And if I had to pick one burger to eat for the rest of my life, it would either be an In N Out double double (probably animal style, but not necessarily), or one of Southwest Side Chicago’s local specialties, the big baby (specifically either the one from Nicky’s on Archer & Austin or Jackie’s on 54th and Pulaski). It’s nothing special: just a humble two thin patties (I think maybe around 1/6 lb each, possibly even 1/8 lb), slice of cheese in the middle, ketchup, mustard, pickles on the bottom, a generous portion of semi-caramelized onions on the top, served on a soft sesame seed bun. It’s a humble, simple burger, but something about the greasy onion-iness of it that just hits home. It might be part nostalgia, part my proclivity towards all things oniony, but, man, do I love that burger. And under three bucks.
So why did he call it frozen?
I think the best burger I’ve had was from my own kitchen. Maybe I haven’t been to enough places to know. A char-grilled burger, still a weency-bit pink on the inside, kaiser roll, with ripe tomato (salt and pepper on), lettuce (no rib chunks), katsup and mayo, is a five star burger. I like the fatty ground beef–none of that lean healthy dry stuff.
So far as I can follow the semi stream of consciousness, I think he’s just saying it’s (the Dee Snyder burger) a bunch of crap thrown on a cheap food service frozen patty as opposed to a Real Burger ™.
The Best Burger no longer exists.
There was a diner outside of Barstow, CA called Joy’s. Joy’s was a one-room shack with a counter and a flat-top grill. A swamp cooler provided a hint of cooling, and also added to the ambient noise. The screen door was old-school: Wooden frame with a spring at the top. None of those dampened closure units that softly close it! No, this one closed with a THWACK Thwack thwack. I recall the burgers were thin, and served on a toasted bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayonnaise, and American cheese. The seasonings were liberally dispensed out of metal dredges. I suspect the seasonings were merely salt and pepper, but I remember Joy only using one dredge. Maybe they were mixed? It’s been too long. Dad and I always got Joy’s macaroni and cheese salad. It was a ‘standard’ macaroni salad – though better than any I’ve had since – with chunks of cheese in it. Joy’s mother was ill, and she closed her diner to care for her sometime before 1975. I have never, ever found a burger as good as Joy’s.
The Kittyhawk Café at Santa Monica Airport had good burgers. Not as good as Joy’s, but you could really taste that it was freshly-ground chuck. It was sold and became The Spitfire Grill. (The writer of the movie of that name had his office upstairs from the café, and used its name.) They must have cleaned the grill, because the burgers weren’t the same after that.
The diner at the airport at the California City Airport tasted like a picnic. Not ‘great’ burgers, but memorable because they tasted like what you’d get on a cookout. We never went back after it burned down. (I assume it’s been rebuilt.)
A couple/few years ago a new place opened in Belltown. Dope Burger. These were great. Thin patties and no nonsense. I think these were the best burgers since Joy’s. I’ve read that they were similar to Red Mill burgers, but I’ve never been to a Red Mill. Dope Burger burned down, and is now a pizza place. Boomer’s in Bellingham has good traditional burgers. They’re like Joy’s or Dope Burger, and very good. But they’re not as good as the others. Pretty similar to Ronny Jock-itch. I mean Johnny Rocket’s. Or Ruby’s. (Neither of which are up here.)
It seems that most places in this area are trying too hard. It’s not uncommon to see half-pound patties – with two of them on a double cheeseburger. Specialty buns are touted, and you’re as likely to get aioli instead of mayo. I’ve been in places where American cheese (the perfect cheese for a cheeseburger) is not an option. You get ‘better’ lettuce and red onions. There is the Jucy Lucy (patty stuffed with – amazingly – American cheese, which isn’t a listed option for regular burgers), Bleucy Lucy (same thing, but with blue cheese), or other stuffed burgers. And you’ve gotta have bacon, or mushrooms, or blue cheese and caramelised onions, or any number of other toppings. These are all fine options, and nice for a change. But good old-fashioned burgers are scarce. Even ‘classic’ burgers are messed with. (Wrong bun, wrong cheese, oversized patty, Angus beef, wrong ratio of salad to meat, etc.)
For me, the best burger is a thin 6-ounce patty. I prefer rare beef, but a burger needs to be well-done. The meat needs fat in it. But you have to cook it out. You don’t want a dry burger, but it shouldn’t be dripping. Seasoning should be salt and pepper. Buns should not be too thick. The patty is thin, and you want to taste it. The buns should be toasted. American cheese. Yes, yes; I know. But American cheese has specific uses, and cheeseburgers is one of them. Don’t slice the tomatoes too thickly; and not too much lettuce. They’re there to compliment the meat, not to make a hand-held salad. Same with the (white) onion. Sweet pickle chips, if you want pickles. Mayonnaise, thousand island dressing, catsup, or mustard? Whatever you like. Personally, I prefer mayo.
I’ll make burgers with Dijon mustard and mayo; with bacon, avocado and tomato; with green (‘Ortega’) chiles; with green chiles and runny egg; with chilli and shredded cheddar. I’ll use wheat bread instead of a bun. I’ll mix stuff (Worcestershire, onion soup mix, dehydrated onions, chopped onions, parsley… even bread crumbs :eek: ) into the meat. I’ll make a burger any way I feel like at the time. But The Best Burger, to me, is as I described in the previous paragraph. Too bad old-fashioned burgers are so hard to find.
I’m a huge fan of the Big Baby, but I have to say the best burger I’ve ever had is at a little dump of a bar just outside Chicago’s west side.
It’s a little hole of a bar with absolutely no charm whatsoever. The patrons are surely, the lighting is bad, the bathrooms are unmentionable.
The burgers are served on a Styrofoam plate with food service fries.
But man, it’s a great burger.
It doesn’t hurt that the beer is cheap and the drinks are stiff.
The best burgers on Earth are made in The Village Green in Middleton, WI. The Honorable Mention goes to Dottie Dumpling’s in Madison.
There’s another place like that in the tiny town of Spencer, ID. It’s called The Opal Country Cafe, just off I-15 not far from the Montana border. Their “Triplet Burger” is the best burger in my 66 burger-eating years on the planet and found completely by accident. It probably winks in and out of existence along with Sharon Springs.
Two things. First, it’s not Twilight Zone, it’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Second, if you ask them, they’ll invite you to the kitchen to see their process, and tell you to open the deep freezer. The last thing you’ll see before the blow to the back of your head is the frozen plastic-wrapped hand…
Ah, yes, Goldyburgers! They’re a popular one. They need a bit of salt (for my tastes), but quite good. One of my usual stops when I find myself in Forest Park. Come to think of it, probably my only stop there. (Well, maybe the bowling alley down the street, too.) And I love the vibe of that place. It reminds me of the taverns of my youth (and there’s still a number like that around here that I visit.) Now that I think about it, I’ve warmed up to the burger they have at Illinois Bar & Grill on 47th. I grew up with it being called “The best burger in Illinois” and then “The best burger in the US” and, while claims like that should automatically be suspicious, I could see why it has its fans, although originally I was a bit disappointed. When the burgers are on, they are somewhat like big babies on crack in terms of size and oozing, greasy onioniness. They’re pan-griddled patties of something around 2/3 - 3/4 lb. When the right person is griddling them up, they have a wonderful char around them and a unusual-for-the-area medium rareness to the middle.
I made the best burger ever a few years ago in my kitchen. The problem is, I don’t remember how exactly I did it. I think I had some mix of ground beef, ground lamb, and ground pork, with seasoning and an egg to hold it together, but I don’t remember the ratio.
I’ve tried to recreate it, and made only decent burgers. My quest will continue.
I’ve never understood the fascination with who makes the best burger. It’s not like a great burger is all that hard to make on your own grill, or even on your own stove.
There are a number of reasons to eat out. Many restaurants cook certain foods much better than I can, or cook dishes that I can’t cook at all. Sometimes you could do it just as well as they can, but it sure is nice when someone else does the cooking, not to mention the cleanup afterwards. Sometimes eating out lends a sense of occasion to an evening. Or sometimes it’s just convenience, especially when you’re out and about, and it would be a hell of a lot of trouble to get back home in time for lunch or dinner, but there’s a place to eat right over there.
But these mostly fall apart when we’re talking about great burgers, because great burgers are easy to make, and prep and cleanup are really pretty minimal. It can still be nice when someone else does all that for you, but if you have to go very far in search of a good burger, the hassle of driving there and back quickly turns the equation around. And of course, there isn’t much sense of occasion from eating a burger.
So it seems to come down to: if that amazing burger place is really close to home or work, or is someplace you’re going to be anyway, then it’s a find. Otherwise, who cares? I’m not going to drive 45 minutes out of my way for the best burger in the world, because it’s not going to be that much better than one I can grill in about as much time as it took to write this post.
Yeah, that was where the drugs began to take hold. But even with all those damned bats swooping and screeching and diving all around us, those were pretty damned good burgers. 
Sounds like you made a pljeskavica kind of thing.
Best Post Ever, Johnny.
Well, while I make good burgers at home, they don’t taste exactly like fast food burgers. And, sometimes, I just want that fast food or pub food burger taste. Plus, they stink up the house when done right (and I’m a find of griddled, not grilled, burgers.) Plus it’s like three bucks, so what’s the point of making it at home when I could get something I like as much if not more for three bucks a little bit down the street? Or, if I want to get out of the house and to a pub, drive a half hour to a place that has a burger I like, that costs $5-$8, and half that if it’s a hamburger special night.
Burgers, like pizza and hot dogs, are actually one of those things I prefer to go out for. When I make them myself, I’ll grind my own meat and do it “right,” but I’d rather get out of the house and have a good burger that I know and love.
Once you get over the preachiness of the place the burgers are fantastic at Buger Priest.
For example, here’s the process for making a big baby: I have to go to the store or hope I have an onion in the pantry. I need to get ground beef, or grind my own. I’ll have to buy an 8-pack of buns that I most likely will not use up, since I only eat burgers once every couple of weeks. I suppose I can freeze the unused portion, then I have to defrost them. I need to buy American cheese, since I don’t typically have American cheese slices around the house, and my “big baby” must be made with American cheese. Mustard and ketchup I have; pickle slices I need to buy, but it should be a normal pantry item. I need to pound the meat down between two sheets of wax paper (or similar) to get them to my desired thinness. I need to caramelize my onions for ten or so minutes on a blazing hot pan, stinking up the house. I need to fry my patties, stinking up the house some more, griddle the bun, and end up cleaning up the greasy mess on the pan, the probable spatter around the stove, and the dishes.
Or, I can drive over to my burger place of choice and pay $3.
Now, sometimes, I do want to make it myself. But the vast majority of time, it’s just not worth the bother for one double cheeseburger. And I am someone who eats out, on average, only once a week.
Oh Lord, savory blasphemy!
I concur for the most part. (Except while I’m fine with well-done for my preferred style of thin patty–and that’s what I want, a well-developed brown crispy crust which means for about 1/4 lb and down anything below well is difficult, if not impossible, unless you start from frozen–I prefer anything 1/3 lb or so or heavier to be medium rare in the center. Certainly, any 1/2 lb patty, to me, tastes better at medium rate vs. cooked well.)
Surely what?
The best burger I’ve ever had was at the cafe at the Kimball Livestock Exchange in Kimball, SD.