Andrew Mark Veety

Guest Post - Michael Sweeney Checks In From The Old Fashioned

I'm been really lucky to have several guests contribute burger posts to this site over the past year. Joining the fold of friends who will forever have a home here is Michael Sweeney, who runs the site STL Hops and checks in with a burger review from a recent trip to Madison, Wisconsin.

Mike writes:

“We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and then soak it in rich creamery butter. Then we top it off with bacon, ham and a fried egg.  We call it the Good Morning Burger”  The Simpsons - "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", May 7, 1992

The Setup:

Back in July, Andrew, Bill Burge, Kelli Best-Oliver and myself were having yet another lovely lunch at The Good Pie.  Somehow over the course of the conversation I mentioned that I was heading to the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison, WI.

Never losing an opportunity to further the gospel of the Church of Burger, Andrew immediately replied, "You have to go to The Old Fashioned, you have to get the #30, and you have to get it with cheese curds."  Never missing the opportunity enjoy cheese curds and a burger, I immediately accepted the offer of $0.00 to take on this job.

The name The Old Fashioned isn't so much about a drink as it is about a way of life.  It's about a time before homogenized food being delivered on trucks from around the country.  It's about local.  As a beer guy, it was amazingly refreshing to look over a beer list and to not recognize 25 of the 29 beers they have to offer.  It was also nice to know my burger was local and grass-fed.

Our lunch at The Old Fashioned did not quite start how I would have liked.  As Madison has a pretty busy downtown area, parking always looks to present a challenge.  Thankfully, most of the time it's not very difficult to find and in fact, I found a parking garage a block away for this trip.  The unfortunate part is that a thunderstorm had begun to rip through the area and I walked through a monsoon to eat a burger.

I wish I had snapped some more photos of the interior of The Old Fashioned, but frankly, I was just happy to be dry and wanted to eat.  It's not that the interior is all that impressive, in fact, the front dining room could really be that of any family-style restaurant in the area.  But the bar area did hold a bit of a rustic charm that does seem to be missing in many St. Louis bars.

Here's how The Old Fashioned describes the #30:

The Old Fashioned House Burger-grilled over a live fire and topped with fried onions, Bavaria's hickory-smoked bacon, aged Cheddar, garlic sauce and a soft-cooked egg on a buttered and toasted roll.

So, while it's not quite the Good Morning Burger that was referenced above, it's pretty damned close.

Behold the #30 burger from The Old Fashioned:

Revisiting The BLT Cocktail

Last year Kelli Best-Oliver and I joined forces to create the BLT Cocktail in honor of the fifth annual Tour de Moose. Kelli took on making tomato water and lettuce ice cubes while I took a shot at making bacon infused vodka.

Simply, the goal was to turn this delicious looking sandwich...

...into a breakfast drink that would fortify a thirsty biker for the twenty mile bike ride and bar crawl that followed. 

July Burger Of The Month - Llywelyn's Pub

For the seventh time this year I rounded up a group of friends and food bloggers to take down a burger on a lazy Sunday afternoon. This was the next stop in a year long search for the best burger that St. Louis has to offer, based on the input of my readers. You nominated them and I'm eating them, one by one until I crown the best burger in St. Louis this coming December.

Joining me were Church of Burger alumni Bill Burge (STLBites), Stefani Pollack (Cupcake Project), project photographer Jonathan Pollack (J. Pollack Photography), Kelli Best-Oliver (South City Confidential / Food Blog Mafia), Stephanie Tolle (Iron Stef / Food Blog Mafia) and Kyle Harsha (Sippin' Saint Louis / Epiphany Wines).

With the introductions out of the way its time to welcome you all back to The Church of Burger. In the name of the bun, the toppings and the holy burger, I present unto you the July Burger of the Month from Llywelyn's Pub.

The Setup:

There are handful of Llywelyn's locations in St. Louis, but for me the Central West End restaurant speaks to what a Welsh pub should be -- old, dark and decked out in well worn wood from the floorboards to the bar back.

Our group grabbed a table in the dining room, ordering drinks and swapping stories before digging into the burger section of our menus. Personally I was looking for the "Pub Burger" -- a pan seared patty topped with caramelized onion, bacon, sharp cheddar cheese on a thick English muffin -- or more specifically a host of toppings that are out of bounds for this burger quest.

As folks voted for the Pub Burger in numbers, I would have to order it, requesting no cheese and onions and bacon on the side. Given that I knew I was taking the things that make the Pub Burger good off of the dish -- I hoped for lettuce, onion and a good July tomato -- the toppings that normally come on the side of a burger but are in no way a required accouterment.

Around the table folks ordered Pub Burgers and the self titled "Llywelyn's Burger" topped with onions, mushrooms, bacon, cheddar and rarebit before returning to conversations about babies, vacations and bachelorette parties. In short order plates began to appear on our table and we dug into our burgers.

Behold the Pub Burger from Llywelyn's Pub:

The Patty:

The burger at Llywelyn's is without a doubt hand made. The patty I was served was loosely packed and oblong -- almost as if it was missing a piece and reminding me of the kind of burger you pull off of a grill at home. I ordered my burger medium rare and that is how it arrived - a thick band of red and pink beef visible with each bite. The patty tossed off some juice early in the eating, but not enough to make the bun hard to handle. Like many of the burgers we've tried this year, this burger lacked the salt that is required for a really good burger. Seasoning was sorely missed.

Tasters commented:

"I was a bit skeptical when I first saw my burger - the patty didn't look pretty. Perhaps that's where Llywelyn's got things right. They didn't focus on having a burger that looked like a round disk, they focused on a burger that tasted like a burger should taste. This burger made me happy. It had salt, but not too much, it was well seasoned, it was prepared to a perfect medium as I ordered it, it had grease (but the grease didn't ooze out of it and dribble down my face), and (while this wouldn't please everyone) the burger was smaller than some of the other ones we've had so it didn't leave me feeling overly stuffed."

"The patty was bigger than the bun, but that's not a big deal. The patty was cooked a little more than the medium rare I requested, but still had some pink. I tried to taste a non-rarebit section to see if the patty itself was seasoned, and it was. It was kind of dry, though."

"I appreciate a hand-formed patty so much. Here was no different. If a patty is hand-formed, I feel like it doesn't matter if it's a little overcooked, which mine was. However, it was the closest to mid-rare I've had yet for Church of Burger."

"Hand-formed, seasoned with care, juicy but not disgusting, and served at the temperature ordered"

"My burger was basically not seasoned. Thank god it wasn't a preformed patty again, but it did seem to have been packed a bit tight as the texture was a bit stiff. Ordered mid-rare, it was once again medium. That's closer than most places so I won't fault them for that because I'm not sure I could do better. It wasn't very juicy though which makes me wonder if they mashed it down."

"Bland. It just didn't seem to have any seasoning on it at all, could have really used some salt. I did appreciate the fact that it was a hand-formed patty though. Of course, I got the pub burger, so it seemed like the beef was simply a delivery vessel for the cheese and other stuff. I ordered medium rare, and that's exactly what I got."

"Fairly juicy, but could have really used a dose of salting."

Caramelization:

For me, the best way to really get a char on the burger is to slap it down on a rocket hot cast iron skillet. True to their advertising, the Pub Burger lacks the familiar hash marks of the grill in favor of a even swath of dark crust. Overall the person preparing this burger did a decent job balancing charring the burger against satisfying a medium rare order.

Tasters offered:

"The patty had a good char on it."

"Charred to perfection."

"Minimal "crunch" when biting into it.  I would have liked more sear to it."

The Toppings:

For the last six months I've been eating plain burgers as they come - with lettuce, onion, pickle and tomato. This is the first burger where I had to specifically ask to leave the toppings off - namely the onions and bacon, which I asked for on the side. I also asked for no cheese per all my previous orders. Essentially I asked for a plain Pub Burger, which was confirmed by our waitress. Sadly my burger arrived with the bacon on the side and onions on the patty, which I moved off to the side. However, this was a small issue compared to what came next. It was apparent from the entrails on the plate and the bottom of the patty and bun that this burger originally had cheese on it. Cheese that was semi-melted into the patty and bun and then pulled off before the plate left the kitchen. Unacceptable, lazy and annoying.

Others suggested:

"Big ups for the rarebit. I will eat almost anything smothered in the tangy, cheesy, savory ambrosia of Llywelyn's rarebit."

"Rarebit = delicious liquid crack."

"Annoying was the fact that I honestly couldn't taste much of the cheese and, those onions...the ones that were supposed to be fucking caramelized when really they were just sauteed because caramelizing onions is a multi-hour investment few restaurants actually take the time to do--couldn't taste them. Might as well not have been there."

"Rarebit should be on everything. It's hard to judge the burger itself, because I mostly tasted this delicious cheese and beer sauce. I believe the rarebit was mostly responsible for me enjoying the burger. It added flavor, saltiness and moisture."

"Bacon on a burger is typically like a hot guy at a party who doesn't bother to dress up because he knows he looks good in anything. It just sits on the burger and expects you to like it even if it's sad and soggy. The bacon on my pub burger, however, was classy. I received two large strips of it on the side of my burger - each crispy and flavorful enough to stand on its own without the meat. Other bacon could learn a thing of two from these fine fellows."

The Bun:

The Llywelyn's Pub Burger rides inside a thick English muffin that is slathered in a fat and grilled on a flat top. The bun is dense enough to handle the juice thrown off by the patty, but beyond that it adds little to the overall burger besides being different from other burgers. Overall it is pretty standard, if judged against other English muffins.

Tasters commented:

"The bun was slightly toasted and held up to the large (but not juicy) burger."

"Often, I am disappointed with sandwiches served on English muffins - the muffins come out too buttery, overcooked, and smashed flat so that the ratio of bread to meat is all wrong. Llywelyn's got their English muffin right. It was buttered, but not overly so, and it had the proper girth to support the burger. This was no egg McMuffin English muffin. I would choose their English muffin over most buns in town."

"My "toasted" English Muffin also wasn't toasted so it appears that Llywelyn's likes to skip out on several of their menu items. Already not a fan of an English Muffin as a vehicle for a burger, it's even worse when it's just dry and bready."

"I liked the english muffin, but I could taste the fat used to grill the muffins, and it was distractingly artificial--like margarine."

"Although I appreciate the fact that they were using an english muffin, it could have been toasted more. Mine was almost undone. Plus, the greased soaked through it and made the bottom half fall apart 1/2 way through eating."

The Verdict:

Readers voted the Pub Burger at Llywelyn's the sixth best burger in St. Louis and several in our group seemed to agree. However, I'm inclined to disagree with the crowd on this one. True - with onions and crispy bacon it is elevated a bit, but this is not the Church of Toppings - its the Church of Burger. Stripped down it is sadly average at best. Points are given for being hand formed and seared on a skillet, but points are taken away for a lack of seasoning and the aforementioned issue with the cheese placed and then removed from my burger.

I'm left thinking about one comment I received, suggesting that this was "a serviceable burger". Indeed as a burger it does fulfill its function in an adequate manner, but is that really enough to be the best burger in St. Louis?

I think not. The search continues.

Guest Post - Iron Stef Checks In From Kooper's Tavern

I'm always excited when my friends get a chance to check out great eats from the road and agree to share with folks here. Today Church of Burger alumni Iron Stef checks in from Baltimore, Maryland with this review of Kooper's Tavern:

I drove from St. Louis to Baltimore this weekend for my cousin's wedding. 800+ miles in my little car with my mother. Needless to say, after the drive and the chaos of meeting up with other arriving family, I was ready for some quality alone time that involved cold beer. 

I was missing this month's Church of Burger because of this trip, so I threw it out on Twitter that perhaps a solo Baltimore burger dinner was in order. Our fearless leader strongly suggested Kooper's Tavern. I was pleased to see it was right next door to, and had the same owners as Slainte Pub. I had stopped into Slainte on a whim when I was in Baltimore in March, and was pleased by the atmosphere, service and food (see my post about that trip on Food Blog Mafia. Awesome lamb burger.) Kooper's and Slainte are located in Fell's Pointe, a brick-street, waterfront shopping and dining district. Cute.

I was glad it was a casual pub, as I had not yet been able to check in to my hotel, so I was still wearing my "driving pants," and had car nap hair. When I walked in the place was going CRAZY. 2 dudes had just been "Iced" by their friends, and the pub crawl group they were with were loudly encouraging them to chug the sugary malt beverages. I squeezed into a spot at the bar between some middle-aged stock brokers and a young couple. After I ordered I realized it was free taco buffet day. Dang! But, I was on a mission. Luckily for this weary traveler, the pub crawlers moved on, and the pub became a more chill hangout for me to enjoy with my burger and a brew (good beer selection there, too, BTW. Not a ton on draught, but lots of different craft bottles.)

I ordered the "Elvis Got the Blues" burger, which has blue cheese and bacon on it. It came out with battered fries (who doesn't like those?), a giant pickle spear and the standard tomato and lettuce toppings. The patty, covered with a sprinkling of blue cheese crumbles and to big slices of bacon, was cooked perfectly medium-rare, as I had requested. It had some good char on the outside. The flavor was good, though I could have used more salt. Bites that had bacon and blue cheese in them made up for the salt, however. Overall it tasted like good beefy meat, was juicy but not greasy, and the corn-meal-dusted kaiser roll held up well and was a good fit. I really liked the flavor combo of the beef, blue cheese and bacon. Classic. Is this the best burger in B-more? I can't say, but it was pretty darn good.

April Burger Of The Month - McGurk's Irish Pub & Garden

For the fourth time this year I gathered up a group of friends and food bloggers to take down a burger on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. This was the next stop in a year long search for the best burger that St. Louis has to offer, based on the input of my readers. You nominated them and I'm eating them, one by one until I crown the best burger in St. Louis this coming December.

Joining me were Church of Burger member Kelli Best-Oliver (South City Confidential / Food Blog Mafia), Stefani Pollack (Cupcake Project), photographer Jonathan Pollack (J. Pollack Photography), second time participant Stephanie Tolle (Iron Stef / Food Blog Mafia) and special guest George Mahe (St. Louis Magazine / Feast). 

Thanks are due to the nice folks at Cottonfactory who kindly provided my shirt for this months update.

With the introductions out of the way its time to welcome you all back to The Church of Burger. In the name of the bun, the toppings and the holy burger, I present unto you the April Burger of The Month from McGurk's Irish Pub & Garden.

The Setup:

McGurk's is a legendary Irish pub in the historic Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis. While the pub is only a shade past 30 years old it feels like it has stood at the corner of 12th and Russell since before St. Louis was handed from the French to the Spanish and back to the French over 200 years ago. 

The interior of McGurk's is a mixture of well worn wood surfaces and floors that complement the red brick architecture that is common across the city. The space invites you in and wraps itself around you; it is the kind of place that you can walk into in the late afternoon and walk out of as the sun rises the next morning if you are not careful. After all soûlard is the French word for drunkard. 

In many ways this part of St. Louis reminds me of Pleasure Island from the Disney version of Pinocchio. To my friends and neighbors who live in the neighborhood what I am saying may seem like a slight but I do mean it as a complement. Soulard is a great place to visit, but it should be known that if you overstay your welcome vice will undoubtedly get the best of you and you run the risk of turning into a jackass. I say this based on personal experience.

Our group met up as McGurk's opened to find the bar already filled with people and a Irish band setting up off to the side. With some luck and persistence on the part of Kelli we scored a long raised table off to the side that was more suited to family style drinking than eating, but with folks filling in the door it was the best we were going to get.

Around the table McGurk's Burgers were ordered medium rare to medium, topped with cheese and various combinations of mushrooms, onions and bacon. In a particular stroke of genius Stefani and Jonathan asked for chocolate sauce to complement house made chips, making for a sweet and salty side for their burgers. Given the traffic though McGurk's, service moved along at a reasonable pace - essentially long enough to drain your pint of beer and order another for your meal. One diner commented that they were, "impressed that all the burgers arrived simultaneously (and on one tray) and were served without resorting to the "who got what" rigamarole."

This is the first stop on this burger adventure that I have frequented before, and in the spirit of disclosure I can honestly say that John D. McGurk's Burger topped with sauteed mushrooms, onions caramelized in Guinness and bacon is a personal favorite of mine.  Alas, I would be trying this burger as it came, free of addition of mushrooms, onions and bacon. This meant a medium rare burger topped only with the garnish plated with the burger, slices of tomato, red onion and a single leaf of lettuce. 

Behold the burger from McGurk's Irish Pub & Garden:

The Patty:

At the core of the McGurk's burger is a thick and almost perfectly formed patty of beef, suggesting its been formed and pressed with the aid of a mold to ensure consistency from one plate to the next. My burger arrived closer to medium than the medium rare I had ordered but the interior was pink and lightly seasoned. Around the table all the burgers arrived as ordered save one, which was sent back for a replacement.

Tasters commented:

"The burger edges were perfectly uniform: either a pre-formed patty or one that had been hand-pattied then pressed into a mold. The taste of the beef was good, complimented by perfect cross-hatch grill marks and char. So the taste was fine...the texture was not."

"I ordered it medium-rare. It was cooked perfectly, and tasted nice and meaty... I wouldn't have minded more salt."

"My choice of fare at McGurk's will not be changing after having their burger, an effort that falls short of the ideal in terms of both the mushy bun and patty lacking both juice and proper seasoning."

"I didn’t miss the salt on this one.  I thought the meat had enough flavor on its own (well, on its own when you count the swiss, tomato, mushrooms, and Guinness onions)."

"A good burger is like a good crabcake: it should formed by hand and treated lightly...not over-worked, not over-pressed, not over-handled. A burger should be handled only enough to keep it together...it should be made with freshly ground beef and should be airy and, for lack of a better word, fluffy. Otherwise the protein gets too compressed and the juices in the meat do not flow. I encounter very few burgers made the right way. This one was no different."

"The burger just looked overcooked and unappetizing. It had clearly spent time under a heat lamp or on the side of the grill (as the garnish was cool, I would suspect the latter). Regardless, it was NOT fresh off the grill." 

"I order my burger medium and that’s just how it arrived.  It was moist, but not dripping with juices.  This was fine with me.  I know others like to see the juice, but I’m cool without it. When I see lots of juice, I picture cows bleeding.  The burger was not overly seasoned."

Caramelization:

Ample grill marks were apparent on my burger suggesting the patty was cooked properly - placed on a rocket hot grill to cook on one side, then flipped to finish on the other. While the caramelization on this burger did contribute to the overall flavor, it would have benefited from additional seasoning. 

Around the table diners were happy with the char McGurk's achieved on their burger.

The Toppings:

For me, mushrooms, caramelized onions and bacon are to burgers as mirepoix is to a good stock. Yes, there are countless other toppings for a burger, but they pale in comparison to the earthienss of mushroom, the sweetness of onions and the smoke and salt thrown off by bacon. It was with heavy heart that I watched my fellow diners enjoy their burgers, because I knew just what I was missing.

My burger was topped with a single slice of crisp lettuce, a hearty slice of red onion and a sad tomato that suffered from being out of season. 

Tasters offered up the following thoughts on their burgers:

"I loved the Guinness onions." 

"Sorely missed rarebit."

"The mushrooms and onions were such good burger companions. Simple flavors... they tasted like mushrooms and caramelized onions, sweet and earthy and seasoned well, without any unnecessary flavors."

"It's bad enough to have to endure tomatoes in April anyway, but to be served slices with the core still intact? Please... Here's a dollar, McGurk's...go buy a tomato corer."

"My toppings of onions, mushrooms, and bacon were expertly prepared."

"This burger was clearly fresh off the grill, cooked properly, cheese looking freshly melted, with 2 respectable strips of room temp bacon crossed over the top."

The Bun:

I was not a fan of the traditional kaiser bun the McGurk's burger was served on. While it had marks from being grilled before plating, I found the bun bland and flavorless, sadly it was a perfect companion for my tasteless and out of season tomato. Sad.

I was especially surprised at the differences in the quality of the bun from one plate to another. It was almost as if some of our burgers were made with yesterdays buns and some with buns delivered fresh that morning.

Tasters replied:

"The kaiser bun was slightly grilled--a wee bit of crunch on the edges, otherwise doughy--but it was still under-heated and under-grilled."

"The bun was grilled, and that was my favorite part, as it added buttery crunch a good way into the burger all the way around."

"This burger's kaiser was room temp, not grilled, not warmed, and quite doughy, again, not unlike other burger buns in town, and therein lies the problem."

"The bun was the perfect texture – not so soft that it fell apart while eating it and not so hard that it crunched.  It had a bit of its own flavor, but not so much that it overpowered the burger."

"My bun was toasted a little too much--it wasn't burnt, the toast was just particularly chewy, and it overpowered the meat, which lacked juice." 

The Verdict:

Truth be told I was very disappointed with my burger from McGruk's, especially after having so many tasty ones there in the past. In hindsight its apparent that what I liked about the burger at McGurk's was not the burger at all, but the toppings. Instead of complementing the burger, its the toppings that steal the show, leaving the patty as a mere delivery vessel. Take the toppings away and you have a burger that is average at best.

I was struck by the comments of one diner, who provided the following thoughts on McGurk's and their burger.

"I've been going to John D. McGurk’s Irish Pub & Garden long enough to remember what the place looked like before the additional rooms "and Garden". The feel of the place hasn't been altered by time, nor has my usual order - fish and chips, a stew, or corned beef to be washed down with by a pint of cider or stout; dessert, for me, is optional: a snifter of one of their many excellent scotches.  Why return for a mediocre burger when there are better food options available?"

I would tend to agree with those sentiments. I'm sorry McGurk's, you are by far one of my favorite places to hang out here in town and I was pulling for you to be the best burger in St. Louis. I'm sorry to say that I don't think that's the case. The search continues.

Confessions Of A Dumbass - The Daddy Warbucks

Several times a year I meet up with friends, most of them Dad's, for "investment club". Investment club is an auspicious event in all regards, but if we were being honest we should really just call the night "hamburger club" and be done with it.

Yes, there is always some talk of IRA's, 401k's and the occasional Israeli small cap technology company, but its more of a chance to to get out of the house, have a burger and catch up with friends that we don't get to see as often as we would like between work and family life.

A wrinkle in our recent meeting was that it was in direct conflict with "book club", where our better halves meet up to eat, drink wine and "discuss" a book that apparently only a few of them have actually read.

Talk about a misnamed club!

In any event, with the Mom's headed out for their night of well deserved fun with friends, the Dad's were forced to rethink our night out and have it at home so we could watch the kids and put them to bed. In a perfect world having an investment club at home would mean firing up the grill for some hand made burgers, because it goes without saying that there are few burgers better than a home burger. However after some discussion it was decided that folks would bring over their burger of choice, with everyone separating into two camps for the ordering - one group opting for Steak n' Shake, anther going with Five Guys. 

One one hand you have the smashed goodness of a Steak n' Shake burger, on the other you have the beauty that is a Five Guys burger (minus the fries, thank you). How could I not slip an order in for one of each and do something fantastically disgusting with them.

In honor of our little investment club, I present the building blocks of "The Daddy Warbucks".

On the left we have a Five Guys bacon burger with mayo, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, pickles, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, raw jalapeno peppers and green peppers. On the right we have a Steak n' Shake double Steakburger with mayo, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onion and pickles.

Counting all the buns, patties and toppings, we are looking at 22 "layers of burger", which I merged into The Daddy Warbucks:

The bottom and top layers are the Five Guys burger, the Steak n' Shake burger is sandwiched in the middle. I tried to cut it down the middle for a cross section view, but was afraid that it would not survive the sawing and hacking so I let it be after giving it a good decent stabbing with a chefs knife.

Unable to get the towering height of this burger into my mouth I attacked it from all sides until it was a sloppy and mauled form in my hands. Each bite left burger toppings in my beard, on my face and all over my hands - it was a mess that called for the foregoing of napkins and the deployment of a kitchen towel.

With all the toppings mixing it quickly became difficult to tell where the Five Guys ended and the Steak n' Shake burger began. However, the two played together amazingly well together with the raw jalapeno, pickles and grilled mushrooms standing out not only in most bites, but most belches in the hours after consuming this burger monstrosity.

When The Daddy Warbucks had disintegrated to the point of no longer being a hand held sandwich, a knife and fork were called out to finish the job.

Let's add this to the "never do again" file. Someone get me a salad.

In The News (Again) - The Church of Burger

As the posts have shown, February was a crazy month for the Church of Burger.

The drama surrounding the February burger has faded in the past weeks, but not before the discussion spilled over onto other local food writers sites and resulted in an interview with the Riverfront Times.

However, weeks before all of this went down I participated in an interview for a mid-west based website called UrbanBacon on a variety of topics pertaining to food writing, social media and the restaurant business. I think the range of questions make for an interesting read.

I appreciate the folks at UrbanBacon reaching out to me and giving me the chance to share my thoughts.

The Counter Burger

Thanksgiving found me at my parents home in Charlotte, North Carolina visiting with family and taking some time away from the stress of moving and finding a new home. And while these things are important, it was also a chance to follow up on some of the great eats that Charlotte has to offer. Long time readers may remember the amazing burger I took down at the Penguin Drive-In in 2008.

This year I found myself sitting at the counter with family members at a burger joint in South Park named appropriately - The Counter - which was packed with a well healed lunch time crowd of business people and families who were taking a lunch break from shopping at the nearby mall. We opted for the counter due to the wait for a table and I was immediately reminded of this great scene from one of the greatest Seinfeld episodes ever - The Maid.

The concept behind The Counter is a customizable burger with enough combinations of burger, toppings, sauces and buns to result in over 300,000 different flavor combinations. 

With mini-pencil in hand I began to work this menu with the ultimate goal of creating the famous Aussie Burger, but I was quickly distracted by the lack of pickled beets on the menu. With over 300k + combinations available, you would think a pickled beet would be found someplace.

Undaunted I created the Andrew burger, a 1/3 pound patty topped with dill pickle chips, grilled onions, grilled pineapple, roasted red peppers, honey cured bacon and a roasted garlic aioli. Ridiculous is size and scope, I quickly added a tall chocolate shake to my order and the turned my attention to the first round of appetizers, ordered by my sister at the end of the counter.

 
First up we had a shallow plate of fried pickle chips, a staple of southern bar menus and a treat that I find largely missing here in St. Louis. I've had fried pickles across a broad swath of the south - from the Carolina's to Texas, and while all fried pickles are good, some are just better. They are the best when they have a light, almost tempura coating and are paired with a tangy ranch dressing. They are even better when instead of pickle chips - they are made from dill pickle spears - like they make at The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. 

Sadly, the pickles at The Counter have a heavy breading that the pickles can't really compete with and it was more like biting into a poorly executed fried zucchini than a crisp fried pickle.

Next up we dug into a plate of sweet potato fries coated liberally in sea salt. The fries were perfectly cooked, crisp on the outside and waiting for a pairing with mayo or the ranch dressing from the fried pickles. For the most part I watched these fries from my end of the counter, tasting once but not really getting to dig in. Everyone seemed to enjoy them, I know I would have had I been sitting more towards the center of the counter. Bummer - such is life when you are eating at a counter with a crowd.

As the apps were swept up and carried away my shake appeared - a picture of ice cream, whole milk and whipped cream in a tall glass.  As a good shake should be, this one was way to thick to pull through a straw until you hold it in your hand for a while, allowing your body heat to melt the drink just enough to begin sipping. I moved the shake to my side and leaned forward to hide it from my wife's roving hands with my arm - alas she never orders her own shake - opting instead to "tax" mine at will - the cost for ordering such a decadent burger side.

After some good natured ribbing of my little brother and a few quick scans of the burgers that were making their way out of the kitchen and too waiting tables, my burger appeared on the counter before me. My first thought was amazement at the construction of this burger as it was obvious that there is forethought given to which toppings ride under the patty and which ride on top.

My burger came with a solid foundation of dill pickle chips and then a liberal coating of roasted red peppers, forming a nest for the 1/3rd pound (after cooking) burger, charred in a manner that suggested it was broiled instead of grilled or smashed out on a flat top.

On top of the patty came a layer of thick cut and grilled onion, several slices of grilled pineapple and then some crisp bacon. Roasted garlic aioli came on the side and I applied a healthy coating to the grilled bun before placing it atop this monstrosity. 

What did it look like? Well I'll show you.

The burger lasted in this state for only a moment before I attacked it in the only way I know how - for a burger this tall you can only knife it down the center, pick it up side ways and eat your way to the other side. 

The burger was moist and cooked to a perfect medium. I found myself trying to get a taste of pineapple into every bite as it played so well with each ingredient, especially the grilled onions and the bacon.

Delicious.

Here are some of the other burgers my family tried that day. I didn't bother to ask them what they put on them because I was to busy focusing on my own. 

Distraction - its a five inch tall burger.

My brother in law took down a onion rich western burger.

My sister in law ordered a 2/3 pound cheese burger.

My wife ordered a veggie burger - huh?
 

Revisiting An Old Favorite And Two Rookie Efforts

The Old Favorite - The Tin Can Tavern "Ten"

A favorite stop of mine during football season is the Tin Can Tavern on Morgan Ford. Around noon friends make their way over to this South City landmark for stiff bloody marys and comfort food to:

1. Help soak up the toxins from the previous nights festivities
2. To nip at the proverbial hair of the dog, because for the Jets, Bills and Browns fans amongst us, it usually ends up being a long, long afternoon.

While much of the menu at the Tan Can is topnotch pub food, the mini corn dogs and tomato bisque are amongst my favorites, I usually find myself thinking about the burger on Thursday or Friday, long before Sunday ever rolls around.

The burger at The Tin Can is called the "Ten" and it comes with bacon, choice of cheese (including none, thankfully for me) and sauteed onions riding on two five ounce beef patties. While this is not a dominating double burger, at least compared to a favorite of mine - the "Big Block" Burger at The Penguin in Charlotte, North Carolina, it is well made and quite tasty.

Burgers are not cooked to order at the Tin Can, so every Ten is cooked to medium / well. However, what this burger lacks in juice it makes up with a crispy exterior to play against the star of the show - the pairing of perfectly cooked bacon and onions. The choice of side off this great menu of comfort food allows the diner to tailor the dish to the vibe of their Sunday. Make mine with mashed potatoes and gravy, a well executed cole slaw or the fries, which are quite good and would make a great partner of some malt vinegar or mayo if they were available at the table.

For the meek or calorie minded the Ten has a smaller brother, the "Five", but really, its Sunday and you're watching football, get the real deal and worry about it on Monday.

Rookie Effort 1 - Plaza Pastries and Donuts

Long under construction, the series of buildings at Connecticut and Morgan Ford has started to come alive with the opening of a child care center, a donut shop and soon, a family restaurant. The entire venture is the project of one family and the development of the property has been a labor of love filled with lots of do it yourself projects and sweat equity - just the thing a quickly developing street like Morgan Ford needs.

A quick check in with Google Maps shows that this new shop sits in the heart of the south St. Louis donut scene. Surrounded by at least a half dozen shops, some of which are Route 66 landmarks, the competition is indeed tough for this start up, but the shop should do well servicing the Tower Grove neighborhood. 

The morning I stopped in, the front counter case was filled with a variety of donuts, however I was disappointed to see several empty cases behind the register. Perhaps the owners are just planning for future demand, but for some reason that I still can't put to words, it made me worried about this small shop. It just made things feel incomplete, they didn't look sold out - they just looked empty. Very odd.

However among the several dozen choices, I was happy to see examples of both cake and yeast based donuts. The cake versions were well made; crisp from frying but not greasy. The yeast donuts I tried reminded me of a dense pâte à choux and came complete with a semi-sweet cream filling.

I happen to think that half the appeal of a donut shop is the coffee, which when made correctly should be thick enough to hold a spoon straight up and served by a lady in a beehive hairdo if at all possible. If I can't have that pairing, it at least has to be fresh (because of the volume of product moved) and a perfect foil for the fried goodness that is the American donut. The coffee should also be made for you, in my opinion. Alas, this is not the case at Plaza Pastries and Donuts, where I was given a cup of joe and a single serving of half and half before being told that the sugar was at the end of the counter and I could fix my own.

Am I nitpicking here? Probably. Did I feel let down? Without a doubt. Unfortunately for me, the ritual is just as important as the product most of the time.

In the end, I'm not so sure having this shop so close will stop me from making the drive to World's Fair or the Donut Drive-In, which not only produce outstanding examples of this classic road food, they have the coffee and old school service to back it up. I am excited that they are here though and the donuts are good enough to make this shop a great addition to the quickly developing Morgan Ford strip.

Rookie Effort 2 - Teaching Reis How To Make Peter Reinhart's Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough

Not much of an update here, but pizza night is a big deal in our home. So big that we have it once a week. I'm happy to report that Reis took a great interest in the construction of this Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough. I'll make a baker out of him yet.

WTF? The McNuggetini does not even have any NUGGET in it?

A few weeks ago, the bacon vodka I was working on ended up in a cocktail called a BLT. The beauty of this drink is that is is made with at least the essence of meat, in this case, bacon.

Now here comes the McNuggetini, where a white russian is basicly garnished with a nugget. If this is the current state of meat flavored drinks - we are all in trouble.

Amuse Bouche For October 21st, 2009

• New Eco-Friendly Pizza Box -- GreenBox -- Offers Plates with the Pie - Fun for college kids everywhere who barely have dinner let alone a plate to eat it on.
• Serious Eats visits the Thai Pizza Co here in St. Louis.
• And in the outrage of the year, decade, century and millennium, Pizzatherapy assembles a list of "the best pizza in St. Louis", leading this reader to question the sanity of placing Imo's or Racanelli's on any list of edible "pizza". Just a terrible list. Where is Pi? The Good Pie? Katie's Pizza Cafe? I'll even accept Feraro's as a more realistic example of a corner pizza shop slice than Racanelli's. Alas it was not included. I've lived in New York, I've eaten their pizza, the pizza of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are friends of mine. You sir are not east coast pizza. I was just shocked when I saw this list of pizza in St. Louis. This is the reason I've worked so hard to make my own pies at home, because the pizza that this town is known for is largely for shit. Put that on your list.
• And lastly, thanks for Kelli for the recap of the BLT cocktail that we put together for this years Tour de Moose. Looking forward to our next collaboration.

Hogs and Hooch

The BLT cocktail, the official drink of the morning of the Tour de Moose, and it starts with a base of vodka, bacon and peppercorns. 

Its resting in the basement now. We'll check back in on it in a few weeks.