what we love: Levar Burton was our waiter, beef was amazing
what we could live without: Sub standard buns, cooked onions too sweet...
burger scale: B/B-
price range: Good Food at Great Food Prices (tm)
payment method: Mercifully they took credit cards.
So we went to this place on the recommendation of the Other Burger Club. The atmosphere was what you would expect from a downtown brasserie. After a round of drinks at the bar, the stragglers of our party arrived, and we were seated by a doppelganger of the host of Reading Rainbow.
We started with a plate of fried seafood yummies and an excellent assortment of veggies. The rest of the menu looks fantastic, but we were there for the burgers. They came in 2 varieties, regular and bison with an assortment of toppings available. The only cheeses available were mild cheddars and blue; they offered sauteed onions as a "near requirement" and standard applewood smoked bacon.
The onions proved to be a disaster. Not only were they cooked with sherry, making them far too sweet, they also savagely destroyed what little structural integrity was left of the delicately carved and buttered onion buns. Utensils were quickly required to salvage these baseball steaks. This coupled with the weak cheese showing seriously compromised what could have been a far better showing.
The meat, however, was first rate. Their beef blend was spectacular and made the rest of the burger faux pas almost forgivable. The bison was surprisingly flavorful and juicy, and is highly recommended.
It is also worth noting that their burgers play a more prominent role on their lunch menu, so perhaps the experience would have been different had we gone for lunch instead of dinner.
Summary: Excellent meat quality, poor buns, and a bit overpriced. Stay away from the cooked onions.
what we love: Paul's is Paul's is Paul's
what we could live without: our half comatose server who couldn't keep our order straight and double charged us for our drinks
burger scale: 2008 Winner. 'nuff said.
price range: only a few clams to make your tummy happy
payment method: cash only
Summary: For years, Paul's has been the burger stand by for East Village locals and NYU kids. We don't see that changing anytime soon. We heart Paul's. Long live Paul's!
Primehouse sounded fantastic, and we're sorry we missed it. The swell that hit the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica beckoned, so we traded ground brisket and sirloin for rice and beans. Since our return, we've made up for the deprivation by visiting Shake Shack on a near daily basis.
We eagerly look forward to burger night this month as we're revisiting the winner of last year's fave burger survey, Paul's Place! We'll be going back to the burger joint that launched the Burger Series way back in the day, when we were a few burgers lighter but a little hungrier.
We can't wait! Can you?
- The Burger Series
The 2008 Burger Series Survey results are in!
what we love: Otherworldly-good burgers and steakhouse-quality sides partnered with excellent service and decor that was classier than we were
what we could live without: our inability to eat there daily
burger scale: A+
price range: Expense account
payment method: cash or credit, and possibly your first-born child
Oh Primehouse NY, captain of all things burger-worthy! Apparently the laudatory reviews were well merited, because we universally loved this joint.
But let's start with the service, which was a stellar accompaniment to our experience. The burger menu is generally reserved for lunch or the bar, so we had to request it specially since we came for a dinner seating. Did our waiter cringe in annoyance upon realizing that we twelve would not be ordering $50 steaks apiece? Not only did he not bat an eye, he was fun, friendly, attentive, and highly informative (sharing with us secrets of places to get excellent bone marrow, among other juicy morsels.) Considering our casual attire in this gleaming venue, this was clearly the mark of top-notch service and we were impressed.
More impressive still were....the burgers. The menu sports three main varietals: classic (lettuce, tomato, onion, and your choice of cheddar, Gruyere or American), steakhouse (caramelized onions, 'shrooms, steaksauce) and the Bacon & Blue (handcut slab bacon, Maytag blue cheese, lettuce, tomato, and sighs all around.)
The burgers are perfectly-cooked 10oz of Pat LaFrieda beef, smothered in toppings and nestled into a "pretzel" bun. Not sure why it is called pretzel bun, but it had the perfect structural integrity to hold together the burger ensemble without overpowering the flavor. The steakhouse burger's generous toppings complemented the flavorful meat without dominating it. The bacon was so thick that we removed some of it and used it as a spoon to better consume the outstanding mac & cheese side, a quality we found endearing.
The burgers are almost too large to eat sans knife and fork but finding a way to mange them as a whole is highly recommended and not impossible. But if you had to disassemble....you'd surely leave not a morsel of beef behind. Yup, it was that good.
The burgers are accompanied by excellent steakhouse wedge fries, thick-cut and crispy enough to pass muster from our "extra crispy fries" crowd. Sadly, the burgers are so yumdelish and generous, many fries were left behind as our stomachs reached capacity. Hurts so good.
Summary: We'd call it Burger Heaven if that name were not already claimed in NY. Suffice it to say, we've been drooling on our keyboards as we've reminisced about this burger.
The mac and Cheese:
New York has patties worthy of your attention. Eighty-two, to be exact — and we've rounded them all up here. For the first time, you will find all of the city's noteworthy burgers dutifully codified, analyzed, and collected in one place. In alphabetical order, our Burger Guide gives comprehensive details: meat composition, patty weight, bun details, topping options, preparation, prices — all presented with lustrous, appetite-whetting photographs for your viewing pleasure.
Check it all out here.
what we love: Juicy succulent burgers with the dastardly-good truffle fries accompaniment
what we could live without: the long wait to get a table despite advance reservations; irritating pre-Broadway crowd
burger scale: A-/B+
price range: medium to medium-well
payment method: cash or credit
Has ever a burger been so aptly named?
The signature 5 Napkins Burger beckons to you right from the menu with its promises of a Gruyere-and-caramelized-onion overcoat, laid over a rosemary-aioli-soaked roll. The meat delivered - a generously-sized, cooked to order burger that was juicy in its own right. And the burger:toppings:bun ratio was near perfect, rendering the entire package just a smidgen too large for a proper bite...which is, of course, perfect. But the toppings....ah, the toppings. The special element of the signature burger - the aioli (aka "5N sauce) - led this burger to merit the famed 5 napkins. Actually, some of us found the burger to need closer to 15 napkins, which was considered a plus by some and a minus by others. While most of us found our meal incredibly appealing, the debate over the number of napkins aside, a small number of us found the Gruyere - onion combination a little too savory on savory and complained the burger was a bit boring and one-note (ahem, All Carbon).
Others avoided the napkin and one-note debate by venturing into the familiar territory of the Bacon Cheeseburger (classic cheddar and crispy pork goodness) and the surprisingly good veggie burger. Neither required 5 napkins but both were solid entries in their respective categories.
The burgers all came with truffle-oiled fries, which were of the shoestring variety and were crisped correctly. They were well-received, if a bit too salty, sometimes with the saltiness overpowering the truffling. Which again led a certain someone (we're not mentioning names, but it's All Carbon) to complain yet again of too much savory and not enough other flavors. The rest of us found the savory to be quite delicious and soon found ourselves sitting in front of a growing pile of napkins... which by then was at 35 and counting...
Conceptually speaking, 5 Napkins as a brasserie and burger joint works. What we don't get is the rest of the menu, which is a mystery that is most likely explained by the restaurant's proximity to Times Square and the Broadway district: sushi? paprika-spiced salmon sandwich? peanut chicken salad? chicken, noodle & matzo ball soup? Can we have a side of schizophrenia, please?
The restaurant itself has a nice brasserie-feel to it, slightly crowded and with a robust bar crowd, but somehow manages not to feel too snug or noisy. Sadly, our experience included long waits for our reservation and some hostess confusion over which table we were slated to dine at, eventually breaking our group into two. This wouldn't have been so bad had we not been surrounded with a pre-Broadway crowd looking to order sushi as an appetizer....
Summary: Stick with the very good burgers and fries, and avoid pre-theater times at this fun brasserie-pub joint.
