Posted by Zach Brooks, May 14, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Add beets, and you have got an Aussie Burger.
Is there anything greater than the breakfast burger? I love a decent burger, and if you top it with an over easy egg, something magical happens. And that magic is called egg yolk, covering your burger in gooey goodness. Last week I sampled the breakfast burger from Goodburger (a slightly upscale, NYC burger chain) along with some co-workers, one of whom remarked, "Add some beets to this, and you've got an Aussie Burger." Come again? Beets? Now that sounds like something I could get into.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, April 23, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Photograph from entitee on Flickr
One of my favorite parts of doing a sandwich column is that now all my family members send me photos of ridiculous sandwiches from all around the country. Take this one, for example, which my brother in law sent me from Sacramento. The Squeeze Burger with Cheese Skirt, as it is widely known in and around California's capital, is clearly a feat of modern engineering. And while the actual burger that is hidden underneath there (somewhere) is not necessarily anything to write home about, this sandwich has many other secrets that make it quite the serious sandwich.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 16, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Whenever a guidebook like Ian Jackman's Eat This!
comes out, it seems like the natural inclination of anyone who loves food is to jump to the sections that matter most to him or her. It's a quick way to figure out where the writer stands and whether your tastes mesh. If they do, you're more likely to trust him on other items or locations you might not know firsthand.
I paged through immediately to Jackman's chapter on burgers, and he namechecks most of the heavyweights in American burgerdom: Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, the Apple Pan in Los Angeles, and the burgers I grew up on in suburban Kansas City—Winstead's.
More burger goodness follows, but for now, I'll remind you that we've got some copies of Eat This! to give away. Details here.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 18, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Earlier today, our own Serious Eats overlord was lamenting the dearth of affordable eats in Tokyo. Will Burger King do, Ed? The chain closed a few years ago, but it's back. The travel blog Gridskipper reports that the line for a Whopper (or Whaler or what have you) at the Shinjuku outlet can be as long as 1.5 hours. A second BK will open in the Ikebukuro district later this month.
Photograph from yuichi.sakuraba on Flickr
Posted by Adam Kuban, June 5, 2007 at 12:15 PM
Over on Serious Eats burger site A Hamburger Today, there was some serious discussion last week about readers' favorite local burger joints. There are some serious-sounding places submitted by AHT readers. After the jump, all 61 recommendations. If you have your own to add to the roster, feel free to do so in the comments, and we'll include it in later revisions of this list.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 16, 2007 at 12:30 PM
One of L.A.'s most noted burger joints celebrates its anniversary. As editor of A Hamburger Today, I'm ashamed to say I've never been to the Apple Pan, but I've read and heard plenty about the place. We even have a nice Serious Eats video about general manager Charles Collins and his own 50th anniversary of service there. But today's story in the L.A. Times brings some new, quirky info (at least to me):
- It's well-known that you can't get tomato on your burger, but "regulars know you can request an onion slice or even fried onions, when the grill isn't too busy."
- The Apple Pan has remained stubbornly old-school in terms of food prep and service: "Soft drinks are still poured in paper cones supported by stainless steel cupholders, in the 1940s lunch-counter way. Over time those bases began to disappear, and about a year ago it looked as if the restaurant would finally have to start using cardboard or plastic cups. 'But then a customer found a bunch of bases for us on EBay,' [owner Martha] Gamble says."
It's a loving portrait of a type of place that is sadly becoming all too rare these days. One that treats its customers and employees with respect (the "newest" kitchen member has been there 17 years) and doesn't try to meddle with a good thing or expand or chain itself out, thereby losing quality.
Related: The Apple Pan, Quality So Far
Photograph from Ilpo's Sojourn on Flickr
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 11, 2007 at 2:30 PM
"If your burger blogging crew ever makes it down to the nation's capital, you've gotta try Five Guys."
Over the weeks, months, and, now, years that I've been plugging away at A Hamburger Today, I've probably gotten more emails like this about this regional chain than for any other burger chain small or large. And in all those months, I've never had the occasion to truck down to D.C. Instead, I've watched as the red states on the Five Guys locator map (right) grew in number and crept up the East Coast. At one point months and months ago, New York lit up red on this map, but that first Empire State Five Guys was in Schenectady—upstate and still not easily accessible for a nondriving city-dwelling burger dude.
So when news hit that a Five Guys would open in Brooklyn, a short subway ride from my home, I was jazzed. What I didn't know was that there was already a Five Guys in New York City; it had opened quietly on April 1 in a tucked-away part of Queens.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 1, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market held their very first Scrapplefest last month to celebrate the Pennsylvania treat, and the big draw was of course a cooking contest with the winner to be crowned Scrapple King.
Third place went to a pulled-pork and scrapple sandwich with pecorino cheese, and second to crisp-fried scrapple used as toast points with seared tuna, mango and avocado. You'd think the big prize would've gone to the guys who made a sweet scrapple bread pudding, dressed with a white chocolate sauce, or maybe the creator of "Scrapple Nouveau", who made a napoleon of sorts by layering "his homemade scrapple with apricot compote, blood orange sauce, goat cheese, microgreens and a polenta-pig topping." But no, 2007's Scrapple King is Nick Ochs of the highly-esteemed Harry G. Ochs and Sons, recognized for his scrapple burger and fries. It sounds straightforward enough, but I'm guessing the judges were mightily impressed by the fact that his "fries" were actually made out of scrapple too: sliced into strips and deep-fried. Truly a man for the ages.
