Zaitzeff: Disappointing

What we love: The Portoguese muffins, hand cut mixed potato and sweet potato fries, grass fed cows.

What we could live without: Unseasoned Kobe Beef Burgers taste flavorless even if it is Kobe.

Burger scale: B+

Price range: $ out of $$$$

Payment method: cash, major credit card

Given the rave reviews we've read about Zaitzeff burgers, we expected more than the wan beef we got when we recently sat down for a meal at Zaitzeff's LES branch.

We tried both the 1/2lb sirloin and 1/2lb kobe (American Wagyu) burgers. The sirloin burger was a far better burger than the Kobe.

There, we said it.

It doesn't matter how good the quality of beef is in a burger if it isn't seasoned, and the Kobe burger tasted like someone forgot to add seasoning. The sirloin was actually quite a good burger -- a nice moist patty that was just the right amount of medium with a surprising amount of juice for a grass fed cow.

The highlight of our burger, however, was the bun. Zaitzeff serves their burgers on small Portuguese sweetbread muffins that come from Fall River, MA. As weird as it sounds, the muffins are the perfect complement to the burgers -- fluffy, sweet, not chewy and yet dense enough to hold the juices of our burger in nothing falls apart as we eat.

We can't help but wonder if we should have gone to the original Zaitzeff on Nassau, but we were so underwhelmed by our experience on the LES, we probably won't go back for another round.

The picture is courtesy of Adam Kuran's review from seriouseats.com. For pictures of our night at Zaitzeff on the LES, click here.

Oink oink

Here's yet another chance to indulge our obsession with pork, the other white meat.

(Photo: Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine)

Porchetta

And what, you ask, is this porchetta? Traditionally, it’s a gutted, boned-out whole hog heavily seasoned and restuffed with some of its innards, rolled up like a porky bûche de Noël, and then spit-roasted over a wood fire. Served in slices or in sandwiches, it’s a festival dish but also a popular street food, and can be found at the finer food stalls and butcher shops of Rome as well as dished out from trucks and vans set up along the highways outside of Florence.

The logistics of roasting whole hogs over wood fires in cramped East Village cubbyholes being what they are, [Porchetta's] version is a variation on the porchetta theme, and a toothsome one at that. [Porchetta uses] boned-out pork loins from contented, free-rooting Hampshire hogs, wraps them in pork bellies, and seasons them with a heady paste of wild-fennel pollen, thyme, sage, rosemary, garlic, and an aggressive dose of salt and pepper. These substantial specimens are tied up with string and oven-roasted until the meat is remarkably tender and the skin has turned to something like the color and consistency of a delicate peanut brittle.

Our mouth is watering.

Seoul Food - Hot Dogs and Bulgogi, Together at Last

from Urban Daddy:

Culinary tricksters have always looked to dazzle you with reimagined street fare.

Sometimes it works (David Chang's Ssam Bar burritos), and sometimes it's best to stick to the basics (we're looking at you, Cheeseburger Spring Rolls).

So even though you may have seen your fair share of foie gras burgers, let us recommend the first US outpost of a wildly popular Korean hot dog chain with a twist: New York Hotdog & Coffee, now open on Bleecker Street.

Despite its simple name and minimalist white décor, New York Hotdog & Coffee comes off as the quirky Korean lovechild of Crif Dogs, Woo Lae Oak and Starbucks.

The first thing you'll notice walking in the breezy storefront are startling oversized posters of happy eaters scarfing down various hot dog monstrosities. And you'll do good to follow suit. Go for a weekend lunch, start with a Bulgogi Hotdog (a beef hot dog topped with Korean bbq'd beef) or a Dak-Kalbi Hotdog (a chicken sausage topped with teriyaki chicken), and settle in the back lounge for an East-meets-West midday double meat treat.

The rest of the menu includes randomness like hot dog-shaped waffles, smoothies, frozen yogurt, coffee and a few breakfast noshes like the glorious flagel (a flat bagel).

Call it East meets West meets Middle East.

New York Hotdog & Coffee, 245 Bleecker St (between Leroy and Carmine), 917-388-2608

Burger Series 14: Zaitzeff

We meet at Zaitzeff's new-ish Lower East Side addition this month. Its burgers are made of all natural Nebraska beef, and were recently featured in NY Magazine's 2008 Cheap Eats list:

"The mini-burgers, a brand-new addition to an already stellar full-size-hamburger menu, come three to an order for $12 and are simply superb plump and juicy and topped with sharp Cheddar and fried onions. The grass-fed sirloin that the brothers Zaitzeff use to make their patties is fresh and flavorful, but the key to these delectable Scooby Snacks is the miniature toasted Portuguese muffins they get from a bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts. These slightly sweet super-buns combine the sturdiness of an English muffin with the burger-melding ability of a delicate brioche and have made the Underground Gourmet reconsider a preference for the squishy supermarket variety."

Can't wait to see you there.

Zaitzeff (212.477.7137) is located at 18 Avenue B, btwn 2nd and 3rd Streets, New York, NY.