Bar Food -- West Los Angeles, CA

12217 Wilshire Boulevard
West Los Angeles, CA
310-820-3274
website

It was Friday night, and I was in search of a decent cheeseburger to fill the void created by another week of working for the man. Bar Food was nearby, and it was due for a visit. Bar Food's cheeseburger had received mixed reviews, but I needed to find out about this cheeseburger for myself. Parking was a breeze...metered on the street or free in the small lot in the alley behind the restaurant/gastropub. I was fortunate enough to have the chance to meet with Jason (Owner/Manager), and he was most helpful in giving me plenty of details about the restaurant and the menu. I ordered the Bar Burger and settled in for a 10-minute wait as the meal was prepared. More good luck--since I arrived during Happy Hour, the burger was $6.50 rather than the usual $9.

The Burger Breakdown...

The Beef: The burger meat at Bar Food was sourced from National Meats. This was 100% Angus Chuck. The beef was fresh/never frozen. Each cheeseburger was built using a 1/3 pound patty. The beef had a fat content of 20%, and this worked. There was no residual oiliness from the juicy bite. The burger was pleasantly beefy. It carried a mild funk from wet-aging. This funk was apparent to the nose but not the tongue. The beef also delivered some mild mineral flavors. While this was mere Chuck, I noticed that the mouth feel resembled Brisket. There was a pleasing long-grainedness, and some of the beef fibers persisted throughout the bite. This was a pleasant surprise, and it was characteristic of high-quality cuts of beef. Overall, I was surprised by the quality of the beef in my cheeseburger.

The Seasoning: Bar Food hit the exterior of their burgers with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Salt and pepper are generally all that a burger needs to make the beefiness pop. This treatment worked exceedingly well in this case.

The Sear: The sear on my Bar Burger came courtesy of a stainless steel pan and some olive oil. The sear was crisp, deep, and dark. This, coupled with the hearty salt and pepper, created a surface akin to bacon, and bacon is good.

The Preparation: The irregular, 1/3 pound burger patties at Bar Food were formed during the prep cycle. I requested Medium, and a competent Medium is what the kitchen delivered. The tender, loose bite suggested a gentle hand formed the burgers. This also suggested that the burgers were formed on the same day that they were cooked and served.

The Cheese: Bar Food used a shredded Cheddar blend, and this really worked. The cheese melted readily and evenly. The blend resulted in a less oily and chewy bite than pure Cheddar. The cheese provided tartness, creaminess, umami, and salt to the dish.

The Bun: Bar Food served the cheeseburger on nicely toasted, seeded, standard, burger bun from Old Mill Bakery. The flavor was buttery, mildly sweet, and a little yeasty. The texture was moist and tender. The bun was crisp all around the edge, and this provided a really satisfying crunch. This also provided just enough bitterness to round out the flavor profile of the burger.

The Meat To Bun Ratio: This was simply perfect.

The Fries: The fries at Bar Food were of the frozen, bagged, and delivered variety. I did not sample the fries.

The Toppings:  The arugula was nutty and fresh....not at all bitter. The bacon jam was a nice surprise. Bar Food crumbled crisp bacon and then cooked it down with Balsamic vinegar and caramelized onions to create a sweet, tart, salty, smokey spread for its burgers. The bacon jam was a winner.

The Value: At $6.50, the value was great. At the non-Happy Hour price of $9, the value would have been good. This was a really fine cheeseburger. Two burgers and a couple of beverages came out to about $23 at Bar Food.

The Bar Burger at Bar Food was a pleasant surprise. I came in with moderate expectations, and I left looking forward to returning to have the burger again.

Burger Review : Bar Food served up a well-priced, beautifully balanced, and high-quality cheeseburger.

Rating...4 Bites

The Lab’s Ludicrous Lunch Super Summer Spectacular--Agoura Hills, CA

The Lab’s Ludicrous Lunch Super Summer Spectacular has officially kicked off and we’ve cut prices on most lunch entrees to only $10. And now you can add on Dr. Hops house beers for only $1. Crazy, right? In addition to $1 brews like the Take Her Home Belgian Tripel and Bad Influence IPA, dollar add ons include herb fries, a cup of soup, mixed salad and fresh fruit. Yes, lunch at the Lab is getting ludicrous!

$10 lunch specials include our famous LAB Burger, California Street Tacos, Margherita Pizza, Chicken Caesar Salad, BLT, and much much more.

Also, for you business types, we’ve tailored the menu to have you in and out the door in less than an hour.

But that is not all. The Lab is also throwing in gorgeous Agoura Hills weather into the mix. So come lunch at the Lab and make your summer spectacular!

30105 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills, CA 91301

Burger Boss--Riverside, CA

2585 Canyon Springs Parkway
Riverside, CA 92507
951-565-6500
website

Happy Meal and I had just spent a glorious day at The Cove, a water park in Riverside, CA. A quick web search suggested that the one-year old Burger Boss was the best burger in Riverside, CA. Happy Meal and I needed to find out for ourselves. Burger Boss was located in a burgeoning strip mallish development (new construction) in an area that could best be described as retail/big box sprawl. Parking was free and convenient. Burger Boss had a Smashburger feel to it. Lots of polished stainless steel, tile, a clean and highly-customizable menu, and some fancy topping choices. We ordered a couple of burgers from the very enthusiastic gent at the register (the owner's son). Our cheeseburgers arrived at our table moments later. This was good, because we were hungry, and place smelled wonderfully of beefy goodness.

The Burger Breakdown...

The Beef: Happy Meal proclaimed that his burger was "super awesome." Frankly, I was in agreement--the beef was excellent. Each burger patty at Burger Boss was 6 ounces of 100% Black Angus Chuck. The fat content was about 20%, and that was just right. The burgers had just enough fat to barely coat the lips. There was a mild note of aged funk. The beef flavor boomed on the palate. The finish was interesting...the beef was coarsely ground (off-site), so at the end of each bite, one was left savoring the coarse strands of beef, and it had a satisfying steak flavor. The beef had a tenderness, which suggested that it had arrived freshly ground. The burgers at Burger Boss tasted a lot like the burgers at Super Duper Burger in San Francisco. Bear in mind that Super Duper Burger makes one of my favorite "fresh food fast" burgers.

The Seasoning: Burger Boss liberally applied salt and pepper to the burger patties as they cooked on the flat-top. The salt and pepper really enhanced the inherent beefiness of the coarsely ground Chuck. The seasoning was dead on. The burgers were satisfyingly savory. Savory enough to handle a dab of ketchup or BBQ sauce.

The Sear: The photos do not adequately document the competent sear that was present on the cheese-covered side of our burger patties. The sear was dark and crisp. It had the satisfying salt and crunch of bacon.

The Preparation: At Burger Boss the default cooking temperature was Medium,. This was for good reason. Medium is just at the sweet spot where enough collagen melts to develop beefiness, but the proteins in the Chuck do not denature to the point where the whole works becomes chewy and dry. The burger patties were prepped during the day shift. 6-ounce balls of beef were formed and set aside. When it came time to cook them, the half-formed patties were pressed onto the griddle. This served to loosen up the texture and sever some of the freshly created protein bonds. The cheese was placed atop the hot patties, and it melted after the patties were placed on the bun. I would encourage you to allow your cheeseburger to rest for a few moments as the cheese melts.

The Cheese: Of the 7 cheese choices at Burger Boss, Happy Meal and I both went with the staid and pedestrian Yellow American. We will be more adventurous on our next visit...yes, there will be a next visit. The savory American cheese worked smoothly into the bite. It provided just the right touch of creaminess to really round things out.

The Bun: The white bun option at Burger Boss was a potato Kaiser roll. This bun was sweet, fresh, moist, tender, and it compressed to create the ideal amount of chewiness to offset the tender beef and creamy cheese. The bun was not toasted, and this was fine. The crisp sear did all of the heavy lifting in the texture department.

The Meat To Bun Ratio: This was one of those odd cases where the bun worked perfectly for both the single and the double cheeseburgers.

The Fries: Burger Boss cut their fries peel-on and in-house. The fries were par-cooked and finished in canola oil. They were then finished with sea salt. The fries were excellent--crisp, hot, flavorful, and golden brown.

The Toppings: I couldn't find a topping that I didn't like. The Romaine lettuce was clean and fresh. The tomato slice was ripe, firm, and flavorful. The sauteed mushrooms were a delight. The chipotle BBQ sauce was no joke--it had a firm note of heat. The chipotle mayo was equally good, but with a lessened degree of kick. The long pickle slices were crisp and sour.

The Value: Yer darn right! Happy Meal and I dropped about 17 bucks on a single cheeseburger, a double cheeseburger, a large beverage, and a side of fries. Each patty was 6 ounces, and couldn't finish my double cheeseburger.

I left Burger Boss both saddened and relieved. I was saddened that it was a 45 minute drive from LA. I was happy, because Happy Meal and I had season passes to the The Cove water park, and we already had plans to return in two weeks. The Burger Boss surpassed both Smashburger and Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

Burger Review : One of the best burgers in LA was in Riverside. Honestly, it was kind of worth the drive. The value pretty much offset the fuel costs.

Rating...5 Bites

Tompkins Square Bar & Grill--Los Angeles, CA

8552 Lincoln Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-670-1212
website

It was a slow Saturday, and I was still getting over what a weak suck of a film my idol, Ridley Scott had put out in the form of the newly-released Prometheus. Seriously, it was like watching the last season of Battlestar Galactica. I decided that a burger was just the thing to get all that behind me. I made my way the Westchester neighborhood of LA. This is an area that I usually blow through at a high rate of speed on my way to LAX. Tompkins Square Bar & Grill was the destination. It had garnered some attention here and there for the burger, and it was my duty to check it out. Free parking was provided in the small lot behind the establishment. Tompkins Square (or T with superscript 2) was a naming convention derived from the fact that two brothers named Tompkins owned the place. Isn't math fun?

I ordered a simple burger with the Swiss/American cheese option and mushrooms and BBQ sauce on the side. My burger was up in about 10 minutes.

The Burger Breakdown...

The Beef: The burger beef at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill was interesting. There was a strong scent of aging, but none of that came through in the flavor. The cheeseburger tasted strongly of mineral, which led me to believe that this was more that mere Chuck. I did ask the staff, but the beef was a mystery to the folks on duty at the time. The burger was moderately beefy. The fat content was around 20%. The bite was moderately juicy, and it had just the right amount of oils. The grind was in the medium range--this created a burger that was tender with just enough resistance so the the bite was not sloppy.  The beef was above average but not spectacular.

The Seasoning: There was the faintest hint of salt on the exterior of the patty. More salt and some pepper were certainly called for here.

The Sear:  The sear was nominal at best. It provided no char or texture to improve the bite.

The Preparation:  Since the type of beef in the cheeseburger at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill was a mystery, I requested Medium. That request was bluntly ignored, and my burger came out closer to Well Done. It was still juicy, but it just wasn't what I wanted. Also, I made a point of ordering the mushrooms on the side. They arrived embedded in the cheese. I played "Operation" to get them out of the way. On the plus side, the burger was only flipped once on the gas-fired grill. Points for not fussing with it too much. I assumed that the 6-ounce patties were formed in-house during the prep cycle. A quick look into the tiny kitchen caused me to conclude that the beef was ground by the supplier.

The Cheese: Ho hum. There were many cheese choices at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill, and went with the standard Swiss/American blend. Sadly, the cheese was much too bland, and it was lost in the bite. It contributed nothing in terms of flavor of texture.

The Bun: The bun was a competent, high-domed briochesque affair. It lacked the customary brioche sweetness. I also, mercifully, lacked the customary brioche oiliness. The bun was meagerly toasted. It held up competently to the juicy beef.

The Meat To Bun Ratio: This was fine.

The Toppings: My burger at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill was accompanied by mushrooms and BBQ sauce. The mushrooms had clearly been cooked at least an hour prior to hitting my burger. The BBQ sauce was unremarkable.

The Fries: The fries at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill were $5, so I passed. I concluded that the denizens of Westchester were doing far better than myself based on the egregiously spendy spuds.

The Value: Ouch! The burger at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill started at $12 with no fries. I walked away spending over $18 on a burger, beverage, and the tip. The value was not good.

This was my first burger experience in the LAX region, and I truly hoped that this was not the best that the area. The burger was fine, but it was by no means worth a second look.

Burger Review : A slightly better than average, but overpriced, burger was served up at Tompkins Square Bar & Grill.

Rating...3 Bites