This is pure roadside awesomeness. This little shack is an outpost for Triple L ranch, which develops 100% all natural grass fed beef.
They use a special flavoring, perhaps teriyaki, worked into the grind that gives this shit a really awesome uniqueness. My second burger of the trip was a hit. It may look overcooked, but the cheese and flavor was enough to make it work.
Check out my wife’s “grilled cheeseburger” as well. This was so gooey, buttery and toasty!
Then it was time for lunch at Cafe O’Lei. This joint is nice inside. It’s on the second floor of a strip mall type group of storefronts right near S&Q’s. There’s a big bar in the center of the restaurant, and some interesting paintings by local artists on the walls:
Here, I really wanted to try either the prime rib or the roast pork entrees, but they are only offered at dinner time. Instead, I had my first official burger of the trip. It was cooked almost correctly – slightly over medium – but the large helping of ooey-gooey cheddar cheese really took this burger up a notch.
My wife and I shared a pair of crab cakes. These were sweet, using snow crab meat, fruit and avocado in the preparation. Very nice. Meaty and crispy.
My wife had the Mahi Mahi fish and chips, which were expertly batter-fried to a light, golden crisp. The fries here were top notch, by the way. Really nicely done.
My wife and I pulled into a roadside rest stop on our way to a wedding out of town. I figured I would take the opportunity there to try the new Halloween Whopper, with the black bun and A1 sauce.
You hardcore burger fans might remember that Japan had a similar burger in their Burger King chains recently as well. Anyway, here’s a quick video of my first impressions:
The Halloween Whopper is actually pretty tasty. Just like a regular whopper but with a pungent kick from the A1. And yes – the rumors are true: it actually does make your shit turn green! So I guess that makes it a trick as well as a treat.
Big Daddy’s was running a special for National Cheeseburger Day (9/18): buy one get one free. My wife and I came to sample the wares. The place has a fun throw-back feel to it, with random memorabilia from the 80’s and beyond.
We started with a Cookie Monster shake, which was vanilla ice cream blended with Oreo cookies. Delicious. It was a little too thick at first, but after about five minutes it was suckable. Just right.
I had the Big Mac Daddy burger with American cheese. Essentially this has grilled onion, tomato, lettuce, pickle, and special sauce.
It was cooked nicely to medium, just as ordered. The patty was good, though maybe could use a bit more seasoning. Perhaps one too many slices of tomato. Good cheese coverage, but they should swap out the buns. They were a little stale and crumbly, and my wife’s bottom bun was rock solid – an ass should always have some jiggle, even just a little bit.
I ordered tots with mine, and my wife got fries with hers. Both were good, but I think we both liked the tots better. They were crispier and had a good crunch.
BIG DADDY’S
2454 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
This joint is awesome in the summer time. The music is going, the doors and windows are all wide open, and everyone is at the bar or eating outside along the pier.
I tried the burger. It was very under seasoned, but it did have a really nice char. The potato bun was slightly stale, but the rest of the toppings and the ratio of toppings to meat was correct.
They also cooked it just right, so this place is on the right path to a good burger. It just needs some minor tweaking.
Fries were pretty good. Thick, seasoned style fries that had a good crisp exterior and a soft interior.
PIER A HARBOR HOUSE
22 Battery Pl.
New York, NY 10004
Some friends of ours took my wife and me here for brunch/lunch over the weekend. I was impressed with the beer selection, and I really enjoyed the burger. I got a classic American cheeseburger, with lettuce, tomato and onion. They topped it with some chipotle mayo, which was nice.
It was cooked to medium, which was just how I ordered.
I went with tots instead of fries. They were awesome. Nice and crispy outside, soft inside.
If you’re a beer and burger person, this is definitely a great place to get down on some brews and burgs. Go for it! They have a lot of other great food too, including a full brunch menu, personal pizzas from a nice brick oven in the back, salads, etc.
TAPROOM NO.307
307 3rd Ave.
New York, NY 10010
Last week I walked by this joint and realized that I still hadn’t eaten there. It’s close to my office, so I figured I’d come back soon to try.
So this week I ordered their Burger Heaven burger for delivery. For $16 it comes with fries and coleslaw, and is topped with their special sauce, caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato and American cheese. Sounded like a pretty good deal to me.
Here’s what it looked like when it arrived:
In a span of about three streets, it managed to get almost completely fucking mangled into an incomprehensible mess. After some tinkering, wiping, stacking and organizing, I managed a halfway decent reassembly. See below:
I ordered medium. Not quite:
The meat lacked seasoning, the cheese was over-melted to the point where I know that their griddle probably retained the majority of it (the cheese likely having slid off during the melting process), and the onions completely overpowered the flavor of the meat and ultimately ruined the burger. Whatever they cooked the onions in was bitter-sweet, dark red in color, and completely sucked.
Their special sauce was a thousand island dressing type of deal, which is fine on its own, but this crap went way the fuck overboard with the relish and diced red pepper in the mix. It was hideous; too overpowering in the “sweet pickles” flavor department. Ugh.
I also ticked off the “pickles” box on my order form, expecting them to be ON the burger. Instead I got a single soggy, super sour pickle spear in a plastic bag on the side. Oh well.
In retrospect I probably should have just ordered their classic cheeseburger for $10 (without fries), but it seemed like a bunch of bullshit that this place was then going to charge me $1.25 for lettuce and tomato. So I opted for their namesake burger.
Thoroughly disappointed, I moved on the the equally dreadful french “fries.” I put “fries” in quotes here, because I typically associate fried items with crunch, not sog. Every fry was limp and soggy, mushy: like a 90-year old man’s non-functioning skin-sock. Look at these pathetic fucking things:
Part of this could be the fact that the food was transported in a closed tin, which was then stuffed haphazardly into a closed paper bag, which was then tossed into a plastic bag with reckless abandon, and then slogged over three streets to its demise by someone who gets paid so little that they could not possibly give any fewer shits as to whether the product actually satisfies the ultimate customer.
As for the coleslaw? Watery bullshit. I have a thing with coleslaw anyway. Feel free to listen to this episode of the Hungry Dad’s podcast (at 00:17:40 – 00:20:22), where I explain my aversion to a specific style of coleslaw… Anyway, I took two bites just to try it, but as I suspected, it was pure, unadulterated garbage.
So to sum this up for you burger enthusiasts: Skip this place. Burger Heaven? No… More like Burger Hell (had to do it).
BURGER HEAVEN
9 E 53rd St
New York, NY 10022
Let me start off my reiterating the fact that I am a burger purist. I like my burgers pretty much on the standard side. My ideal: a nicely seared beef patty (on a flat top – not grilled), sandwiched between a potato bun with mayo on both halves of the bun, and topped with melty American cheese, iceberg lettuce, one thin slice of tomato, some pickles and a few rings of raw onion (not a full slice). Occasionally I will throw some bacon on top, but I figured out a better way to get the bacon into the mix without adding yet another topping. Sometimes when the toppings get too numerous, you end up with a tall stack; that sucks.
I should also mention here that anyone can make a good burger at home. In fact some home burgers far surpass anything you can get at a burger joint. It’s one of the easiest things to cook at home, so a “recipe” for a burger is kinda nonsense, know what I mean? There’s nothing particularly special or innovative about this recipe other than the first three steps, and to even suggest innovation there is a stretch. It’s really just good sense, and I feel like more people need to know about it.
Here’s a quick time lapse video of me executing all the steps below:
1) Fry up some bacon in a cast iron pan – as much as you would normally include on top of your burger.
2) Remove the finished bacon from your cast iron pan, but leave the grease in the pan.
3) Once cooled, crumble up the bacon and mix it into your chopped meat. The crunchy bacon inside will add texture as well as flavor to your finished product. Don’t overwork or overpack the meat when mixing the bacon into the patty. I like about 6oz of chopped meat for a burger. That means it’s not too ridiculously thick, and not too thin to the point where you need to eat two burgers just to feel something in your stomach.
Note: Some burger recipes tell you to add diced bacon into the chopped meat BEFORE cooking the bacon. BIG MISTAKE. If you’re like me, and you like your burger medium or medium rare, then some of that bacon won’t cook properly in the amount of time is takes to get the beef up to temperature. There’s nothing worse than rubbery, undercooked bacon. It blows. The key is to fry that shit off beforehand, as I noted in step one above, and then mix the fully cooked bacon into the raw beef burger patty.
4) Cook your burger in the bacon grease, in the same cast iron pan. This will follow through on your bacon flavor, and it’ll give the patty a good crust to boot.
5) When you flip the burger (you’re only flipping it once, by the way), add your American cheese (go with two slices) and cover the pan, so that the cheese gets nice and melty.
Note: Some people add a bit of water into the pan at this point, before covering the pan (like maybe 2-3oz). Why? The water instantly sublimates to steam, which is a higher temperature than the air in the pan. When sealed up and covered, this helps to melt the cheese faster. This is especially helpful if you like a rare or medium rare burger, because you don’t have to wait as long for the cheese to melt, which in turn means you are less likely to overcook your burger while waiting for the cheese to finish melting.
6) Remove your patty from the pan when the cheese is melted, and set it aside for a moment. You can use a cooling rack or a plate.
7) Prep your bun for assembly. This entails a few sub-steps:
a) Apply mayo to both sides of the potato bun.
b) Add one leaf of iceberg lettuce to each side.
c) On the bottom side, set down your thin slice of tomato on top of the lettuce. Ideally you want a good sized tomato so that your slice covers the majority of the bun from end to end.
d) On the top side, place your rings of raw onion and pickles on top of the lettuce.
e) I’ve also opted to add some fried crispy shallots to the burger for extra texture, as well as some sliced jalapeños for heat, mainly because I almost always have these things in my fridge.
f) Put your burger in there, and close her up.
That’s it. You’re ready to eat!
This place has been getting some traction with the foodies, burger lovers and bar-goers of NYC lately. The joint is somewhat set up like a tiki bar or a surf bar, only rather than a wooden shack, it has fancy wallpaper and some skylights. In the back there is a dining area, but the bar is the more fun place to drop your ass for a drink or a quick burger.
First let me start with the bar and drinks. The cocktails are a mix of exotic fruit flavors and old-fashioned, stiff, speakeasy drinks. Some of them are even served in tiki mugs, like this frozen slushee of the day, which was called Bad Medicine or Painkiller or something of that sort.
I’m not sure if “The Happiest Hour” even has a happy hour special, but they certainly fucking should with a name like that.
My wife and a friend of ours met there at 7:30, which is usually at the back end of, or just after, the typical happy hour times of NYC, but I didn’t see any signage or menu items listed for specials. The cheapest item to drink that contains alcohol is this 12oz can of Narragansett for $4.
Draft beers are on the small and expensive side, at $8 for what looks like a 10oz glass, maybe 12oz if filled to the absolute top. Fuck that bullshit. I stuck with the cans of Narragansett, because I’m not a wasteful asshole, and I actually happen to enjoy piss beer from time to time.
In any event, if you’re here after dark and are looking for an even greater selection of interesting and expensive cocktails (averaging $16 per drink), then go down into the basement to S&S (Slowly Shirley), which is owned and operated by the same crew, serves up some of the same bar snacks (some of which are slightly more expensive down there, too), but sports a massive cocktail list of some of the most awesome concoctions you will ever come across.
This place is Mad Men/Magic City meets The Brady Bunch in Hawaii. The menu is similarly styled as upstairs, but there’s a lot more to choose from, and some really incredible mixes of things you’d never expect to play nice together, like mezcal and beets, or scotch and cucumber.
Okay so now that all of that bullshit is out of the way, let’s get down to the meat of this review: the food.
I ordered The Happiest Burger, which consisted of two 4oz patties, American cheese, tomato, lettuce, pickles, confit onions and special sauce, all between a nice potato bun.
I must say that the hype is well-placed. The burger is excellent, and easily slides into my top ten in the city. I didn’t quite taste the onion or special sauce, but that was only because they were generous with the cheese, which I like. The bun was fantastic – nice and simple, soft and strong. The lettuce gave it a good crunch, and the tomato supplied some juice, but without anything dripping all over the plate or my shirt. It was cooked a little bit too much, as you can see from the cut below, but not unacceptable:
The fries were equally awesome. These were shoestring style, very crisp and nicely seasoned.
That bowl size is the $6 side order, as opposed to the $4 smaller size that you can get with your burger. Since there were three of us, we shared the one bowl instead of each getting our own fries. That freed up our bellies to try a couple of other items.
We tried the buffalo cucumbers, with watermelon, poppy seeds and mint, as well as the smoked fish dip.
The first thing I will say about these items is that they are incredibly overpriced and tiny. These small cups of approximately 3oz of food are $6 and $10 each, respectively, for the cucumber and fish dip. That’s fucking dumb. The cucumber thing was good; spicy and refreshing, though very watery. But the fish dip was a fail. First, there wasn’t much fish in it, and what was there tasted a bit too canned, even with the addition of fresh fennel and celery. For $10 I’d rather just get one of their other burgers, or go buy a cheese grater and take it to my erect cock. Fucking rip off.
My wife got the Grilled Cheese Bikini, which contained both fontina and American cheeses, and came with a side of tomato “soup.” I say “soup” in quotes because it was more like shitty marinara tomato “sauce,” served in the same small cup as the apps/snacks. That was a big bummer, but at least the grilled cheese was tasty as fuck. It was buttery, crunchy and had lots of gooey cheese. Nice execution. One thing I noticed was the flake salt that they used to finish it once it came off the grill. That added an awesome flavor pop and crunch to the bread.
I think that about covers it. So we have an interesting review here: Some really great highs (burger, grilled cheese, cocktails), but some incredibly deep lows (pricing, tomato soup, sides). Oddly enough, the burger is fairly priced at $12, considering it is far and away the best menu item that I tried. I would like to try the fried chicken sandwich next time if I go back. Anyway, now you can go there armed with the knowledge necessary to ensure a pleasant and satisfying dining experience. You’re fucking welcome.
THE HAPPIEST HOUR
121 W. 10th St.
New York, NY 10011
I almost hate to say it, but hey – I’m not a fucking d-bag food snob. Heartland Brewery puts up a great classic cheeseburger! Excellent potato bun, good crunch from the lettuce, juiciness from the tomato, and good quality American cheese.
It was cooked just right at medium, too, with nice texture on the crisp of the patty. This burger hit the spot for me, despite already being kinda full from apps and a beer flight.
Fries were above average as well – good crunch and flavor, fried properly:
Oh and their chicken + bacon mac and cheese? Fuckin’ killer.
Lesson: Don’t knock a place just because it has the appearance of a Friday’s-esque chain restaurant and is located in the stank-ass armpit of Port Authority. If it tastes good, then that’s all that fucking matters.
HEARTLAND BREWERY
625 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10018
