MIRU 8691 Is No More

Yesterday was National Cheeseburger Day. I wanted to swing by and check out one of my favorite burgers on planet Earth at Miru 8691. I discovered that the establishment had closed.

National Cheeseburger Day became a day of cheeseburger mourning.

The mantle of Best Cheeseburger in America is now conferred to The Brindle Room in Manhattan, NY.

Miru 8691 is dead...long live Miru 8691

Best Burger in LA -- MIRU8691 -- Beverly Hills, CA

9162 West Olympic Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
310-777-8378
website

This is not so much a Review of MIRU8691--it is more of a discussion regarding the current best burger in LA and the chef that has created it.  The burgers at MIRU8691 have already been reviewed here and here

Kalbi Burger

Fat Bruce Lee and I popped into MIRU8691 for a lunch meeting on a weekday afternoon. Ordinarily, we wouldn't visit the same place 3 times in a 5 months (actually, I've taken Happy Meal there, too), but MIRU8691 had become our go-to spot for amazing burgers.  It only seems right that once we found the best burger in LA, that we'd partake of it frequently.

What I have found refreshing and fascinating about this place is that Chef Miru Jung has been almost relentless in taking a damn good burger and elevating it to something beyond description. With each visit the burgers have improved....dramatically.  What started as an excellent burger, which was knocking on Umami Burger's door, became a burger that left Umami Burger well behind.

MIRU8691 did not deliver a comfort food burger...it delivered a burger that challenged the senses. I've always meant to eat half (to avoid death by cholesterol), but I have never been able to put my burger down.

Keep in mind that MIRU8691 served ridiculously fresh, inventive, and delicious sushi rolls, too. Calvin Jung runs the sushi bar, and cooking excellence runs in that family's genes. Calvin's rolls were simply great. You should try the Calvin Fries--it was spicy tuna on spiral cut fries, and it was delicious.

Having had the plain (CLT) cheeseburger on numerous visits, I decided to try a burger with all of the toppings. I already knew that the plain cheeseburger offering was as good as it got. I tried the OG Burger, and it was nearly exhausting in its depth of flavor and complexity. It was like eating a rave. The initial rush of harmonious Eastern and Western flavors left me grinning. Just as the initial shock of the "chili" and other toppings subsided, the seasoned Kobe beef kicked in.  Previously, this had provided a subtle, rich, and satisfying beef flavor. On this last visit it delivered a suckerpunch of beef flavor as a sustained and powerful end note to each bite. While I am not ordinarily a fan of messy burgers, I was happily licking my fingers to get more of that flavor.

OG Burger

Chef Jung--a savant with technique and spice. The "chili" topping contained neither beans nor meat, yet it delivered the creamy, hearty, satisfying (nearly guilty) essence of Original Tommy's chili. Chef Jung shared with me the chili making process, and it was an all day affair just to make that topping. It employed ingredients that were far from traditional, and it involved a painstaking cooking process. It was this attention to detail on an ingredient used on only one of the 10+ burgers on the menu that propelled MIRU8691 into a league of its own.

The fries...I couldn't figure out the end note in the fries to save my life. It was like a classed-up version of the end note in the Umami Burger ketchup. That ketchup had a "Chinese take-out" flavor to it, which had always been interesting. The MIRU8691 fries, on the other hand, were more subtle in that end note. I never finish my fries, but I finished all of these.

Amuse bouche flight

The plain cheeseburger at MIRU8691 was the Gretchen Parlato of burgers. Award-winning, smooth, breathy, passionate, precise, and absolutely wonderful--this burger was easily equal to Umami Burger's best-of-breed, umami-soaked ball of comfort and satisfaction.  Chef Jung tricked out the cheese to load up on umami, while Umami burger tricked out the beef.

The OG and Galbi burgers surpassed anything else that we have sampled.  These were the Cirque du Soleil of burger-craft and must be experienced to truly appreciated.

Beyond burgers, the sushi dishes that left the bar were OUTSTANDING. What Miru Jung did with hot dishes, Chef Calvin did with sushi. It was inventive and utterly delicious.

Go to MIRU8691...there is some Iron Chef-level work being done in that joint. Keep in mind that Miru Jung is still perfectly his world-class burgers, so mo' betta is probably on the way.  Fat Bruce Lee is already convinced that this is the best tasting burger in America. He is probably right, but I need to go and eat my way through a pile of cheeseburgers in Las Vegas to validate the claim.

Rating...5 Bites

Editor's Note: 08JUL11

Fat Bruce Lee, Chi Burger, and I paid a visit to MIRU 8691 for Chi Burger's birthday. Amazingly, the burgers were better than what we had tried on the previous visit.

The MIRU 8691 Pastrami Burger

Chef Miru has gotten the sear down pat, and he had introduced a new, house-made bun. It was a steamed bun, which was finished in the oven to create a crust. This bun was dense, chewy, moist, and durable. Miru's burgers were so mightily topped that a resilient bun was required to hold them together. The bun has the texture of a soft pretzel, and this texture rounded out the mouth feel. This new bun was inspired by a youth spent growing up in Singapore, where stuffed steam buns were sold by street vendors.

On this occasion, I sampled the new Pastrami Burger. It was almost too beautiful to eat, and once I picked it up, I could not set it down. The dauntingly tall burger required that it be forcibly compressed to taste all of the ingredients at once--it was that or unhinge my jaw. This compression created a crunchy, chewy, sweet, savory, sour, beefy, wet, sensory experience. The burger's insides coated my fingers, and I did not mind one bit. The list of ingredients was voluminous. It was composed of a Korean BBQ Beef Patty, Mozzarella Cheese, Pickled Beet, Butter Lettuce, Roasted Tomato, Miso Mustard, Crispy Onion Strips, Pastrami, Fresh Guacamole, Scallions, and more. The dish was scented with a smoldering (no, actually on fire like incense) sprig of rosemary. The wildly disparate ingredients came together in a complexly layered harmony of texture and flavor. This burger simply blew away any other cheeseburger that I have ever tried. The underlying quality of the ingredients and preparation of the fundamental meat, bun, and cheese were taken to a new level, which surpassed my ability to find a suitable metaphor. The experience of eating that burger was symphonic.

The OG Burger with the house-made bun

The OG Burger was improved, as well. I didn't know that it could get better, but Chef Miru Jung introduced some heat to the chili, and this added a dimension to the burger, that I wouldn't want to live without having tasted it once.

Fat Bruce Lee looked on jealously as Chi Burger and I made love to our burgers. Fat Bruce Lee was actually on a diet, and he stuck with the sushi. He did indicate that the sushi was some of the best that he has had.

The only question I had was how far could this chef take a burger before he hit a plateau. So far, the burgers, on each successive visit, have far surpassed the earlier renditions.

This was the sort of burger where I earnestly and wholeheartedly thanked the chef for feeding me something so delicious.

Nothing that I tried in Las Vegas even came close to what I had at MIRU 8691.

MIRU 8691 -- Beverly Hills, CA

9162 West Olympic Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
(310) 777-8378

MIRU 8691 CLT Burger

On this visit to MIRU 8691, Fat Bruce Lee, ChiBurger, and I brought a small army to the small, fusion restaurant tucked away in a strip mall on Olympic. We had been talking up the best burger, which nobody knew about in Los Angeles, around the world headquarters for several months.  We finally organized a field trip to demonstrate to the minions that Chef Miru Jung turned out some of the best burgers that we have had the good fortune to sample. Notably, the burgers were actually BETTER on this visit. Like Umami Burger, these burgers were no joke in terms of quality, consistency, and the culinary talent behind them.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Chef Jung. Miru Jung is a great American story. He started his career as a dishwasher at the age of 17, and he saved over the years until he could buy a restaurant of his own.  It was not just the burgers that were fantastic at MIRU 8691--we tried a number of other things this time.  The Calvin Fries (not pictured) were loaded curly fries with spicy tuna...amazing.  The rolls that came out of the kitchen were superb, as well.  Chef Jung employed his serious chops as a sushi chef to build the base, and then he bumped up the flavors and textures. It takes a visit to MIRU 8691 to fully appreciate deep frying as an art.

Another notable quality at MIRU 8691 was the deep attention to flavor. Every dish contained subtle twists of flavor combinations. The Sriracha ketchup and the aioli with sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce (?) were prime examples of this in action. There was an understated, confident harmony of flavors in each bite where no component held the stage for longer than was appropriate.

The Burger Breakdown...

The Beef: The Kobe beef was a medium grind of Chuck. On this, our second visit, the beef flavor was strong and prominent, and the aging came through to round out the flavor profile. The bite was nearly buttery in its tenderness, and it was perfectly juicy without being greasy. This was one of the few cases where Chuck was equal to premium cuts of beef. Susan Feniger pulled this off at Street, and Chef Jung's Kobe Chuck was every bit as good as a complicated premium blend. 

The Sear: The grilled sear that we enjoyed on our previous visit was still strong and full of texture.

The Seasoning: The light dusting of seasoning on the exterior of the thick patties worked its way through the bite and perfectly suffused each bite with a gentle savoriness.

The Preparation: As was the case of our previous visit, the burgers took about 20 minutes to arrive. Sometimes it takes a while to deliver something beautiful. MIRU 8691 easily delivered the best presentation of a burger that we had ever seen. Great care was taken in plating each dish.

The 7 ounce patties were formed to order and with gentle pressure so that they were remarkably tender. This was a nice contrast to the booming beef flavors. The beef was slowly brought to a temperature between Med-Rare and Medium. This melted enough of the collagen to generate that strong flavor, but it retained the creamy mouth-feel associated with lower degrees of doneness.

The Cheese: We have NEVER experienced such an exacting and masterful level of culinary expertise with regard to cheese on a burger. To create that lush, thick blanket, which was draped like a fondant over the patty, Chef Jung melted Cheddar, Mozzarella, Parmesan, and Monterrey Jack cheeses into a kelp broth. This yielded something well beyond mere cheese. The kelp broth added a quiet depth of umami flavor and creaminess to the savory cheese blend, which served to showcase the tender Kobe beef's texture without being chewy enough to blur it. The Parmesan further tricked out the cheese to add savory and funky notes.

The Bun: The bun was barely sweet and crisply toasted. The tender, moist bun was just the right delivery vehicle to get all of that cheese and beef where it belonged (my face). The bun was otherwise invisible to the palate--this was appropriate, since there was plenty going on in terms of flavor and texture.

The Meat To Bun Ratio: Perfect.

The Fries: As they were on the previous visit...these were well-seasoned, spiral-cut, battered, crispy, golden-brown coils of deliciousness. The fries retained their crispness well after we had finished our burgers, and it was a challenge to stop eating them.

The Toppings: The galbi beef was terrific, and the grilled pineapple was a huge winner.

The Value: The value at MIRU 8691 was spectacular. $12 for a brilliantly prepared burger and tremendous fries. Keep in mind that the meal includes an amuse bouche trio of seaweed salad, a slice of yam roll, and edamame with aioli, and a cup of flavorful miso soup. You can't afford not to eat there.  The trio pictured below is from a subsequent visit.

Chef Miru Jung--one of the most under-appreciated chefs in LA. Take your friends there for instant cred. This is an undiscovered gem of culinary excellence. It is truly difficult to find this level of talent, care, and precision in terms of flavor and technique for such a reasonable price.  Interestingly and refreshingly, over the course of the few months since our last visit, the burger had evolved from a really good burger to a great burger. In terms of value, this was on par with Umami Burger. In terms of flavor..yes, the MIRU8691 burgers were as good as Umami Burger. With topping, the MIRU8691 burgers won out, because of the stunning complexity and harmony of flavors. The OG Burger was a masterpiece.

A MIRU8691 amuse bouche

P.S. Try the Green Tea Shake...nice.

Burger Review : We were impressed the last time, but this time we were blown away. One member of our party pronounced this the best burger that he had ever tried. Chef Jung was fearless without being smug.

Rating...5 Bites

Then, shortly after we returned to our headquarters...this happened, which was AWESOME!!!!

MIRU8691 OG Burger..the OG stood for "Oh, GAW|D"

MIRU 8691 Galbi Burger

Green Tea Ice Cream Shake

MIRU 8691 -- Beverly Hills, CA

9162 West Olympic Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
(310) 777-8378
website

Fat Bruce Lee (sort of on half-assed diet), ChiBurger, myself, plus one found ourselves working on a Saturday. MIRU 8691, a self-proclaimed Korean Burger and Fish Bar, was not far from our opulent offices.  We piled into Fat Bruce Lee's luxury supercar and located the strip mall where  the restaurant was located to check out their cheeseburger skills. MIRU 8691 was modern and clean--the staff was very polite.  Trivia that I picked up...Miru is the name of the the chef--8691 is the year of his wife's birth in reverse. The lunch special Miru Burger Kalbi--Kobe beef--was about 12 bucks, and that came with soup, two amuse-bouche selections, fries, and a choice of kalbi beef ribs or tuna as a burger topping. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had cheese for the burgers, since there was no mention of it elsewhere on the menu.

The Burger Breakdown...

The Beef: The Kobe beef was a medium grind of Chuck, and it was very subtle in flavor. There was no trace of aging, still the beef was flavorful enough that it was hard to put the burger down.  Ordinarily, it would have  been a waste to use Kobe beef in a burger. The magic of Kobe is in the texture and mild flavors, but in this case the other flavors were delicate enough to allow the beef to shine.  It was probably an 80:20 blend, and it managed to be juicy without being greasy.

The Sear: Yep, MIRU 8691 got a really nice sear on the thick patty. They managed to do that over a VERY hot grill--points for that. The sear lent crunch and chewiness to a bite that would have otherwise been uninteresting--ground Kobe beef tends to be mushy when not handled properly.

The Seasoning: They applied a light dusting of a Korean seasoning blend to the exterior, and they left the interior alone. Ordinarily, this would have been dull, but it worked in this case. Again, the Kobe patty needed tender care to avoid getting lost in the dish.

The Preparation: The cheeseburgers took at least 20 minutes to show up at our table. When they did arrive, the amount of time that it took was clearly justified. MIRU 8691 were artful in their presentation and preparation of their cheeseburgers. The  6-7 ounce burgers came out a perfect Medium. The fact that they grilled rather than griddled the burgers was a blessing--none of the carmelized sugars from the sweet galbi dishes were transferred to the burgers. This was one of the things that ruined the burgers at Kalbi Burger for me.  The thick patties were formed with gentle pressure, so there was zero chewiness. The bite was tender and yielding.

The Cheese: They used a sliced American and a shredded Cheddar blend and applied all of that to create thick layer of molten goodness. It worked. The thick, gooey, melted cheese added just the right amount of salt and umami to the dish. Again--ordinarily, a mild Cheddar would have been a bystander, but in the case of MIRU 8691, the mildness paid off.  The pictures show the perfection with which the cheese was applied and melted.

The Bun: What bun? The bun was a delicate, tender, mild spectator in this dish. Its sole purpose was to deliver cheese and beef to the mouth with a minimum of inconvenience. They toasted the bun--it held up to the juiciness of the burger without being noticed in the bite.

The Meat To Bun Ratio: Perfect.

That is a healthy amount of cheese

The Fries: These were seasoned, spiral-cut, battered, crispy, golden-brown coils of deliciousness. They were accompanied by a spicy ketchup that was better than expected. The fries were a winner, and the spice in the ketchup really rounded them out.

The Sides: The galbi beef rib meat was nice...it would have been awful as a topping on the burger, because it would have ruined the texture. The rib meat also came with a sweet sauce. That sauce would have also overwhelmed the dish.  It was nice to have some beef after polishing off my burger. Also, the grilled pineapple was terrific, and I will admit to trying it with a few bites at the end of the burger--it worked. Finally, they provided an crunchy, tempura, onion ring made with sweet, red onion.

The Value: The value was stellar. We all walked away stuffed and completely satisfied. I would have gladly paid more for this burger and its array of sides.

MIRU 8691 rocked the Kobe beef in the form of a burger. They did it by truly respecting the beef and playing to its gentle, nuanced flavor. The preparation and the presentation were both precise--a great deal of culinary talent was brought to bear to deliver this sort of dish. Keep in mind that they had designed a very different burger with clashing textures and flavors, both of which would have hidden the strengths of the burger meat. To truly experience a purist cheeseburger at MIRU 8691, one must order EVERYTHING on the side except for the cheese.

Burger Review : This was about as good as Chuck could get. MIRU 8691 delivered a spot on interpretation of the cheeseburger with great precision and a little improvisation. Also, a damn good price for Kobe beef.

Rating...4 Bites

Editor's Note: We returned on 25MAR11, and the burger earned a 5 Bites rating. See most recent review here.