Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Less musing and more reviewing, please. These content of these reviews continues to get more and more diffuse as the author layers in paragraphs of "travelogue" before getting to the point.

Save your money, folks. The burger at 25 Degrees is a sad affair. Today, the service was both inattentive and poorly timed. But on to the food. Great rings and tasty fries. The burger meat itself is great--one is keenly aware that it is sirloin, and that is a good thing. Sadly, both burgers were overcooked, and the bun is a disaster. The top of bun was tough and dry enough to make a "thock" sound when tapped with a fingernail. It basically overwhelmed the burger with dry joylessness. The bottom of the bun, also a shamefully overbaked puck of parched, crumbling sadness.The cheese was not melted over the burger, but simply served as an unmelted pile of gunk in the center of the burger, which had so be scraped from the bun and then spread.

The high point is that the waitress must have stuffed two angels down the back of her pants to present such a compelling view. So, the highlights---Good sides, good sights, good sirloin.

Overview: 25 Degrees is a weak suck and can be avoided.

Sadly, this burger is nowhere near being worthy of the attention or the price tag. This evening's rendition was absolutely insipid. The beef added nothing but bulk to the dish--no satisfying crust, no rich, no seasonings in or on, no aged beef funkiness, and the grind was fine enough to make it resemble baby food in both taste and texture. The bun would really work with a flavorful version of this burger. The dough was worked just a touch longer than a proper scone, which meant that the gluten strands were sufficiently short as to not create a chewy product. This yielded a perfect, but bland mouth feel. One should definitely pass on the rings. The rings were greasy to the touch and greasier in the mouth--"crunchy, oil sponges" comes to mind.

It is no wonder that not a single staff member asked our table how our food was (during and after the meal)--the answer would have been "disappointing." So it goes...I'm sure that other menu items at Tavern, are wonderful (the heirloom tomatoes were very nice), but I would not recommend this burger to any of my friends.

Try, try again. I have found Five Guys to be consistently excellent.

Just perfect---the meat to bun ratio is ideal to the last bite. I had the Manly Burger, and the porkbelly was a perfect addition. The ketchup was heavy on the anise, but the burger didn't need it. This is my favorite burger next to the one at Olives in Las Vegas at the Bellagio and the one at the Left Bank at the On The Ave hotel in NYC's Upper West Side. Umami is my new "go to" burger in LA.