Category: Features

Notes from the Burger Underground: Los Angeles Times Crowns Winner in Battle of the Burgers

Would You Eat It?

Battle of the Burgers 2013, clockwise from top left, STG (Save the gravy) burger, GCCB (Green curry chicken burger) ultimate fusion, Steakhouse burger, Hoad’s hot jalapeno burger and Texas luau burger. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

 

The Los Angeles Times has wrapped up its third annual Battle of the Burgers (click link for recipes), crowning five winners from hundreds of entries. Recipes were whittled down by reader voting to the top 20. Each of those 20 reader selections was prepared in the LA Times test kitchen and judged by the food editor, the restaurant critic, the head of the test kitchen, and other staff members, who chose the top five.

That should produce a great hamburger, right? Instead, it produced a freak show.

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much; let me sum up. In addition to my duties as a member of The Straight Beef, on-call forensic burgiatrist, and unofficial link to the seamier sides of the burger underworld, I sometimes judge beer contests.

Beers that win contests are rarely beers that you’d want to sip after mowing the lawn. They are bigger, bolder, maltier, hoppier and more aggressive than standard beers. They taste wonderful for the one or two sips that a judge might take, but you probably wouldn’t drink a pint of one, much less order a second or third.

These burgers are like contest-winning beers. They’re too much. Too over-the-top, with recherché toppings and multi-step (and sometimes multi-hour) preparations.

A good burger is a thing of beauty and a thing of simplicity: good beef treated with care, seasoned simply (but aggressively), grilled or griddled to a light crust on the outside, and topped with ingredients that enhance but don’t overpower the flavor of the patty.

That’s the recipe for a perfect burger. It’s also the recipe for losing a hamburger contest, where the premium is on originality rather than flavor.

These burgers are the monster trucks, the nitro-burning funny cars of burgerdom, behemoths seething with testosterone. They are built to impress rather than please.

The Straight Beef has a rule of thumb that any burger with more than four toppings must be truly exceptional to overcome the difficulty of eating it and the overwhelming likelihood that the toppings will mask the flavor of the beef. None of these burgers has fewer than seven toppings, and you could not possibly eat one without a knife and fork.

Great burgers to wow a contest judge. Lousy burgers to serve to friends and family.

 

Reverend Rants: Have Faith

revrants2

Pilgrims, today I reach out to you about the paradox of faith in the burger. We only truly experience enlightenment when we have faced a trial that often shakes our faith in burgers. A few months back, I had an experience so gut wrenching – so sacrilegious- I was afraid of the burger. I had stared at the abyss of hopelessness and it stared back. I was defeated- broken. It was at this point of questioning my beliefs in the burger that my burger brethren rallied around me. They lifted me up. They showed me the path and we had a top 5 experience.  It was heaven sent.

So brothers and sisters, if you have had your faith in the burger tested, if you have faced the abyss and it has stared back, if you have decided the grilled chicken sandwich is a safer bet, let us rally around you. Let us raise you up. Let us show you the path. Visit one of our top 10 and have your faith restored. Always remember in the time of darkness, love the burger and the burger will love you back.

Reverend Don Corey

Today’s reading is from the book of Burgiatry, chapter 9, verse 17, The Straight Beef’s Top 10

Chuck’s = 5.00
Only Burger = 4.88
Mojoe’s = 4.83
Brewmasters Bar and Grill = 4.67
Buns of Chapel Hill = 4.67
Draft = 4.58
Johnson’s = 4.50
Barry’s Cafe = 4.50
Bonefish Grill = 4.42
Salem Street Pub = 4.33

Work Those Buns!

The Straight Beef’s recent Podcast #4 raised the critical issue of whether or not a patty melt is a legitimate hamburger. The answer to that question hangs on one’s belief in the importance of the bun. If the bun is a critical component, then the patty melt, which is traditionally served between slices of rye bread, is not a burger. If, as the Food Lover’s Companion says, a hamburger is “. . . a cooked patty of ground beef between two bread halves, usually in the form of a hamburger bun,” a patty melt is very definitely a variation on a hamburger just as a pimento burger is a variation on a cheeseburger. We’ll deal with this topic in greater detail (and with greater vitriol) in an upcoming review.

Why all the bun angst? Because the bun is important. The founding members of The Straight Beef are adamant that a kaiser roll is never a fitting delivery vehicle for a hamburger. Latecomer and burger iconoclast Chad believes that a kaiser roll is sometimes appropriate for pub-style burgers, those whopping half pound giants whose juiciness and  overloaded toppings can sometimes overwhelm a lesser bun.

All agree, however, that the perfect hamburger bun for classic, diner-style, griddled hamburgers is the potato roll, specifically the Martin’s potato roll. Our friends at the Burger Lab at A Hamburger Today conducted a series of taste test that confirmed our findings. You can see the results here: The Burger Lab: What’s The Best Bun For My Burger?

Photograph by Robyn Lee, A Hamburger Today

The minions at The Straight Beef’s secret undergound lair and test lab are currently putting the finishing touches on the ultimate homemade hamburger bun recipe. In the meantime, this recipe from King Arthur Flour is a good start: Hamburger Potato Buns

Photo courtesy of King Arthur Flour

Dough

Topping

Directions

 1) Combine all of the dough ingredients and mix and knead them — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a soft dough.

2) Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until it’s almost doubled in bulk.

3) Turn the dough onto a lightly greased surface, gently deflate it, and divide it into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

4) Place the balls into the greased cups of a hamburger bun pan, flattening gently. Or place them on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2″ to 3″ between them; flatten gently.

5) Cover and let rise until the buns have doubled in size, 60 to 90 minutes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

6) Bake the buns for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they’re light golden brown.

7) Remove them from the oven, and brush them with melted butter, if desired.

8) Transfer the buns to a rack to cool. Store buns, well-wrapped, at room temperature for several days; freeze for longer storage.

Yield: 6 buns.

There’s a McDifference #6

There’s a McDifference!

3710 Western Blvd., Raleigh (West of NC State)

This McDonald’s is right on the edge of the NC State campus. I know I tend to go on about the parking situation at these places, but this one ranks number one on my list of parking nightmares. There seems to be plenty of spaces, but at lunch it is almost impossible to find a space. It is so close to NC State that if you park anyplace but the dedicated parking lot, it’s a tow-away zone. Good luck finding a parking space.

When it is crowded, the service line is chaotic. The lineup policy seems to be as follows: Stand in a big, disorganized crowd. Eventually, somehow, make it to the front register. Though this adds undue stress to my outing, I let go of it once I get my food.

Atmosphere: The theme is everything NC State, with nice wall murals of State sports greats. There is an awesome full-size scoreboard attached to a rafter system you would see at an arena. The scoreboard has TVs on all sides and highlights some of the school’s past championships. The seating is all in one area, with half of the seats being hardback chairs and the other being high-back padded swivel chairs. I have to say that these high-back seats are the most comfortable seats I think I have ever sat in.

Quarter Pounder: The burger patty flavor is excellent. I was tempted to eat this one without a bun and condiments; it was very tasty. The bun was fresh, the onions crunchy. My only problem was that they didn’t put any care into assembling it. The patty was hanging off to one side, the pickles in a big clump (which I generally remove anyway), and onions were just piled off-center, and the ketchup just slapped on. After a little creative burger surgery, it was very delicious. Because of this lack of quality I will have to deduct a half point.

Fries: Are the fries burnt? They don’t taste burnt, but they are all dark brown. Oh, I see, they must cook them in really dirty oil. That is the only explanation I can come up with.

Burger rating: 4.5 out of 5 Grimaces

grimace5shopBW grimace4shop grimace3shopBW grimace2shopBW grimace1shopBW

“Burger Land” Premieres Tonight

In the premiere episode, George visits classic burger joints in Los Angeles: the Apple Pan, Pie ‘n Burger, Marty’s, Charlie’s, and Irv’s. Check out some clips from the episode below.

New episodes of Burger Land will air on Monday nights. The first two episodes on April 15 and April 22 will air at 10 p.m.; starting April 29, new episodes will air at 9 p.m. If you need to catch a rerun, check Travel Channel’s schedule.

Burgatory from Pittsburgh is the new Burger Brackets Champion

Burgatory

BurgerBusiness.com, the burger industry insider trade magazine, hosts a March Madness-style burger championship throwdown. This year’s winner is Burgatory, a two-restaurant chain from Pittsburgh. Burgatory defeated a host of industry stalwarts to win. Who knew that icons like In-n-Out and Five Guys would go down so early or that Bad Daddy’s would make it so far? More than 16,000 votes were cast.

Burgatory skillfully used its more than 10,500 Facebook likes and more than 3,800 Twitter followers to get out the word. The Pittsburgh Penguins tweeted their fans and urged them to vote for the burger joint that operates a highly successful burger-and-shakes stand in their home arena.

Did the best burger win? Or did the best social media strategy win? You be the judge.

2013-Final-Bracket-Spreadsheet-1024x716

Click for larger version

1 … 6 7 8 9 10 … 15