City Burger serves the Bentley of Beef

According to a review by Ryan Sutton, City Burger serves top notch meat.

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Fries, soda and a burger at Wendy’s, McDonald’s or Burger King make up the all-American meal. It’s the chef’s tasting, prix-fixe menu for the no-expense-account crowd, which these days is pretty much everyone.

Problem is, that fast-food is junk food.

Here’s the test: Ever ask for a medium-rare slider at White Castle? Not recommended.

Enter City Burger in midtown Manhattan. The combo is $9.55 and comes in a paper bag. The fries are crispy, the root beer is cold and the burger, charred on the outside and pink on the inside. This is reason to be excited.

It’s still fast-food. But it’s not junk food, at least not in the typical sense. It’s high-end junk food. That’s because the beef comes courtesy of Pat La Frieda, the ground-beef purveyor behind some of the city’s best burgers, including Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack (another high-end junk-food joint).

City Burger is like a stripped down, politically indifferent version of Shake Shack. There are no “stroller parking” signs, they don’t serve sundaes with dog biscuits, and as far as I know, they don’t offset their electric bill with wind-power credits. It’s about as pretty as a Jack in the Box, which is to say, not very.

Also, there’s no hour-long wait.

City Burger is the “only restaurant in America serving the La Frieda Black Label grade beef mixture,” says a sign in the venue, if you care about that sort of thing.

Car Burger

The dry-aged blend ($11.99) is described on the menu as the “Bentley of Beef.” A heavy six ounces, it’s more restaurant- size than fast-food size, but you can still eat it with one hand.

It has a gently gamy tang, bleeds juices, is rare and creamy on the inside, chewy and charred on the outside. When City Burger opened about a year ago, they grilled their meats. Now, they griddle it, giving it a nice greasy crust. It needs more salt, but the pickles and American cheese make up for that. A soft bun soaks everything up. Definitely one of the city’s better patties.

Pair it with an egg cream and you have yourself a proper New York lunch. The non-black-label burger is good too: a mix of chuck, brisket and short rib, though it’s not as intensely beefy. Hearty appetites can choose “Combo #4” ($13.95): a burger; five spicy Buffalo wings; fries or overcooked onion rings “for a supplement”; and a soda.

City Burger is at 1410 Broadway at 39th Street.
Information: 212-997-7770
http://www.cityburgerny.com