some heirloom tomato. Accompaniments included: sautéed baby spinach with shallots and red wine vinegar; baked herbed baby red potatoes; stir-fried Brussels sprouts with chili, garlic, and ginger; & canned domestic beer.

The “secret”? Same as always.

• Good quality ingredients (local, properly raised, fresh) treated with respect and simply prepared.
• Great company.
• A clear summer night on the deck.
  

What more could we want?

Big Buns

So, in the wake of my experience at Ray's Hellburgers, I wanted to check out a few other places people mention as Five Guys alternatives. My buddy SV and I hit Big Buns in Ballston today after hearing good things.

Bottom Line Up Front:

I don't need to go back. If I want a good burger, Ray's is still my choice; and I might even head to Five Guys before Big Buns

Details:

Good news! They have fries and they have beer (highlighting the limitations of Ray's). The place is comfortable. The service is fast, friendly, & efficient. The prices are reasonable.

We ordered a bunch of things to share.

The beef burger on wheat bun w/pepper jack & sautéed onions was nicely prepared (they didn't ask how I wanted it cooked) and flavorful. Unfortunately the hugely thick and seriously mediocre wheat bun loomed over the experience of eating the burger. It also overshadowed any flavor that the cheese might have had.

The portabella "burger" on white bun with black bean mango salsa & grilled pineapple was a generous (almost comical) slab of mushroom. It was grilled nicely. The salsa was fine, but the black beans themselves had an undercooked texture and distracting flavor. The mango made little contribution. The pineapple was a nice touch but there wasn't enough to accompany each bite of the monstrous 'shroom.

The sweet potato fries were the one thing we dug without reservation. They were well prepared – flavorful and non-greasy. They also made useful tools for sampling the various dipping sauces offered at the counter (sweet chili vinaigrette, honey mustard, etc.). We liked them all.

The conventional fries were underwhelming. They had little taste, a fluffy interior (I know people disagree about the desirability of this trait in a fry), & no snap or crunch.

The chocolate shake was probably the biggest disappointment. It was hyper sweet and a weird powdery aftertaste asserted itself strongly. While I am not doctrinaire enough to assert that proper milkshakes must be made with ONLY vanilla ice cream, milk, and chocolate syrup, I DO think that many of the failed efforts I encounter include "enhancements" other than these basics.

And there's the parable to contrast this place w/Ray's. Ray's Hellburger and Ray's the Steaks both seem focused on doing one thing really well through a simple approach using a small set of high quality ingredients. The burgers at Ray's didn't need any three-ingredient salsa because the burgers were so damned well done and made from killer quality meat (Hint: Big Buns is using the made-up branding-drivel term "Angus" to describe their beef). Their root beer floats are made with good vanilla ice cream and good root beer. Etc., etc.

Summary:

Nothing wrong with the place if you're there and a burger is what you need. However, I would not consider it a destination. I'd get a simple burger there and probably ask for it without the bun (they'll put it on a bed of greens if you want). I'd use my carb quotient on a beer or perhaps some sweet potato fries.

Burgers!

I have a confession that I know will earn me much derision but . . . honesty first. Deep breath. I am underwhelmed by Five Guys.

I love the idea of Five Guys. I like the theater of Five Guys. But in the end, I think the food is just OK. And when it comes to a quintessential American food in the nation’s capital, “just OK” just ain’t as good as we deserve.

I think it’s easy in a landscape totally dominated by burger-as-manufactured-item to get really excited over any venue where you can see actual human beings actually cooking your burger - and Five Guys gets deserved props there. But the end results should, in my option, be better: even at a sub-$10 price point, even at fast-food speeds. It’s a burger for goodness sake. I shouldn’t have to spend $35 and make a reservation to get a good one.

Well, it seems that Michael Landrum (of Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington and Ray’s the Classics in Silver Spring) may just agree, if my meal last night at Ray’s Hell-Burger (aka, Butcher Burgers, 1713 Wilson Blvd.; 703-841-0001) is any indication.

Bottom line up front:

Damn! For $7, Ray’s Hell-Burger is serving up the burger I’ve been waiting for. This is it.

Details:

We walked in ~ 8:15pm on Tuesday night and there was a (fast moving) line to order. The nine-ish small tables and three standing tables were all full and there was a brisk take-out trade happening as well. The “atmosphere” as such included a lot of expectant people, bare walls, the smells and sounds of grilling meat, and a slamming kitchen.

The menu consisted of a chalk board listing cooking temperatures, another listing free toppings (including sautéed mushrooms, grilled onions, charred jalapeños, etc.), and then one with the toppings they charge for (lots of different cheeses, bacon, guacamole, etc.).

That’s basically it since this place serves one thing: 10oz open fire grilled burgers. As we got closer to the counter, we could clearly see a dude trimming and grinding beef that was then formed into patties to hand off to the grillman. A burger joint owned by a guy who runs a steak-house is clearly not a bad thing.

Two significant limitations became rapidly apparent. There’s no beer and there are no fries. Call it focus or oversight, but there it is. We grabbed a pitcher of draft root beer (gotta like that) and a bag of chips. We never opened the chips.

Each burger came on a platter with lettuce, tomato, a small ear of (quite fresh) corn, and a wedge of watermelon. A knife but no fork accompanied each. I tried VERY hard to stick to basics so I could understand if they were getting the burger itself right. I ordered mine with a slice of Vermont white cheddar and grilled red onions. Fantastically good. While the quality and freshness of the meat is key, they are also taking care to form the patties GENTLY, without crushing the freshly ground product into a tight brick. This allows you to appreciate the texture of the burger. My buddy TK chose the Au Poivre version with bacon and even with these complicating flavors, the quality of the underlying burger shone through.

They’re open Monday through Friday from 5pm and Saturday and Sunday from 12pm. They’re open as late as there’s business. Go now before word spreads further and the lines grow larger.