Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I realize that I'm going to upset a lot of people, but I ate here last week, after reading the slew of favorable reviews and truly believe that this place is a triumph of hype over content. I'm from out of town, out of state, in fact out of country, but I've been coming to your fair city for almost thirty years now and I used to rate the burgers at the late lamented McHale's as the best in town, so was interested to try this company's much-lauded offerings. I ordered a cheeseburger, medium, with fries, a root-beer and retired to wait for the pager to buzz. (Side note to the owners: when there's a long line, it doesn't sit well with the other customers when a friend of the serving staff wanders in off the street, goes up to the counter, engages three of the staff in conversation and gets his burger almost immediately while people waiting on line are ignored.) By the time I got my order, I was pretty hungry and found a place to sit and eat. What I encountered was a mouthful of heavily salted greasy sludge in a cheap bun, with the cheese as a fatty and tasteless covering. The fries were also smothered in salt, but otherwise tasteless and if I hadn't already guessed that they were frozen, the guy wheeling the piled-high cartons labeled "Frozen Potato Products" or something similar around the kitchen would have given me a big clue.

The root-beer, despite far too much ice, was actually rather good, but the rest of the meal made me feel decidedly queasy. If this is really what you consider to be a great burger, then I fear for your nation's health. A better name for this place might well be Heart-Attack Shack.

(I should mention that I also find the burgers in Le Parker Meridien's Burger Joint to be overrated, but they don't seem to suffer from the same sort of mania that this place generates and they're far, far less greasy.)