Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I live right between EARL, Ann's Snack Bar, and the Vortex. Personally I like the EARL best of the lot. I travel a lot and eat burgers a lot and search out sites like these to find favorites; and still, of all of them, the EARL's a fav.

I love that place in Le Parker Meridien, though. ;)

I work in a restaurant in a small town in Texas, Greek Bros. I have to say the flat Mushroom Jack Burger or the Cheddar Bacon Cheddar Burger there are among the best I have ever eaten. The burgers are 1/2 pound of meat, each, and the meat is from a local meat market. They cost $10 each, a plain cheeseburger is $7.00. I doubt any "burger crtio" is going to ever come to a town of 12,000 people in south Texas, so all I can say is that I agree that they can't claim that their picks are the best in the USA.

Hah, PerkyMac! That's exactly where this discussion led me -- to my pantry, where I said, "Hey, I bet next week I could buy just fruit and milk and call it good."

Whataburger (the Texas chain)

I love hamburgers and never miss a chance to try a new one and never had a hamburger I didn't like. I read about hamburgers from all over the world.

But I never enjoy any hamburger at any price as much as a Whataburger. If I eat a Whataburger and nothing else I don't care if I eat another thing the rest of the day.

Head to Somerville, tamerianenj! R.F. O'Sullivans burgers are amazing.

Shannon, which restaurant? I spent four months in the Tokyo area and had more than a few burgers; I'm hoping I tried yours!

Charlie Beinlich's in Wilmette(?), IL comes in first, followed by a Kobe Burger I had at the Bellagio in Vegas, followed by my dad's spicy burgers cooked during my childhood.

Maybe the Billy Goat should be on there, too...

I've lived in Seattle for 6 years now, and will concur that Red Mill makes one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten. First place, however, has to go to Westport Flea Market in Kansas City, MO. I grew up in Kansas, but hadn't been back to K.C. for almost a decade. I traveled through K.C. again in June and went well out of my way for an afternoon at the historic burger joint. You place your order at a counter (Flea Market burger, medium rare) and when it's ready, they call your name and you pick it up at the grill window, where you dress your own burger with the available table full of standard condiments. This was the exchange between me and the cook who handed me my burger and fries basket:

Cook: Ryan, I appreciate your order.
Me: (surprised) Thank you... I appreciate you making such an outstanding burger. It's been almost ten years since I've been back here.
Cook: Ten years! Where you livin' at now?
Me: Seattle. It's hard to find good barbecue or a solid burger out there.
Cook: Yeah, yeah, but I bet they make a helluva fish sandwich.

I can honestly say I was disappointed by Spotted Pig's burger, due mainly to the overwhelming blue cheese.

By the way, the burger at EGG in Williamsburg (where Steve Tanner of Pies & Thighs now cooks) is worth checking out.

We are all genetically different to some degree, but we are all still human beings. You, me, and that baby all need the same nutrients. What makes us different is where we get the nutrients. I can say that I am genetically different from many others in that I cannot drink milk. Do I just kick back and say, "well, I'm genetically different so I don't need calcium."? No, I just get my necessary nutrients from a different source. It's the same for children. If they don't get what they need out of animal milk, they can get it elsewhere. Just cause the kid can't drink milk doesn't mean that he doesn't need his vitamins and fats and proteins.

All parents make decisions for their children. It's what parents do. Children don't have the experience and knowledge to make many important decisions concerning the way they should live. You can say that a meat eating parent makes the decision that the child will eat meat just as easily as you can say that a vegan makes the decision that the child will not eat meat. As long as the child is healthy, it shouldn't matter. When a child grows up, it will eat what wants to, date who it wants to, become a rock start instead of a doctor, etc. Until the child grows up, mommy and daddy make the rules. Some parents are good at what they do and some are not. Veganism has nothing to do with it. In fact, I can link you to a couple of blogs where vegan parents have raised happy, healthy, and active vegan children.

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
http://frugalveggiemama.blogspot.com/
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/

Check on the recipe archives on some of these and you'll see the range of healthy and nutritious foods a healthy vegan eats. there are unhealthy vegand that eat only veggie burgers and drink cola, but there are healthy vegans who eat a variety of greens, fruit, grains, nuts and legumes. I think that many of the people who dismiss vegan diets are simply uninformed.

There are also the children who cannot drink any form of animal milk, as a previous commented said. I know of such a baby. His mother is currently feeding him a soy formula on the doctors suggestion and he's doing fine. So those parents from the article were ignorant vegans and bad parents. Not all vegan babies need to die of malnutrition.

I just think it's ridiculous that a parent makes a decision about how the child is going to live before they can even speak for themselves. It's one thing for the parents to be vegans or vegetarians because they have their own moral or health reasons and that conclusion has been made through experience but a newborn child has had no experiences and should be able to grow up to make a choice on their own not what mommy and daddy whacko have to say. Just ridiculous, like vegansexuals, ridiculous!