Author: michaelm

Review #39 – Bad Daddy Burger Bar (Raleigh, NC)

Review compiled from email exchange following burgers at BDBB’s:

Scott: What did you guys think of Bad Daddy’s last night? The beef-based Cantina Burger was decent. I’ll go as far as “acceptable.”

cantina

The pinnacle of average.

Michael: I think if they were striving for mediocrity with the Frenchie Burger, they nailed it.

Chad: The Classic Southern burger was…okay. Too much Classic Southern and not enough burger. But not offensive.

Don: ESTEEMED GENTLEMEN, I TAKE UMBRAGE WITH YOUR REVIEW AND MUST VOICE MY DISAGREEMENT—NO, MY DISSENSION—WITH YOUR SENTIMENTS.

Scott: My score is somewhere in Three-town. Maybe a 3.25. The tater tots were good. What’s up with Don?

Michael: I’m with you, Scott. I think a perfectly average burger deserves a 3.25. Not sure about Don. Too much Bad Daddy’s Sauce?

Chad: It’s always a tough call whether to go with the mathematically correct 2.5 as the midpoint between 1 and 5 or the bell curve 3 for a burger that is average. I’m hovering on 3. The tots were pretty darn good.

This picture is not out of focus. The burger was so bad it was blurry.

This picture is not out of focus. The burger was so bad it was blurry.

Don: I RESPECTFULLY DIFFER. WHEN AN ESTABLISHMENT’S SIGNATURE BURGER—IN THIS INSTANCE, THE “BAD ASS”—IS BELOW STANDARD, ALL OTHERS MUST BE VIEWED THROUGH THAT LENS. WHEN ONE ENDEAVORS TO MAKE A “BACON AND BEEF” PATTY, IT IS EXPECTED THAT ONE WOULD AT LEAST FIRST PREPARE SAID BACON SEPARATELY AND COOK IT TO AT LEAST HALFWAY DONE. INSTEAD, THE PURVEYOR SEEMS TO HAVE MIXEDED THE UNCOOKED BACON AND BEEF TOGETHER. THE RESULT WAS A FLACCID, INEDIBLE BURGER.

Scott: Did I mention that the tots were good?

Michael: The pickle chips were tasty.

Chad: What was that thing on Don’s plate, by the way? I’m not sure if he was supposed to eat it or perform an exorcism.

Don: IN SUMMATION, LET ME STATE THIS: THE “BAD ASS” BURGER COULD BE BEST DESCRIBED BY THOSE TWO VERY WORDS—BUT SEPARATELY. LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT I SUBMIT A 1 OUT OF 5.

Scott’s rating: 3.25/5

image003BW image006BW image009 image012BW image015BW

Michael’s rating: 3.25/5

image001BW image004BW image007 image010BW image013BW

Chad’s rating: 3/5

chad5 chad4 chad3color chad2bw chad1

Don’s rating: 1/5

don5bw don4bw don3bw don2bw don1

Bad Daddy's Burger Bar on Urbanspoon

Renegade Review: Farm Burger (Buckhead, GA)

John, Paul, George, and Ringo didn’t become the Beatles by just dabbling in music. Chipper Jones didn’t become a baseball legend by just occasionally taking grounders. And Gallagher didn’t become a world-renowned comedian by just casually smashing watermelons in his free time. These people worked relentlessly at their craft. They struggled, they honed, and they sacrificed. They committed themselves.

Stay your Sledge-O-Matic! (photo credit https://www.facebook.com/FarmBurgerBuckheadGA?fref=ts)

Stay your Sledge-O-Matic!
(photo credit https://www.facebook.com/FarmBurgerBuckheadGA?fref=ts)

The same principle holds true for burgiatrists.

To create a truly great burger, you’ve got to make it your life. You’ve got to get all the basic stuff right—from grass-fed and freshly ground beef to fresh and varied toppings to well-trained and personally invested staff—and then perfect it. You’ve got to have the first sentence on your website be something like, “[We want] you to think about your burger.” And you’ve got to—as the three Atlanta-area Farm Burger locations do—fully dedicate yourself to making a damn good hamburger.

Farm Burger doesn’t just dabble in burgiatry. It’s committed to it.

My review: 4.75 out of 5.00

4halfscotthigh 4scottlow image009BW image012BW image015BW
Farm Burger on Urbanspoon

Reverend Rants

Reverend Rantsrevrants2

The Straight Beef is pleased to announce its new recurring feature, “Reverend Rants,” in which our spiritual guide Reverend Don Corey will seize you by your burgiatric soul and shake it. Hard.

Burger pilgrims, I stand before you today, humbled. Humbled by the grace of the burger. This object of my love—this savory sanctity—touches me, pilgrims, deep, deep in my soul. I am overcome—trembling, speechless, when a vision of burger perfection is placed before me, juicy, steaming, dripping, smoldering. Rapture.

But there are temptations in this world, pilgrims, that can waylay this trip to burger heaven. Now, I speak today of those charged with the preparation of the very manna of the burger gods. If they cook the burger incorrectly, or if they used unchaste ingredients and toppings, or, worst of all, if they cook from a frozen patty, a crime has been committed. Their soul is not pure. They have forsaken piety and have strayed from the path of burger righteousness. An angel has fallen. A transgression has occurred, and we all suffer.

That is until we must make a pilgrimage to one of the Hallowed Five. Only then can we understand our waywardness and rejoice in the glow of true deliciousness. Amen, pilgrims. Amen!

Review #38 – Only Burger (Durham, NC)

(This review is also posted at WRAL Out and About.)

BREAKING NEWS 

Everyone Right About Only Burger, Apparently

In a turn of events that shocked no one, world-renowned burgiatrists The Straight Beef finally visited Durham’s Only Burger—which had been only recommended to them about 512 times, for the love of all things holy—and “freakin’ loved it.”

“It’s about time those guys went there,” said Sheila Montalbán, Duke University environmental studies student and self-proclaimed “Straight Beef freak.” “Only Burger is only like the best burger in the world, basically. Everyone says so. I don’t even know what took them so long.” Added Montalbán, “Hello? Duh?”

The Straight Beef, which has been reviewing Triangle-area hamburgers since 2009, admits that the group had been talking about reviewing the Duke University favorite for a “ridiculous length of time,” and that there is no excuse for making Only Burger its 38th official review instead of, let’s say, its 4th, even though everyone and their uncle has been insisting that they just shut up and go already.

All four members of The Straight Beef conceded that yes, fine, apparently everyone had been right.

Can't talk. Eating.

Can’t talk. Eating.

“Once I had locked my eating-claw on the burger, I could not put it down until it was gone,” said TSB’s spiritual guide “Reverend” Don Corey, who ensured that his double with bacon, cheese, and egg was not long for this world. “The worst part of the night was when I finished the burger and didn’t have room for another.”

TSB’s burger renegade Chad “The Griddler” Ward concurred. “I was knocked out by the beefy richness, the salty crust, the juiciness of the burger,” said Ward, who ordered a double cheddar burger with bacon only, opting to “get a feel for the basic burger before gussying it up with toppings.” Ward averred that anyone who does not love Only Burger “clearly has been taken over by pod people who not only lack taste buds but hate freedom and America.”

Ward added that although The Straight Beef does not rate side dishes and tries not to be influenced by them in their burger evaluations, the sides at Only Burger were simply insane. “If we rated side dishes along with the hamburger,” Ward said, “Only Burger would be a six out of five on my scale.”

“We went three years without knowing the joy that is Only Burger’s exquisitely flavored patty,” said Scott Blumenthal, renowned British burgiatrist and TSB co-founder, who downed two singles with classic condiments, no questions asked. “We’re never going to get those years back. We’re just not. Those years are gone.”

When asked for his initial comment, leading holistic burgiatrist and TSB co-founder Michael Marino, who downed the same burger combo as Corey, plus mayo, managed only to scribble on a sheet of paper that he could “not talk, what for all the drooling.”

Michael’s rating: 4.75/5

4halfmikehigh 4halfmikelow image007BW image010BW image013BW

Don’s rating: 4.75/5

don45+ don45- don3bw don2bw don1bw

Chad’s rating: 5/5

chad5color chad4 chad3 chad2bw chad1

Scott’s rating: 5/5

image003 image006BW image009BW image012BW image015BW
Only Burger on Urbanspoon

Ask the Burgiatrist

burgiatristDear Ask the Burgiatrist:

First, I respectfully request absolute confidentiality. The predicament I am about to set forth is of a most personal nature, and I would be mortified were it to be made public in any way. I ask that you do not publish this letter on your website, and that do not use my real name. I am extremely uncomfortable even writing this, but my wife insists that I finally seek professional advice.

Very well, then. Here it is.

I am experiencing…let’s call them “burger-related challenges” of an intimate nature. I do not consume red meat with any regularity, but I do so enjoy a good burger every now and again (especially the ones you recommend on your fine site!). Unfortunately, for several days after, I cannot seem to…“start the grill,” you might say! Do you think this might be due to the amino acids found in beef, or perhaps the phosphorus content? I really don’t want to give up my occasional burger, but I also do not want to jeopardize my well-being and health of my marriage.

Please, again, I am grateful for your discretion.

Sincerely,

Philip Greeley

Northampton, MA

 

Phil:

This has got to be the most pathetic sob story I have heard in my 32 years in burgiatric psychology. You are a weak, lily-livered man-worm, Phil. Waa—I choose my marriage over eating burgers! Waa—eating so many burgers is having an adverse effect on my body! Waa—you care more about your stupid advice column than you do about me and our six children! Waa—which do you choose, your family or your precious hamburgers?! Waa—I’m leaving now, you infantile jerk! Waa waa waa, Phil!

Does that help, Phil? Does it? Waaaaaaa!

Sincerely,

Ask the Burgiatrist

There’s a McDifference #5

There’s a McDifference!

3810 Lake Boone Trail, Raleigh (just off I-440)

Our senior McDonald’s beat writer Dave Foley is back with his oft-debated hypothesis that if you look closely enough, each Mickey D’s is different from the next. Here’s installment #5 of “There’s a McDifference.”

The Lake Boone Trail McDonald’s sits in a very crowded strip mall. It is a well-maintained building with that quintessential McDonald’s look. The only thing missing was the “Over 10 Trillion Served” sign under the golden arches.

Atmosphere: The inside has granite on all surfaces (including the planters), tile on the walls, and stainless steel equipment. It looks like my ideal kitchen. The place is extremely clean, though I didn’t see any hand sanitizers. There is also no playground, so I guess those two things go hand in hand. There is lots of seating, including outside tables under a nice veranda. I counted five big-screen TVs.

Quarter Pounder: The patty is so compressed that it actually sticks out about a quarter inch on all sides of the bun. The flavor is still pretty good, but they have completely pressed every ounce of moisture out of the meat, so it is a bit dry. The bun is very soft, and they use fresh onions with good coverage.

Fries: I’ve been here many times, and every single time the fries are burnt. One time might be an anomaly, twice a coincidence, but half a dozen times in a row and I’m sensing a pattern. Instead of golden brown, they are just…brown. They were so completely burnt on my latest visit that I almost took them back.

Burger rating: 3 out of 5 Grimaces

grimace5shopBW grimace4shopBW grimace3shop grimace2shopBW grimace1shopBW

Review #37 – Yard House (Raleigh, NC)

“All during the 45-minute wait for a table I was certain that a staff member would spot my LL Bean Relaxed Fit jeans and rat me out as the suburbanite among the pretty people. I had the urge to pop my collar and call someone ‘bro’ just to fit in.” –Chad

Chad’s Review: Pay No Attention to the Burger Behind the Curtain

The Yard House is loud. The music is loud. The conversation is loud. The artwork is loud. The burgers are big and flashy, with intense and exotic toppings. Just to be contrary, I ordered a Classic, as plain and simple as I could get it, to see what was under the hood.

chadburger

Please ignore the burger behind the curtain.

What I got for my $14 was a decent hamburger, competently cooked, but no more than that. The real stars of the menu are the big bold burgers—pepper-crusted, caramelized, glazed with pineapple and “Aloha Sauce,” or tarted up with lobster and asparagus, the muscular toppings obscuring the undistinguished but well-prepared patty. Like the Wizard of Oz, once you pull back the curtain (or bun) you realize that all of the sturm und drang is just a distraction, albeit a tasty one. Three out of 5.

chad5 chad4 chad3color chad2bw chad1

Scott’s Review: Don’t Be Saucy With Me, Béarnaise

Somewhere in North Raleigh I must have entered some sort of space-travel wormhole leading to the opulent chic-fest that is Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Certainly nowhere our fair, modest Triangle, I had assumed, would people squeeze themselves into their tightest, blackest duds for the right to wait an hour for a Fresh & Skinny Martini. But I was wrong. So Wrong.

In an attempt to appear at least minimally chichi, I ordered a burger with an accent in its name: The Béarnaise. (Not The Béarnaise Burger, mind you, just The Béarnaise.) The burger was good—its fried onions a tasty foil for its tender, flavorful patty—though truth be told, I was too busy voguing to fully focus. What I do know is that wherever I might have been—be it Raleigh or 86th and Lex—I was squarely in Three-town. My rating: 3.75.

image003BW 3halfscotthigh 3halfscottlow image012BW image015BW

Don’s Review: Too Much Turf, Not Enough Surf

The Yard House is about atmosphere and image—loud, colorful, and vivacious. This they make obvious as they take you on a lap around the huge, elliptical bar before seating you at a table you passed when you started your journey.

surfturfopen

Would the béarnaise please report to the burger please?

The burger choices were plentiful, but my eyes were drawn to the Surf & Turf—a powerful lineup featuring Maine lobster sautéed in garlic butter, grilled asparagus, Swiss cheese, and tomato béarnaise. Unfortunately, I was to suffer a severe case of “antici-pointment.” The burger was not cooked to order, and the béarnaise was, without warning, replaced with spinach—a definite letdown. And though I could see the lobster, its taste was smothered by the patty and too much asparagus. I give this burger a 3—too much missing from the show.

don5bw don4bw don3 don2bw don1bw

Michael’s Review: A Tsunami of Flavor

The flavor of the Pepper Crusted Gorgonzola burger—with marsala sautéed crimini mushrooms, caramelized onions, and baby spinach—matched Yard House’s décor: intense. The spinach was like a man yelling at a tsunami, useless against the onslaught of marsala, pepper, and Gorgonzola. Because the cook didn’t try to blacken the patty (which often happens in an attempted to create a crust on a patty), the combination worked very well overall. Any hint of char was imperceptible.

tsunami

Bodhi would be all over this.

If you are looking for a place to enjoy a quiet dinner, avoid Yard House. If you want an interesting burger and don’t mind yelling to be heard, this is the place to be. I give the burger a 4 out of 5.

image001BW image004 image007BW image010BW image013BW

Yard House - Raleigh on Urbanspoon

The Straight Beef Inducts Two New Members

On the heels of news that Straight Beef founding member John McManus has been dishonorably banned from all burger-related activities due to the willing consumption of a veggie burger, the nation’s premier burger-reviewing group has announced the addition of two new members, Reverend Donald Corey and Chad “Baron Beefcake” Ward.

Reverend Donald Corey is a universally renowned burgiatric orator. Known for his fiery delivery and fervid, spontaneous burger-themed speeches, Reverend Don often serves as the keynote speaker at the VFW’s Turkey Shoot and Spit fundraisers. See Don’s full bio here, and his guest review here.

Chad Ward bypassed traditional burgiatric academia and earned his grill marks in the unlicensed burger pits of Hong Kong and Malaysia, competing under various aliases and stage names, including Patty O’Doom, Baron Beefcake, The Griddler, and, once, embarrassingly, Major Meat. See Chad’s full bio here, and his guest review here.

1 … 10 11 12 13 14 … 19