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@Kenji -- Have you had a Rosenfeld's bagel? Certainly best in Boston, and I'd put it up against any "New York" variety.

For the way a split-top bun is meant to be eaten, get a hot dog at Simco's on Blue Hill Ave in Mattapan. They sear both sides of the bun on a griddle, so it's golden and crisp.

Well first of all I was excited to eat at Bobby Flays place so I had high expectations but that shouldn't a affect my review. I ate at the Lake Grove restaurant. I ordered a blue burger medium rare, a dark chocolate shake and onion rings. The burger was actually raw! and the bottom half of the roll was not usable because it was saturated and I was unable to pick it up. I sent the burger back and this time I got one that was well done. They can't seem to get the cooking process right. Even that bottom half of the roll was wet. The shake was nothing more than ice cream stirred up to be soft, it was too thick to drink, and surprisingly for that price ($5.00) it was pretty small. The onion ring order was also small for the price and not so great, not crunchy or that tasty, rather bland. I have to say for the value, the whole meal was definitely not worth the price and the atmosphere was very cold and uninviting. I will definitely not be visiting this place again and I will not recommend this place to anyone either. I can honestly say that burger king is better than this place. Sorry Bobby, I think you better visit this location and straighten out your good name.

I like Miller's...how about Nathan's?...I've only had their hot dogs from the grocery store...I enjoyed watching 'A Hot Dog Show' on PBS

I had never heard the term slider in reference to food of any kind until mini-hamburgers of that name appeared on the Kelsey's bar menu sometime in the past year or two. I thought it was a poorly-considered Kelsey's name for something that will be, uh, sliding out the back door. I didn't realize it was an actual thing

@ dmoo15 I am sorry that you had a bad experience but I don't see what a hair or three has to do with the freshness of the beef, much as I would find it gross. As I noted in the review Blue 9 has fresh patties delivered daily. I am confused by your tale of trying to obtain a refund - of course they would want the burger back to issue you a refund.

@kismetized

Thanks! I'm actually heading to the druid for an official burger tasting next week. I'm doing a similar sort of roundup on Boston burgers (with a slightly different slant). Keep your eyes tuned on the Sunday Globe Magazine in a couple weeks - the article should be out then (I've had 8 burgers in the last three days. ouch).

was gonna go for Kenny's jewboy II but got the sliders to see if they were as good as i remembered them. they were. steamy and squishy. also got the ghetto fries which were an eclectic mix of gravy, cheesy, onions and something something tasting like leftover Chinese food - any ideas what he puts in there?

check it out for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46l8jZEl7e4

@renn - you're right about the pans. I was hoping the silpat would help mitigate that black pan, but the real problem is definitely the oven, which heats from the bottom and doesn't retain heat, so rather than maintain a steady temperature, it's constantly trying to catch up. The result is that the flame is on much more often than it should be, and ends up burning the bottoms of things. Someday I'll have a better oven...

If you want to avoid burning the bottoms of your buns (cookies, or anything else for that matter), next time try using a pan that isn't black. Black/dark pans absorb radiative heat...whereas plain aluminum pans reflect it, and are a standard when baking.

Missed this the first time around.

First Kenjialtci, I had to check if that wasn't something I posted. I couldn't have written it any better. Especially the part about well done being very juicy. Truth. If you have a burger well done, on a flat top griddle, and the thing is dry, its because either its beef that is low in fat, comes in pre pattied by a machine, or the dumb ass "cook" in the back it pressing the SNOT out of it with his stupid spatula. Great job Ken.

Second, I'm not saying I know for sure, but I find it REAL HARD to believe that ANY health department, AS MUCH AS THEY WOULD LOVE TO, would EVER be able to pass a "regulation" on how someone can order food. They tried it with eggs, it got booted. Me thinks Mr. Flay is saying that to kinda say "hey, we would love to cook it rare, but we cant" I think hes afraid of getting people sick. Which surprises me because I think most of this "I got sick from undercooked burger" isn't really food poisoning. If you buy quality beef, grind it ON PREMISE, its gotta be almost impossible to get food poisoning. I'm not saying IMPOSSIBLE, but real close to it. I'm just not buying his answer.

ANd his "proprietary" thing.....I got a feeling he doesn't want to say because he's using a product like whiz or whirl. Its a butter tasting oil. In food establishments, this product would burn and can be held at room temp without hardening. I think its fine, but he probably sees it a low class or something, thats why he didn't want to mention it.

This same discussion came up during Thanksgiving, when I was using the Crock Pot for 2 days making stock from the turkey bones, and what the cost would actually be. I've wondered this since.

According to Chowhound (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/466752), it should cost $.10-.30 for 8 hours to run a crock pot, which brings the total for 2 days to no more than $1.80 for 2 very concentrated pints of stock (reduced from 4Q), which is roughly the price of 2 cans of College Inn Chicken stock which hasn't been concentrated (and mine lacks MSG, sugar, hydrolyzed/hydrogenated whatevers...). The bones are leftovers, and we had sea salt in the pantry. So the cost remained ~$1/ pint of super-concentrated stock/glace.

I do the same with chicken bones after a roast, sometimes with 1 carcass, other times 2. Deboning the bird after dinner and putting them into a Crock Pot is so much less effort than attempting to put the bone-in roast into the refrigerator (very few containers/bags/foil hold a whole bird, even partially consumed, and wrapping those in foil dries out the meat while ziplock bags don't look that appetizing). It takes me no more than 5 minutes to debone a cooled, cooked bird, and I leave the crock pot afterwards. Add in a few minutes to funnel the stock and clean the dishes, move the jars to a cooling spot before refrigerating them, take the bones to the trash can outside...and AT MOST, I've spent a total of 20-30 minutes actively preparing the stock and cleaning containers by hand.

If I were to add in the cost of the meat which is not in the stock, it would be $7/7lb bird, so the total would then come to $8.80 including time in the pot, but I'd likely have twice as much concentrated stock, at $2.20/pint. Organic might bring the cost to $5/pint (using whole birds, not just bones), but even that is cheaper than the environmental cost of transporting cans and boxes of liquids from plant to store in addition to the cost of driving (or even walking) to the store to pick up said stock, recycling the containers, etc.

Added bonus: the house smells nice and the pets are crazier.

Can anything touch "Mostly Martha" ? (the German film).........

Worst case of food poisoning I have ever had . The only thing that comes close is one other time in the Dominican Republic . I ate at the Monmouth Mall location on 12/8/08 . Word of advice if you do eat there make sure your burger is well cooked! Mine did not appear to be to rare which is even more disturbing .....