Heartland Brewery

Manhattan, NY
www.heartlandbrewery.com



The Order: The HB Burger, medium rare. With shredded lettuce and tomato.
Side Order: Comes with Idaho fries.
$11.95
Drink Order: Heartland Brewery Indiana Pale Ale



A clean and simple burger, the HB Burger from Heartland Brewery is all taste and no frills. The meat is only lightly salted, allowing the taste of the meat to be the main focus of each bite. I really enjoyed the layering of the ingredients. While there weren't that many of them, having the tomato underneath the meat afforded the entire burger a crisp and refreshing taste as well as a satisfying ending crunch every time I bit into it. The tomatoes weren't especially flavorful, but it wasn't a detriment to the burger on the whole. Simple. No sauce, no cheese. Just a hamburger, for the sake of the burger.

The two plusses for Heartland are 1) they cooked the meat perfectly. I've been to too many burger places recently who claim to make an awesome burger, but they can't even cook it properly. Heartland just did a great job cooking the meat the way I asked for it, and did it quickly. 2) They didn't work the meat too much. Again, so many places feel the need to knead the meat until it becomes mush. Not so here. Still, as tasty as this burger was, I can't justify the $11.95 it cost for a burger and fries. Its just not worth it, both in size, and in interest.

The fries here were, however, very good. Nice and thick, these are meaty Idaho Potato fries. I don't know how much a side of fries would cost you, but I'd say these are more worth it than the burger is. You might come here and grab beers and snacks, in which case I'd say get the fries. As a side with the burger, the fries were a fairly generous portion, but still not enough to justify the cost.

Heartland Brewery is supposedly the third in the burger rivalry between Schnippers Quality Kitchen and Shake Shack. I don't really see any way of comparing those two and Heartland Brewery though, other than by taste. Both Schnippers and Shake Shack ask you to order from a counter, and Heartland has waitstaff. This may just be Heartland trying to break into the spotlight by setting itself against the other two more major contenders, but it really doesn't have the burger to back up its claims.