Apology Contest

Hey there burger enthusiasts!  It's been a REALLY long time since I've written a review here, and for that I'm sorry.  Work has been crazy, and I've been keeping up with another daily blog since the beginning of the year.  Between that, and an upcoming move to Germany (I know, right?!), I've not been able to get a post up every week like I've wanted to.  BUT, I hope to get back on track once I'm settled in good ol' Hamburg.  I'm also looking for guest reviewers/bloggers who can help me take up some of the slack.  If you're interested, shoot me an email at theburgermenu@gmail.com.



In the meantime, I've got a contest for you all.  Tweet or Instagram a photo of you, or you and your friends, or your dog (or whoever really), looking sad with a burger, @burgermenu with the tag #burgerapology by Wednesday May 28th for a chance to win a $20 Umami Burger gift certificate!  Good at any Umami Burger location, get a free burger meal on The Burger Menu!  The winner will be drawn within a week of the contest closing.  Think you can be the saddest burger enthusiast?  Good luck!

Mess Hall

Los Angeles, CA
messhallkitchen.com



The Order: Mess Hall Burger, medium rare.  Slow onions, Vermont cheddar, b&b pickles, and smokey aioli on a brioche bun.
Side Order: Does not come with fries (add for $5 at lunch, $8 at dinner)
Lunch $10 - Dinner - $15
Drink Order: Stone IPA
Burger Menu Rating: 10.5/15




Located at Los Feliz Blvd and Hillhurst Ave. in Los Feliz, Mess Hall opened about a year and a half ago to widespread positive acclaim from local reviewers, but has remained relatively under the radar as a contender in the established Los Angeles burger scene.  Head chef Keith Silverton has created a menu that falls into the ubiquitous category American (new), with a wide variety of options designed to appeal to the young Los Feliz and Silverlake crowds.


The Fanny Bay Oysters were an excellent starter for the meal with mild brininess and a cucumber finish.

Here in Los Angeles, like in other major metropolitan cities, there has been a resurgence in oysters as relatively cheap artisanal fare.  The small selection of oysters here are moderately priced at around $3 each, and come with accurate descriptions.  Like everywhere else, the Oysters help get you in the door to then spend your money on other higher priced items, except that the rest of the menu isn't so outrageously expensive that you mind.  The entire menu is filled with upscale Southern food with items whose flavor pack a big punch to your mouth.  A fried chicken sando with honey mustard on brioche.  Buffalo wing confit.  You'll come here wanting to satisfy cravings for big flavors and balance them all with beer and cocktails.  The same applies to their burger which treads carefully at the edge of a flavor profile that could be a little too much.


This burger's onions are just pouring out all over the place.

When the Mess Hall Burger arrives, it's just ready to fall apart.  I mean, it's amazing that they've managed to pile all of the toppings onto the burger and maintain a clean plate.  As soon as you touch it it begins to ooze and drip cheese, onions and sauce.  "It sure is a... messy burger," my friend Will exclaims while eating.  Get it?  Messy?  But he's also correct.  This thing will end up everywhere.  Don't wear white when you come here, or you'll end up wearing this thing out.

First off, there are a ton of onions on this thing.  They're all sweet and delicious, but are a bit much.  Now, when you get a bite that has all of the ingredients they come together in your mouth to create an amazing and strong but balanced flavor that is at times sweet, tangy, salty and smokey.  It's just a delight to savor the cheddar with the onions, and when the little bit of sourness comes through from the pickles, it's like your mouth has died and gone to heaven.  There's plenty of cheese and pickles on this burger, but for some reason they're not evenly disbursed so many bites have a disproportionate amount of onions and when eaten alone they become overwhelmingly sweet.  My recommendation?  Remove the bun from the burger before attacking it, and use your knife and fork to more evenly disperse the toppings.  You'll be more guaranteed to have delicious bites every single time.

The meat is a custom blend of brisket, chuck and flank steak with a 70% lean to 30% fat ratio that is delivered from Niman Ranch up near San Francisco and ground daily in-house.  The large fat content in this burger is awesome, allowing a slightly larger margin of error when cooking and allows for good overall cohesion in the patty.  The one big detriment to the burger, however, was that it was a bit overcooked!  They were able to get a fantastic sear on the outside of the burger, so there was a little crunch to every bite, and the meat was nice and flaky, but if the burger is overcooked, you're going to lose points.  It's not as if the place was all that busy so that the chef was churning out order after order and couldn't keep an eye on the patties we ordered.  Regardless, at $10 for a lunch burger (no fries), this a really good deal for the amount of food, and the quality of the ingredients.  Next time I'd stress it being cooked correctly, but overall an awesome burger.  Also, don't miss out on their Monday Night Burger + Beer/Bourbon Deal for $15, or Tuesday night $1 Oysters!




Cooked Correctly: 4/5
Design/Ingredients: 3/4
Plating: 1/3
Value: 2.5/3

The Oinkster - March 2014 Burger of the Month

Eagle Rock, CA
www.theoinkster.com



The Order: The St. Patrick's Burger. A 6 oz. corned beef brisket and ground beef patty with a bubble n' squeak fritter, Oinkster mustard, and pickles on a potato bun.
Side Order: No side.
 $9
Drink Order: Lucky Charm Shake ($6)
Burger Menu Rating: 8/15




If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times.  The Oinkster's burger is hands down my favorite pedestrian burger in Los Angeles.  They began their official Burger of the Month specials in late 2012 and since then have produced a variety of interesting creations.  From the Little Bear Burger to the Oklahoma Onion Burger, to the Chili Cheese Dog Burger, The Oinkster's creations are generally interesting takes on either classic burgers, or classic meals made into burgers, and are often in response to the upcoming season or holiday.  This month's burger attempts to tackle a "classic" Irish dish, Corned Beef and Cabbage, and it does so with some success, but leaves something to be desired.  It turns out that Corned Beef and Cabbage is about as truly Irish as green bagels are, so if The Oinkster missed the mark a little, we'll forgive them. A little


The Bubble n' Squeak Fritter nicely formed and placed on top of the patty.

When this burger comes out, you might ask yourself, "is this a hash brown?!" You wouldn't be that far off.  A Bubble n' Squeak is a traditional English dish made from leftover roasted vegetables, generally potatoes and cabbage.  It is so named because of the sounds it makes as it cooks in the pan.  The Oinkster's version is a little bit bland.  Having deep fried their version, the potatoes and cabbage are surrounded by a layer of breading which is a bit extraneous next to the potato bun.  The potatoes in the fritter don't provide much more than a mushy mouthfeel next to the cabbage, which is slightly sour and left me wanting more.

The corned beef brisket and beef patty is certainly an interesting choice for the burger, but ultimately falls short as a choice for a burger meat blend.  Brisket is cooked to tenderness over a long time, and when it's done, there's almost no fat left to hold it together.  Adding back in some ground beef to up the fat content was a solid choice, but ended up playing down some of the brisket flavor.  The end result was a strange combination that left me unsure of what flavor I should actually be tasting.  It had some of the saltiness for sure, but overall the meat was a little bland.  Or maybe the meat wasn't bland, but was just being completely overpowered by another ingredient: the mustard.


The corned beef had its distinctive pink color.

I've had the Oinkster Mustard a few times before.  It's extremely strong, and on this burger, having a lot of it is a detriment to the overall balance of flavor.  I understand that a lot of people eat their corned beef with mustard, but having a large amount smeared on the bottom of this burger just doesn't work.  Stacking order people!  The ingredients towards the bottom of the burger get the most tongue-time and influence all the flavors that come after!  So with this burger, what I tasted was mostly mustard, with a little bit of corned beef flavor.  Next time use less!


It sure is a good looking combo though.

This burger, like all their other sandwiches, does not automatically come with a side.  As always, the fries at The Oinkster as delicious.  But I wanted to get my hands on that shake, and I knew that if I ate the burger, fries and drank a shake that I would regret it for hours after.  The Lucky Charms shake is absolutely delicious and there are giant marshmallows throughout the thick beverage, but therein lies the ultimate problem!  My mouth was so tired from trying to suck those large chunks of cereal through the tiny little straw.  Either get a bigger straw, use a spoon, or avoid this shake!  But seriously, it was delicious.




Cooked Correctly: 5/5 Corned beef - no choice
Design/Ingredients: 1/4
Plating: 1/3
Value: 1/3

Burgeramt

Hamburg, DE
burgeramt.com



The Order:
Phil - Chilliiie Cheese Burger, medium rare. With nachos, jalapeños, Gouda, Chillisauce, fresh onions, roasted onions, pickles, tomato and lettuce.
Kristin - Bacon Guacamole Burger, medium rare. With bacon, guacamole (Avocado Creme), fresh grilled peppers, roasted onions, braised onions and lettuce.
Side Order:
We both added fries and salad for €2.20
Phil - €4.90 + €2.20 = €7.10
Kristin - €4.90 + €2.20 = €7.10
Drink Order:
Phil - Berliner Pilsener
Kristin - Astra Alsterwasser
Burger Menu Rating: 8/15
Kristin's Burger Menu Rating: 9/15




Welcome to the new year!  I know I've been absent for a long time and you've all been wondering where I've been.  Don't lie.  I know you've missed me and all the delicious, and not so delicious, burgers that I write about.  I've been spending time working on another blog that I've started, which if you haven't seen yet, you should check it out.  If you don't follow it this year, you'll miss it!  Anyways, for my first post of the new year, the first post of February, I've got something a little different.


Kristin, the budding burger connoisseur.  Taking things very seriously.

I spent over a month in Germany at the end of last year and ate quite a few burgers during my stay.  My lovely girlfriend Kristin has been a great sport when it comes to my obsession with burgers, and they're starting to grow on her to the point that she's becoming very critical of the burgers that we eat together.  It brings tears of joy to my eyes, let me tell you.  So today what you get is a tandem review in the form of a conversation between Kristin and I!



PK: When the burgers first came out they were huge!  Right?  They looked really big!

KT: Yeah, and I can not finish it.

PK: Yeah.  It's a good amount of food, but for a burger that's so big, the patty itself is surprisingly small.  Surprisingly thin.  What did you think with your first bit of the burger?

KT: I missed the flavor! I wanted something really delicious to bite into.  And it has a little bit of a burned flavor.  Maybe it's because of the bacon that it tastes a little bit burned?  But it also has a weird aftertaste.  Do you say this?

PK: Yeah.

KT: Maybe also a little bit too much onion for my taste. So maybe that's the reason that I didn't like it so much.  I was hoping that it would have a little bit more guacamole, since it's called Bacon guacamole.  So they should use less onions, and more..

PK:  More of what the actual name is.

KT: And also maybe serve it with guacamole so that you can dip the burger.


Weird stacking order, and an over cooked burger.

PK:  Sure!  It was the same on mine.  It's called the Chilliiie Cheese Burger but there was almost no chili on it. And usually on a Chili Cheese Burger the cheese is melted, or on any burger the cheese is melted, but here it's separated by a layer of tortilla chips and jalapeños so the cheese is ice cold.  But definitely, the big problem here is that my burger is overcooked.  Is yours?

KT: Yeah.

PK: Yeah. And if the standard here is medium rare—

KT: That's not medium rare.

PK: That's not medium rare. They're doing something a little wrong.

KT: But yours is more..

PK: Pinker than yours. Sure.  But mine is only medium.  But yours is—

KT: Look at mine. It's like a Frikadelle.

PK: Yours is gray.  What'd you say?

KT: A Frikadelle.

PK: Oh, sure! Ha.  But honestly, the best thing about my burger is the jalapeños.  The jalapeños are really good.  They're not so hot.  They're spicy and smokey.  They're really good.  And the tortilla chips are a nice touch, but the stacking order on this burger is a little off.  What about the fries?


The fries. A little boring.  Or as Kristin put it: boring, boring, boring.

KT: If I say boring, boring, boring, then I mean boring, boring, boring.

PK: Yeah. I agree. They're undersalted, maybe, there's not enough—

KT: Yeah.

PK: They're certainly cooked correctly. Right? They're—

KT: They're missing the salt.

PK: It's just the flavor.

KT: Yeah.

PK: Overall though. Kind of disappointing. You certainly do get a lot of food. I'm three quarters of the way through my burgers and I can not finish.  I might.. still, but—

KT:  Ha.

PK: But I would be pushing it. Would you come here again?


The entire place is lined with music and movie posters. And they play movies like Lawrence of Arabia.

KT: The atmosphere is cool. With some people to go out and have a great time, yes. But not if I wanted to eat a burger. Like, if I said "I want to eat a burger tonight," I would not come here.

PK: I agree.

KT: I would go to one of the other places we've been in the last few—

PK: I mean it's more.. Definitely for the atmosphere, and if I want to eat a cheap meal.  A cheap meal that's.. okay.

KT: Yeah, this you have to account for also.

PK: I mean, €4.90 for a burger, that's, what, $6.60 for a burger.  That's a good deal for this size, for this amount of food.  Because the patty is thin, but it's big, it has a big circumference.

KT: That's also maybe Berlin.  In Berlin a lot of stuff is cheaper.  Like, how much have we paid for a burger in Hamburg? Like ten or twelve bucks.

PK: For a good burger. Yeah.

KT: It's, for me, now I'm eating burgers more often, so I can.. Now I'm eating more more burgers so I can see the difference.




Phil's Burger Scores:
Cooked Correctly: 3/5 (extra point taken off because medium rare is "standard.")
Design/Ingredients: 1/4
Plating: 1.5
Value: 2.5 (Here's the kicker to this rating!  The cost is great for the amount of food you get.)

Kristin's Burger Scores:
Cooked Correctly: 2/5
Design/Ingredients: 2/4
Plating: 2/3 (Liked the dishware!)
Value: 3