Black Duck Cafe

Westport, CT
yelp.com

The Order:  Marty's Wisconsin (Stuffed) Cheddar Burger, medium rare.  Sharp cheddar cheese with sauteed onions, lettuce and tomato (all toppings are free)
Side Order:  Comes with fries or onion rings, and slaw.  I got onion rings.
$10
Drink Order:  Beaver Brewnette
Burger Menu Rating:  6.5/15




Tucked away along the water in Westport, Black Duck Cafe is an establishment that's been around for quite some time.  In a boat.  Down by the river.  I know, I'm sure everyone has said that before.  The boat was built some time in the 1840s and was used as an Ice Barge up and down the east coast.  The boat and its crew would travel up to Maine or New Hampshire and load up with ice, then make its way down the coast selling it all off.  Later on, it was stored in various places, and finally, after a stint in New Jersey, in 1961, a Westport/Saugatuck family bought the ship, used their tow trucks (the family business) to haul the barge on shore and convert it into a restaurant.  Black Duck Cafe has been open since April of 1978 and is coming up on their 35th anniversary (between 1961 and 1978 the barge was used for a handful of other bar/restaurants), but Black Duck, while being a restaurant, is more of a pub.  It features a 40-foot long bar over which you can look out onto the river.

Being a pub, they have the usual pub fare.  Chicken wings, fries, burgers, etc. all abound on this menu.  But what stands out are the "The Duck's now famous Stuffed Burgers" of which there are four.  What does this mean?  It means the cheese on each of these burgers is stuffed into the meat when they make form the patties.  Setting off any alarms?  Usually this overworks the meat right?  Well, Black Duck manages to avoid this somehow.


The stuffed burger's cheese oozing out!

The burger comes with a decent medium grind, and nice thick oozy bits of cheese.  It, unfortunately, was cooked a bit over medium rare, but it had a good char and a good meat taste.  While this could be an excellent burger, the overall theme for this meal was blandness.  The tomatoes were Beefsteak which weren't all that sweet, or tomatoey, or anything really.  The same goes for the bun, which was a bit dry, absorbent, but lacking in flavor.  I was able to try the fries and they were a great thick cut, but again, bland.  The onion rings were pretty tasty actually.  They were soft, and easy to bite through, but on the whole they were way too oily.  They were so oily it felt immediately as if I was sweating out oil.  So, you know, very oily.


Oily onions lurking in the background.

Perhaps it was the specific burger I ordered, or just that day, but it just didn't do it for me, especially for $10, which is the "Big" size.  It also comes in "Bigger" for $12, which I don't think would really be worth it.  There is a decent amount of food on your plate, and the ability to customize your burger for free is definitely a plus, but I don't think I'd order this burger again.  I've got a soft spot when it comes to stuffed burgers because my aunt has been making excellent stuffed burgers for years, so I might be inclined to try this place again.  Perhaps the Jodi's Pepperjack Burger, or the Doctor Proctor's Bleu Cheese Burger.




 Cooked Correctly:  3.5/5
Design:  Build Your Own+Beefstake Tomatoes 1/4
Plating:  1/3
Value:  1/3

Minetta Tavern

Manhattan, NY
minettatavernny.com



The Order:  Black Label Burger, medium rare.  With caramelized onions on a brioche bun, also comes with lettuce and tomato.
Side Order:  Comes with fries and pickle.
$26
Drink Order: Fuller's Bengal Lancer IPA
Burger Menu Rating: 14/15




So I FINALLY went to Minetta Tavern to try their burger!  I wasn't avoiding it really, and it's always been at the top of my list of places to try, but I somehow just never went.  Well, with some prodding from Vanessa and Mike, we went for lunch, and let me tell you, Executive Chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr have created a burger that does not disappoint in the least.


I was beyond excited.  Vanessa was too I swear.

We had made our reservation for right at noon, which I highly recommend you do if you can.  You feel as if you're getting special treatment without the attention feeling oppressive.  When we arrived, the restaurant was empty except for the staff, so we were seated immediately, in the back near the kitchen.  I love the decor in Minetta Tavern.  It feels like an old mob restaurant, complete with black and white pictures of celebrities with the original owner when the restaurant opened in the 1930's.


It wasn't empty for long.

 Our server was quick, knowledgeable and attentive.  I wasn't skeptical about the quality of the burger, but when I specified that I wanted my burger medium rare, she went as far as to describe exactly how the chefs at Minetta cook their burger: medium rare towards rare, with a warm pink center.  Perfect, and I haven't even taken a bite yet.


 Medium rare towards rare, with a warm pink center.

And when that burger came out (quickly, I might add), it WAS perfect.  It was cooked exactly the way the sever described it.  The focus of this burger is definitely the meat, which is dry-aged custom beef blend from Pat La Frieda.  It's a coarse grind, delivered every day, and minimally handled to ensure the burger retains all of it's flavors and juices.  What you can't really see in the picture above is just how amazing the fat distribution in this burger is.  With every bite, juices gush out of this patty, and onto your chin, your plate, and a lot of it gets mopped up by this bun, which is fantastic.  It's light and airy, slightly sweet, and soft, perfect for pressing down around the patty and collecting every bit of those delicious juices.


Vanessa enjoys her second trip to Minetta Tavern.

The caramelized onions are a perfect foil for the burger.  The burger is well seasoned, salty, though never too salty, and really works hand in hand with the onion's sweetness.  After a while, the two tastes become one: a perfect union of two flavors that were meant to be together.

The fries here are delicious too, and apparently exactly the same as the fries at Balthazar, where Hanson and Nasr are also executive chefs.  I'm not complaining.  They're delicious, they don't need that much ketchup, and they're not shoe-string fries!  They're a medium cut, gold in color, and impossible to stop eating.

I love the fact that this burger doesn't come with anything else.  Sure there's a piece of lettuce and a tomato on the side, but does anybody put it on?  Our server said no, and she'd know.  According to her, approximately 85% of the orders during lunch hours are the Black Label Burger.  Looking around us, she isn't wrong, though on the day we went, that number was closer to 100%.  Burger after burger rolled out of the kitchen and into the waiting hands of dozens of other hungry denizens.  I'll be interested in the many return trips to come.  This burger has taken it's place as my favorite burger in NYC, but what will be interesting will be to see how it changes, or if it changes.  Under the supervision of Hanson and Nasr, this burger has seen some updates since it was first created, and who's to say that it won't keep on changing.  I will definitely be going back to try it again.  And again.  And again..




Cooked Correctly:  5/5
Design:  4/4
Plating:  2/3
Value:  3/3



Still super excited.


Vanessa and Mike's 2nd trip to Minetta Tavern.


The glorious Black Label Burger.

So delicious.

Burger juices.  Everywhere.

Darien Social

Darien, CT
www.dariensocialct.com



The Order: Social Burger, medium rare. With slow cooked onion, black pepper truffle mayo. (Add bacon or cheese for $1.50 - local blue cheese, shelburne aged cheddar, cloud nine camembert, fresh mozzarella, or gruyere)
Side Order: Comes with fries
$12
Drink Order: Water
Burger Menu Rating: 10/15




Located in the heart of downtown Darien, CT, Darien Social is an American gastropub which serves upscale comfort food.  They do their best to source all of their ingredients locally, and have built a restaurant that exudes a nostalgia for the early part of the 20th century.  While their attention to the detail of the decor is admirable, their burger was merely an average artisan burger, despite the way the burger and toppings were put together.

A Social Burger.

One thing that was nice about this burger is that I got what they said was going to be on the burger.  Notice that in the pictures there aren't other toppings.  No lettuce, no tomato.  When you order this, you know that you are going to get a bun, a burger patty, onions and mayo.  That's what I mean about this burger being an average artisan burger.  They was definitely thought about the ingredients, and what should go onto and into this burger.


Slightly over medium rare.

Cutting into the burger, it had a nice pink center, but as you can see above, it isn't quite medium rare.  Check out this graphic which details how STEAKS look when cooked to various temperatures.  It's a good reference for when you're cooking burgers.  Granted, burgers, depending on where you go, should be cooked more thoroughly, at trusted establishments, a true medium rare is perfectly safe.  Or, you live on the edge like me, and will settle for nothing less.

There was a nice crunch to the bun of this burger.  The inside was grilled, but not charred, and the rest was soft: perfect for absorbing the juices of the burger.  The bun, however, was really oily for whatever reason, which definitely detracted from the overall taste of the burger.

The fries were a great texture, and perfectly seasoned.

The fries were fantastic.  They weren't over-cooked, some were thin and crunchy, and others were thicker and soft.  And I didn't need the ketchup they provided at all.  At the end of the meal, you get a free small Granita which is perfect for cleansing your palate after a meal.  Delicious.

Baby cousin Aiden loves burgers too.  Good man.

I'd definitely come here again.  It's a fairly good burger for the price, and the beer list is a plus, though on the expensive side.  I'd actually really like to do a side by side comparison between The Social Burger and the Goose Burger, both of which are in downtown Darien, CT.




Cooked Correctly: 4/5
Plating: 2/3
Design/Ingredients: 2/4
Value: 2/3