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.
