I should apologize in advance for this fast food rant. I've never indulged in such a tirade before, but I simply couldn't resist this one. Regularly scheduled content will return later this week, I promise.
The Mac Snack wrap is the stupidest, most idiotic, dumbest fast food creation I've ever seen. It purports to be a Big Mac in flour tortilla, except it betrays logic and any culinary...
First things first: there's something to clear up about " sliders ." They are not mini hamburgers. Along with Adam Kuban over at A Hamburger Today, I actually sort of hate mini hamburgers and the implied cuteness . Sliders are a different beast, and not cute. They are compact and small, yes, but they are also haunted by sauteed onion, which they are cooked on top of to create a sort of...
Since the beginning of the site, Blake and I have had an unabashed love affair with the burger. Though often neglected for more highfalutin fare, we've found inspiration in the ground meat patty. Perhaps we loved it so much because ground beef was cheapest kind of meat in the grocery store when we were poor and living in Manhattan. There was hardly a week that went by that we didn't have...
You know the burger obsession is going off the deep end when semi-serious discussion takes place over the burger making skills of a cartoon . Please stick with me. This cartoon happened feature J. Wellington Wimpy, the burger-loving sidekick of Popeye. Hamburger America author George Motz found this clip and was there to comment on Wimpy's burger making skills: "Notice how even in...
At first everything was fine. Taking a cue from Adam Kuban , we decided to make our own onion rings instead of the normal burger pairing of fries. The recipe was taken from Simply Recipes , which soaked the onions in buttermilk and coated them in flour and cornmeal.
We fried them in canola oil set to 350 degrees for a few minutes, until nice and golden brown. We stashed them i...
“American cheese (processed cheese)”
-Wylie Dufresne, describing the type of cheese he likes on his burger
I haven’t exactly made my peace with American cheese . I still don’t like it cubed, melted in grilled cheese, or laid across a deli sandwich. I’m not that into reliving my childhood and, really, actual cheese always tastes better. I thought that was the end of it...
Grinding meat may seem like an exercise for those with too much time on their hands, or those overly devoted to doing things from scratch--which I am. But I'm here to argue that there are more compelling and more logical reasons for doing so: for one, the meat will taste better. You'll also know where it omes from, unlike with a styrofoam tray from the grocery store, which is likely the su...
By some miracle, my girlfriend and I have recently moved into a beautiful, spacious, freshly painted apartment with a backyard, a washer/dryer, and a dishwasher: three luxuries that most New Yorkers offer up onto the pyre of compromise very early on. It’s simply assumed: you won’t have those things. You live in the city because the people that live here are interesting, and there are o...
It saddens me to point out that Schnack has closed. What is detailed below is a great restaurant. Hopefully they will reopen someday.
Like many, many people this week, Blake and I had better things to do. He's living the good life traveling around Northern Europe right now, eating voisilmapulla and trying to get around in Estonia with only a passable pronunciation of three words. A...
I'd eaten the good and the bad , the big and the small , and paid dearly as a result. The quest had gotten serious, and I was ready to admit defeat and bow at the altar of the shack if I had to eat another huge, dry burger. A true alternative to the Shake Shack seemed like an idea too good to be true.
But like all quests, the best inevitably came last, far away, in a place...