Category: Features

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

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Farm Burger on Urbanspoon

Behold the Power of Burgers

In-N-Out president Lynsi Torres is the youngest female billionaire. That’s what serving a great burger can do for you.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Here’s the Bloomberg profile of Lynsi Torres that ran earlier this week.

Famous for its Double-Double cheeseburgers, fresh ingredients and discreet biblical citations on its cups and food wrappers, In-N-Out has almost 280 units in five states. The closely held company had sales of about $625 million in 2012, after applying a five-year compound annual growth rate of 4.6 percent to industry trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News’s 2011 sales estimate of $596 million.

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

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Don’s rating: 4.75/5

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Chad’s rating: 5/5

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Scott’s rating: 5/5

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Only Burger on Urbanspoon

Notes from the Burger Underground

 I want fries with that!

Hamburgers&Fries2

There are two key tomes in the canon of hamburger lore, both published in 2005. It was a banner year for hamburger research. George Motz produced his highly regarded documentary and accompanying book, Hamburger America, and John T. Edge published Hamburgers & Fries: an American story.

Edge is the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and a regular contributor to several food magazines. Hamburgers & Fries is a journey across America to discover the hamburger in all its glorious manifestations. It is also a response to the times. While part of the nation was damning fast food and its effect on society, haute restaurants were in an ever escalating war to create the most outrageous and expensive hamburgers imaginable.

But hamburgers are neither industrial death machine nor conspicuous extravagance. They are a uniquely American creation, inexpensive and egalitarian, and, for the last 100 years, a reflection of the times and places that shape them. As the Charles Kuralt quote that opens the book says, “You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.”

Edge is ecumenical, with a broad definition that takes in nearly every regional expression of a hamburger. Along with the usual White Castles and pimento burgers, we discover the onion burgers of Oklahoma and the slug burgers (soy) and dough burgers (flour) of Mississippi, Depression-era efforts to extend expensive beef with cheaper ingredients. Edge delves the mysteries of the “loose meat” sandwiches in Iowa and Kansas and the steamed burgers of Connecticut. I will admit that “loose meat” is disturbing to contemplate, much less type. He explores the bean burgers of San Antonio, replete with Fritos and Cheez Whiz; Minnesota’s Jucy Lucy, two patties with molten cheese sealed in the middle; and Miami’s Cuban frita, a spiced patty topped with crispy shoestring fries. It is a voyage reminiscent of Calvin Trillan’s Tummy Trilogy or Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, less a travelogue than a reflection on food and place.

There are two areas where the book falls down. While Edge explores some of the standard origin stories of Hamburg steak and trots out a solid half-dozen claimants to first placing it on a bun, he doesn’t come to any conclusions. He just says, “Screw it, let’s go have a burger,” and leaves it at that. It’s unsatisfying.

His greater sin is the short shrift he gives to French fries. Despite the title, Hamburgers & Fries, fries barely make an appearance. Again, this is a controversial topic in burgiatry. How much weight should be given to the fries when assessing the quality of a hamburger joint? But if you are going to call your book Hamburgers & Fries, you’d better damn well write about fries.

Hamburgers & Fries is a fun ride, and John T. Edge is a strong writer, though a little florid now and again. With the book on the bargain tables for $4 or $5, Hamburgers & Fries should be on the shelves of every burger enthusiast, even if it doesn’t properly acknowledge the importance of the fry.

Burger, with everything

For writer Duncan Murrell, a burger is memory. “What is it we remember when we remember a hamburger? We remember what we were doing and where we were, and how it felt to be alive, right then. If that’s a happy memory, it’s a good burger. Simple enough in theory.” While we can’t agree that a hamburger is simply a blank slate for toppings, as he also asserts, we certainly appreciate his excellent essay on hamburgers from the June 2011 issue of Our State magazine. Enjoy.

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

2012: The Year in Burgiatry

 

SA haiku

As we nibble the last french fry of 2012 and call for the end-of-the year check, we pause for a moment of reflection—on the great burgers, on the not-so-great burgers, on the momentous advances in burgiatry, and on the equally momentous changes in personnel, masterminded at our secret underground lair.

Let us stroll through the burgiatric year that was, shall we?

  • This wraps up three full years of The Straight Beef. In all, we’ve racked up 37 official burger reviews and myriad features—like “Renegade Reviews,” “The Tao of Cow,” and “Ask the Burgiatrist”—that have become shining beacons of hope and solace to our loyal readers.
  • The Straight Beef became burgiatrists-in-residence at WRAL’s “Out & About” site, providing the hungry masses with hard-hitting reviews to help them navigate the Triangle burger scene. In July, the site featured The Straight Beef’s top burgers in its “Our Five Faves” series.
  • We delved even greater into the depths of burger fanaticism with our irregular feature “There’s a McDifference,” in which intrepid burgiatrist Dave Foley investigates the arcane distinctions between the products at various area McDonald’s locations.
  • We reached the highest peaks, anointing Chuck’s the Triangle’s best hamburger (so far).
  • We plumbed the greatest depths, issuing our first one-star review for a hamburger so horrifying that a shaken Dr. Marino was forced to exclaim, “It was the fevered dream of a madman…I only pray that children were never exposed to it.” We dare not speak its name.
  • One of our Top 10 joints, Hurricane Grill & Wings, featured The Straight Beef’s 4.33 rating in its radio campaign, marking an uneasy intersection of hamburger science and commerce.
  • Sadly, the stresses of advanced burgiatry proved too great for Straight Beef founding member Dr. John McManus, who succumbed to the temptation, nay, the depravity, of a vegetable-based “hamburger,” and was summarily dismissed from the burgiatric community. Rehabilitation is a long and difficult road, but we hope that with the loving help of his family–and strong psychotropic drugs–he may yet recover.
  • Following Dr. McManus’s fall from grace, The Straight Beef recruited two new members, the Reverend Donald Corey and Chad Ward, to carry on the proud traditions of our institution.

Now, as we look forward to 2013…

The Straight Beef promises an expanded posting schedule, including burger news, information, and guidance with Chad’s new feature “Notes from the Burger Underground,” and burger truth to rile your soul with Don’s new feature “Reverend Rants.”

Meanwhile, keep an eye out for our first review of 2013, which may very well rock the very foundations of the hallowed Top Five list. Stay tuned.

Burger on!

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