thebreslin.com
The Order: Chargrilled Lamb Burger, medium rare. With feta, cumin mayo, and red onion.
Side Order: Comes with Thrice cooked chips. Boiled peanuts fried in pork fat ($6)
$21 + $6 = $27
Drink Order: Spotted Pig Cask Conditioned Bitter
Burger Menu Rating: 12.5/15
I met up with Mike and Vanessa again for another burger expedition, this time to the Ace Hotel (Seriously guys, if any of you others want to eat burgers with me, you just have to ask, I'm game). When you walk into the lobby of the Ace Hotel in NYC, you'll be greeted by decor and clientele for which the chain of hotels is known: hipsters, vinyl records, driftwood, mustaches, and taxidermy, a sort of upscale hipster getaway. Navigate through all of this to get to the Breslin (or I guess you could enter from their Street entrance, but there's much more to look at if you enter through the lobby, trust me), but don't be distracted by the bar in the lobby. While they also have a burger on their bar menu that looks tasty, what you want is the lamb burger at Chef April Broomfield's The Breslin serves. The place really starts to fill up by 7p, so get here early, and even arriving at 6p meant a 15 minute wait, even though the front half of the restaurant appeared to have a lot of open tables (even though there are no reservations?). Whatever. a 15 minute wait isn't so bad with a beer in your hand.
(photo courtesy of The Breslin)
After looking over the menu, we quickly decided to split the boiled peanuts fried in pork fat (they've since changed them to merely fried in pork fat and raised it to $7. I don't think the extra $1 will make it more delicious, but I'm sure it's still as good). The waitress, being extremely attentive and perky, rewarded our quick thinking by taking our orders as soon as we were ready. But from that point the dinner dragged on and on. Our waitress was fantastic, but the food service is so incredibly slow, it was almost unbearable (we could almost have not added a bear). The peanuts came after a time, and went away faster than we would have liked, and were followed by more waiting.
Well into our second drinks, the burgers finally arrived, and our mouths were watering from having waited for so long. I love it when burgers are simple, when they have had some thought put into them, when the chef doesn't just add lettuce, tomato and a slice of onion for the hell of it. This burger is simple, with emphasis on the flavor of the lamb. Juicy, messy, and a huge patty, I mean, look at the picture. That patty is HUGE, and awesome. The cumin mayo mixed with the feta and the lamb is fantastic, if a little strong. The bun was a bit too crispy, a detriment to the burger, but was able to soak up the juices. If it had been a little less crunchy, it would have made for a perfectly designed burger.
The fries were delicious on their own. They were extra crispy, soft on the inside, and lightly seasoned. I don't really get what about them was so spectacular after having been 'thrice-cooked' but sure, I'd go for them again. The fact that they were still soft on the inside is a draw. With a crunch, and the mix of textures, they're a delight to eat, and when dipped in the cumin mayo, it was impossible to stop eating them.
Cooked Correctly = 5pts
Presentation/Plating = 3pts
Design/Ingredients = 2.5pts
Value = 2
