The largest full-service family restaurant chain in the US (about 1,500 locations) has introduced their “‘Burger-Joint-Inspired’ Better Burgers,” which they tout as being “too good to eat on the run.”  There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about the five varieties being offered: Classic Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger, Bacon Cheddar Burger, Mushroom Swiss Burger, and the Western Burger.  What’s most unusual, however, is the honest candor with which the chain compares them to the “retired burgers” previously on the menu.

Denny’s own website, in detailing their old burgers, cites “an unnatural taste,” “tougher texture and significantly reduced juiciness,” and “lack of discernable cheese presence and mouthfeel.”  Again, these are their own burgers they’re talking about, not a competitor’s. They go on to describe lettuce that “wilts and turns black under heat” and margarine that “caused the buns to become soggy.”  Really, Denny’s?!?  THIS is how you’re going to lure me in to try your new menu item?!?  By making past menu items sound like failed science experiments???

Hey, I appreciate a good upgrade.  Telling me that the new burgers have a beef-to-bun ratio of 33-to-66-percent as opposed to the 25/75 of your old burgers sounds great.  I’ve been proven wrong before about a burger from a “breakfast place.”  And early reviews say that your new “Better Burgers” are exactly that.  But maybe that “lack of discernable cheese presence” stuff is just too much information.  If I know that those were the kinds of corners you were cutting before, how confident am I supposed to be now about strolling in and cracking open your new menu?

And then there’s this…

Just 8 days after Denny’s big burger announcement, Reno 911! actor Thomas Lennon tweeted that a ticket he had just purchased to singer/songwriter Morrissey’s L.A. concert included a coupon to try Denny’s new “Better Burger” for free after the December 10 show.  He included this picture:

The only problem?  Morrissey is a rabid vegetarian. Has been since he was 11.  Has both a song and an album entitled “Meat is Murder.”  Supposedly can’t be near the smell of meat without gagging and has walked off stage during concerts because of some fans cooking on a barbecue grill.  So how the hell did this carnivorous cross-promotion get approved? I wonder just how many of his fans will actually be taking Denny’s up on their offer of a free post-encore entree…

But maybe Morrissey could use a little bit of protein himself.  Just last week, the former Smiths frontman collapsed while performing on stage in England.  According to reports, he “was having a hard time breathing” and was rushed to a nearby hospital in an ambulance.

I’m no doctor, Mister Morrissey, but perhaps a big fat double cheeseburger just might do you some good.  I know where you can get a free one, birthday or not.

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Thankfully, I got a call from a friend looking for a good burger “on her side of town.”  After informing her that these were perhaps the best burgers on any side of any town, we met up.  No menu needed; I already knew exactly what I was getting.

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the Elvis Burger:

According to the Vortex’s wickedly witty menu, this half-pound hunk of burning love is “slathered with a King-sized helpin’ of smooth peanut butter, bacon, and fried bananas.”

My friend thought it was a joke.  You know, like it’s printed on the menu for a good laugh, but not really available. But when our tattooed waitress jotted it down without skipping a beat and asked how I wanted it cooked, my friend freaked out just a little bit.

“Wait a minute.  How many of those do you actually sell?!?”

Our waitress couldn’t really grasp why one would ask.  “A lot,” she shrugged.

My mouth was literally watering as I waited.  I’d been thinking about this burger since my first Double Coronary Burger.  After my 24-hour fullness had subsided, I set my sights on Elvis, the next-most-outrageous burger on the menu.  I’d been ready to get in touch with my inner Fat Elvis for months.  And now, it was mere minutes away.

It was absolutely beautiful when it arrived at the table.

But I only learned this later.  They keep it pretty dark in the Vortex anyway, but add their week-before-Halloween decorations and an overcast day, and it was like being in a cave.  If not for a camera with a flash, I’d still have no idea what the Elvis looked like.

But I know exactly what it tastes like. The first sensation is the rush of creamy peanut butter.  It floods your mouth with an oh-so-perfect salty sweetness (or is it sweet saltiness?).  The bacon and fried bananas instantly blend with the peanut butter as you chew, and I was struck with the thought: if the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had his own personal chef making peanut-butter-banana-and-bacon sandwiches for him on command 24/7, why the hell did he need drugs?!? This was pure ecstasy and pretty damn close to an out-of-body experience as far as I was concerned.

And then, oh yeah, there’s the best burger in the city in there! It kind of crept on me and acted like a chaser to the PBB&B taste.  Two unspeakably tasty sandwiches in one.  It was so much better than I anticipated.  Outstanding bacon.  Kick-ass peanut butter.  And I don’t really care for bananas, but they totally worked here.  Hard to believe (let alone describe) how such seemingly out-of-place tastes fit so well together, but by the time I left the building, I was the one singing the Elvis Burger’s praises.

“Wise men say/only fools rush in…

“but I can’t help/falling in love with you.”

Thankyou.  Thankyouverymuch.

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Not for the light of wallet, either.  For the first 30 customers each day over the course of the 7-day promotion, the Windows 7 Whopper costs 777 yen, or about eight and a half bucks.  After the first 30 are gone, it’s about $17.  But that hasn’t stopped the masses from lining up to try one.

That’s video game blogger CheapyD.  He and his sidekick, CampingKev, can be seen on YouTube attacking the Windows 7 Whopper.  Here’s the link so you can watch the 5:00 video.  CheapyD describes the monster burger thusly: “It tastes like a Whopper.  But it has a cow attached to it.” He doesn’t finish, claiming, “It’s hard to recommend the Windows 7 burger.” CampingKev, though, knifes and forks his way through all 7 patties and exclaims, “I’m just glad it wasn’t Windows 95.”

CNN also got into the act, sending reporter Kyung Lah to Tokyo for a first-mouth account.  Here’s the 1:30-long video. She inhales the first bite and polishes off the last, but thanks to the magic of editing, you’ll never really know what happened to all those bites in between.

And this guy identifies himself as notevilspiderman.  His 8-minute YouTube video shows what happened when he went into his local Burger King somewhere in the US and asked the manager to whip one of these up for him.  He did, for $9.19 before tax, and notevilspiderman does the rest.  Despite describing the Windows 7 Whopper as being “hard to hold” and “like eating an elephant,” notevilspiderman plows through the entire thing, and gets a BK crown and free chocolate chip cookies as his reward.

As well as our hearty congratulations.  Well done, sir.

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Maybe that’s because their claim to fame is the hot rolls they serve when you’re seated.  Don’t get me wrong; they’re damn tasty rolls.  Over 129 million of them were baked last year.  But if the single best thing you’ve got going for your restaurant is the free pre-meal bread, that’s not a ringing endorsement for what’s actually on the menu.

But I have this friend, Joe.  Joe and I meet for lunch 2 or 3 times a year.  The first time, we met at O’Charley’s because it was geographically convenient to us both.  Now it’s our go-to place.

This last time Joe and I met, I realized that I’d never tried an O’Charley’s burger.  Word is that they do a pretty mean chili cheeseburger.  (But it wasn’t on the menu, so how good was it, really?)  I skipped the standard cheeseburger variations: Mushroom Swiss Bacon, Three-Cheese Bacon, a grilled turkey burger.  I also passed on their mini-burger platter, the Good Time Grillers.  (I swear I just don’t get this fake-slyder trend and can’t wait for it to run its course.)

Then I noticed the Firecracker Burger Wrap, obviously a holdout from the last big food fad, the wrap.  (“Of course it’s healthy!  It’s in a tortilla!”)  Here’s how O’Charley’s menu describes the Firecracker:

“A juicy all-beef patty covered with melted Monterey Jack cheese, then sliced and wrapped up burrito-style in a warm flour tortilla with lettuce, fresh Pico de Gallo, jalapenos, crispy onion tanglers, and zesty Cajun horseradish sauce.”

It was different enough to pique my interest, despite clearly being a way for the kitchen to unload ingredients already lying around.  (That strategy can lead to some real disasters, like this.)

When it arrived, Joe expressed order envy; always a good sign that you’ve chosen wisely.  And I have to say, it tasted awfully good.  The pico and the onion “tanglers” provided crunch and added what food nerds like to call “mouth feel.”  (Which, coincidentally, sounds like a move you’d try as a hormone-crazed teenager in the backseat on prom night.)  The horseradish and jalapenos brought some zing to the party- just enough heat to please, not enough to bite back.  And the burger itself, although having it sliced and rolled up amidst the other ingredients made it tough to tell for sure, was really very good.  It’s a juicy little sandwich.  If anything, perhaps a touch too juicy:

Not sure if that’s juice from the meat itself, or the melted cheese, or moisture sweating out of the pico, or the horseradish sauce, or all of the above, but the bottom of my tortilla was so soaked that it had sprung a full-blown leak way before I got to the last bite.  Like the way ice cream starts to drain out of a waffle cone on a hot day.  The equivalent of a soggy hamburger bun, I suppose.  Messy, yes.  But not a deal-breaker this time.

In short, the Firecracker Burger Wrap is something I’d definitely get again.  I’m not sure it lures me into an O’Charley’s all on its own… but that’s OK.  I’ve got another lunch with Joe in a few months.

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Anyone who has ever watched NASCAR knows that these guys are adept at pimping their sponsors, leading one to believe that they all really use the products whose logos are plastered on their race cars.  It’s easy to assume that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is a diehard Bud man (at least when he was sponsored by them), that you just might bump into Jimmie Johnson picking out a new toilet seat at your neighborhood Lowe’s, or that Mark Martin isn’t just a stud on the track but also a stud in the bedroom thanks to his endorsement deal with Viagra.

Some sponsor-driver relationships seem like a stretch (does anyone really believe that Darrell Waltrip has ever opened a box of Tide laundry detergent?), but the Tony Stewart-Burger King connection felt honest.  I mean, look at the guy:

It’s easy to imagine Stewart hitting the drive-thru for a flame-broiled bacon double cheeseburger.  Or three.  His nickname is “Smoke.”  But hooking up to a lie detector and being grilled live on the Internet about whether or not you “love” your major corporate sponsor’s flagship product is a bold move.

Stewart, seated in a starkly-lit cop-show interrogation-room setting, faced a slew of questions submitted by fans on a variety of topics.  Each Q-and-A was accompanied by “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”-esque sound effects and camera moves, as the machine measured microscopic changes in Tony’s blood pressure, skin conductance, and breathing.  A dramatic thumbs-up or thumbs-down from polygraph examiner John Grogan indicated whether or not Stewart had answered truthfully.  Some questions were silly, some were insightful, and some were a little more personal than Tony clearly wanted.

Do you sing in the shower? Yes.

Have you read a book in the last two years? No.

Have you ever done a donut on public property? Yes.

Have you ever cried after losing a race? Yes.

All were honest answers, according to Grogan.  But Tony tried to fake out the machine a few times:

Have you ever gone commando under your firesuit? No.

Can you walk past a mirror without checking yourself out? Yes.

Do you ever notice hot women in the stands during a race? Not really.

Grogan accused Stewart of lying each time.  “He’s a better driver than he is a liar,” he deadpanned.  Stewart admitted, “All right, maybe I do (check out hot women in the stands).  Maybe during a caution.”

When asked about his preferred way of having a Whopper, Tony answered, “without pickles and onions.” True.  Then, the real moment of truth.

“Tony Stewart, do you love the Whopper?” “Yes, I love the Whopper.”

Grogan gave the thumbs-up, a confetti cannon went off, and two buxom models wearing checker-flagged jumpsuits and celebratory sashes presented Smoke with a Whopper of his own.

No big surprise, I suppose.  No one expected this to go any way other than the King’s.  But it was a clever piece of marketing that BK got a lot of mileage out of.  And I guess for a job like that, there’s nobody better than a guy who goes full-speed for several hundred miles every weekend.

The hour-long polygraph test is currently being re-broadcast at the top of each hour here.  BK says you’ll be able to call it up on demand soon.

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Here’s a great recipe for tuna burgers.

Ingredients:

1 (6 ounce) can tuna, drained
1 egg
1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/3 cup minced onion
1/4 cup minced celery
1/4 cup minced red bell pepper
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 dash hot pepper sauce
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
4 hamburger buns
1 tomato, sliced
4 leaves of lettuce

Directions:

• Combine tuna, egg, bread crumbs, onion, celery, red bell pepper, mayonnaise, hot chili sauce, chili sauce, dill, salt, pepper, hot pepper sauce and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl. Mix well.
• Shape into 4 patties and refrigerate for 30 minutes to make the patties easier to handle.

Cook:

• Coat a non-stick skillet with cooking spray and drop patties in for 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until cooked through. These are fragile, so be careful when turning them.
• Serve on buns with tomato slices and lettuce leaves.

Charlie the tuna won’t like this recipe, but you sure will. Try this one out and let us know how you liked it.

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So it was with similar off-the-charts enthusiasm that I found a recipe for Smokehouse Burgers.  The goal: a big, beefy burger infused with hardwood smoke, like it came from your favorite BBQ joint.  To ensure tang and twang, the recipe called for adding BBQ sauce directly to the ground beef mixture instead of using it afterward as a topping.  And to mimic a true smokehouse’s dry rub technique, a mix of seasonings would be sprinkled over each burger before it hit the grill.

The ingredients were simple, like they are for all the best burgers.  Enough beef to make thick half-pound patties.  This recipe specified 85 percent lean beef.  Personally, I think the 80/20 blend provides better juiciness without being greasy, but since I knew I would be adding BBQ sauce, I went with the recommended leaner beef to guard against excessive mushiness.  I added my favorite sauce to the beef, 1 tablespoon per pound.

Next, the dry rub.  Nothing magical here- salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder- dusted over the burgers on both sides.  I used the ratios laid out by the recipe, but was a little worried once I finished.  I guessed that the rub would provide that signature smokehouse “char,” but now I honestly felt like there was too much, maybe enough to be distracting to the finished burgers later.  We’d have to wait and see.

I built a hot fire and spread the coals over the right half of my grill, leaving a cooler zone to the left.  Soaked hickory wood chunks were piled on top of the glowing coals at the far end only.  Once the smoke started rolling, the burgers were positioned directly over the charcoal, but not the wood itself.  This would sear the burgers without letting too much smoke permeate the meat and leave the burgs tasting, according to the recipe, “like the inside of a chimney.”

After 4 minutes per side, I had a nice bit of crust on the burgers, and moved them to the cooler side of the grill.  They sat here for another 8 minutes or so, letting the grill’s internal heat cook the interior of the burgers instead of blasting them directly over the still-raging charcoal.

They looked excellent.  A nice pinkish hue to the beef that comes only from smoking, with those beautiful char marks.  The smoky smell was heavenly.  I topped the burgers with some Colby cheese and let it get good and melty under some foil for a minute while the meat rested.

The verdict?  Meh. I was shocked.  I expected to flip for this cheeseburger. While I did find the outer coating distracting and wondered if the amount of rub should be reduced, I also felt the amount of BBQ sauce should be increased.  It was there, for sure, but only a subtle aftertaste, not the juicy BBQ burst I had been hoping for.  American cheese might have helped, as the Colby was a creamy upgrade from straight cheddar, but still a somewhat dry cheese.  My wife loved her Smokehouse burger.  My 6-year-old daughter, cheeseburger connoisseur, plowed through an entire half-pounder.  I was left wondering how to tweak the recipe for more of a saucy explosion next time.

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Give them a Greek twist with some feta cheese, too.

Ingredients:

4 large unpeeled garlic cloves
1 1/4 pounds ground lamb
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 large cucumber, peeled, grated and squeezed very dry in a clean towel
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon minced fresh mint leaves
1 teaspoon red or rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
4 large, thin tomato slices
4 large, thin tomato slices
4 small (4 inch) pita breads

Directions:

• Set 4 whole garlic cloves in a small skillet over medium-high heat and toast for 5 minutes. Cool until you can hold, then peel, mince and set aside.
• Break up lamb in a medium bowl. Add roasted garlic, feta, oregano, salt and pepper over meat and stir until combined.
• Make in to four patties and refrigerate.
• Mix cucumber, sour cream, mint, vinegar, 1 minced clove of garlic, and salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl.
• Refrigerate sauce until ready to serve.

Cook:

• Cook, turning only once, until done, about 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium to medium-well burgers.
• Grill pitas until warm and split crosswise.
• Spread a couple of tablespoons of sauce over 4 pita halves.
• Top each with an onion slice, a tomato slice and a burger. Spread a portion of the remaining sauce over each burger and cover with pitas. 

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It’s also a great way to sneak in some fiber for your kids (and spouse) who don’t ea their vegetables very well.

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 green bell pepper chopped into 2 inch pieces
1/2 onion, chunked
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon Thai chili sauce or hot sauce
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Directions:

• In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.
• Finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic and stir into the bean mixture.
• In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce.
• Combine the two bowls and mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together.
• Make in to four patties.

Cook:

• If grilling, place patties on greased foil cook for 8 minutes per side.
• If baking, place on a greased baking sheet and flip after 10 minutes.

The vegetarian bean burger is a tasty alternative to the boring old burger. This version is healthier, too! Enjoy with a wheat bun, some lettuce and tomato slices and you have a great burger!

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It’s called the Craz-E burger and it better be very very good. That’s because after eating it your heart may explode out of your chest.

Don’t laugh, the donut burger is catching on. It’s been a big hit with the summer fair circuit and now even a minor league baseball team the “Gateway Grizzlies” are serving this thing at their concession stands. At this years Big E, organizers said visitors bought around 1,000 Craz-E burgers each day of the fair’s 17-day run. That’s a ridiculous amount of calories.

Feast your eyes on the Craz-E burger, one of the more sinful items made to order this year. It’s a burger that’s been smothered in cheese and slathered with bacon, and then sandwiched between two fried donuts.

Lets do the Craz-E Burger rundown:

Juicy beef patty – check!
Smothered in cheese – check!
Bacon – check!
DONUTS – CHECK!

Burgers are one of my favorite foods as it is, then you stuff it in between two donuts? I am all over this.

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