Cheese-Burger.net » Burger Stories

Krystal Cancels Hamburger Eating Championship

Todd — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:33:14 +0000

For six years, it’s been a mainstay on the late summer calendar. Now it’s history. With almost no hullabaloo whatsoever, Krystal has scrapped their annual Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship.

The reason? Certainly not lack of interest. Last year’s finals drew a live audience of over 10,000 people to downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, in an event broadcast live on SportSouth:

That crowd watched Takeru Kobayashi inhale 68 Krystals and 5 of the chain’s Big Angus Burgers in just 8 minutes to take the belt and the $20,000 prize.

Live television coverage? 10,000 screaming fans? Twenty thousand bucks to the winner? That doesn’t sound like an event you just cancel. That kind of sounds like a pretty big deal. Well, it turns out that’s just the problem Krystal has with the Square Off.

The chain explained the move in a release obtained by jacksonville.com and The Florida Times-Union. “After considerable deliberation we have made the very difficult decision to forego the Krystal Square Off this year,” according to the statement, citing the “significant resources and time from our personnel on both a local and corporate level…”

The release continues, in part: “…at this time, we have decided that our marketing focus and efforts are better suited towards the promotion of our new Krystal Game Time Wings, which are now available in stores systemwide, and the opening of new company-owned restaurants.”

Yeah, the 78-year-old chain built on “fresh, hot, small, square” burgers just dumped their biggest burger event because now they want to sell chicken wings.

Now, competitive eating isn’t my thing, but I have a little bit of a beef with this. A proud burger chain chucking a flagship event that draws huge crowds and a gold mine of publicity all because somebody in the front office decided to try to compete with sports bars by serving wings? Shame on you, Krystal.

I can only hope that the burgermeisters at White Castle (themselves no strangers to fun marketing promotions) have jumped on the obvious opportunity and are making plans to launch their own “Slyder Showdown.” They may not have won my head-to-head taste test, but make no bones about it: someone should carry the torch and offer a mini-burger munch-off.

X-Rated Burger Photo Gets 50 Cent into Twitter Trouble

Todd — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:27:57 +0000

Warning: the cheeseburger photo at the end of this column may not be safe for work. No, seriously. I’m not talking about a so-mouthwatering-it-might-be-considered-pornographic-to-diehard-carnivores food shot. This is actual cheeseburger erotica. But that didn’t stop 50 Cent from mass-mailing it out to his three million-plus followers via Twitter recently.

The popular rapper uploaded a photo- doctored by an unknown artist- of a bikini-clad woman lying on the beach. Viewed from the rear, the woman’s rear end is prominently displayed front and center. And sandwiched between her buns, so to speak, is a giant hamburger on a bed of lettuce and topped with cheese, tomatoes, and what I really hope are pickle slices. (Again, the photo is buried at the end of this post. And really, it’s not for everyone. If the TV ad featuring Padma Lakshmi deep-throating a Hardee’s cheeseburger offended you at all, click away now and try one of our SFW burger reviews.)

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, included the following caption with the TwitPic: “Y’all like my Kim K burger?” in an apparent reference to Kim Kardashian, the celebutante whose claim to fame is her gravity-defying rump.

Twitter swiftly suspended his account, revoking his right to upload further pictures. (Another of his recent Twitpics allegedly showed a woman with a sex toy.) True to form, Fiddy went all e-gangsta, sending out the following tweet-threat within hours: “Twitpic just suspended my account damn They got 30mns to get it back or ima go haywire.”

When his account was not reinstated, Mr. Jackson followed with this profanity-laden message: “Man they took my twitt pic down I told them motherfuckers put it backI run twitter nigga don’t touchin my shit.”

Like most celebrities, Fiddy had previously left his social networking messaging to a team of publicists and ghostwriters. But there was apparently a shift in job duties at the 50 Cent camp sometime last week, as the tone and style (and spelling and grammar and punctuation) of his tweets changed dramatically. He has since used his cyberplatform to lash out at other stars like Paris Hilton, Kanye West, and boxer Floyd Mayweather.

In the wake of this most recent incident, the rapper has apologized… kind of. “Look man I’m sorry I’ve been cursing. But fuck that shit I gotta express myself bitch,” he oh-so-eloquently explained. “Look this is a public service announcement my tweets are for motherfuckers 18 and older. If you under 18 get yo little ass off the computer.”

And for those of you still waiting to see the offending photo that started all the Twitter trouble, here’s your order:

Steak ‘n Shake: Frisco Melt

Todd — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:46:40 +0000

Wanna start a food fight? Wander into an online chat room full of hamburger connoisseurs and announce in all caps that your favorite kind of burger is a patty melt. Then sit back and watch World War III erupt.

Die-hard foodies will get downright violent in telling you that a patty melt is NOT a cheeseburger. They’ll point out that an authentic patty melt has just four elements, all of them non-negotiable: a thin beef patty, Swiss cheese, sauteed onions, and rye bread. That’s it, plain and simple. No deviation whatsoever allowed. And it must be griddled, not toasted. To the true patty melt purist, even the shape of the patty is of utmost importance. (It must be oval to match the rye bread; a round patty means an automatic fail.)

So what’s the thing that pushes the patty melt over the burger fence for these folks? Rye bread instead of a bun? That the whole thing is griddled instead like a grilled cheese sandwich, only with a layer of hamburger in it? Seems like a pretty fine line, doesn’t it? I mean, if we disqualify a burger as such because of non-bun bookends, then the Luther Burger, currently enjoying a sweet resurgence on the summer fair circuit, would be out. So would McDonald’s wraps. Same with the Double Coronary. Sure, those items may stretch the definition of “burger,” but I don’t know many people who believe they need their own dedicated food group.

Yet, sitting down at my local Steak ‘n Shake recently, I noticed that they have a “Steakburger” menu, along with a separate “Melts” menu. The SNS Patty Melt is 2 Steakburgers, American cheese, and caramelized onions grilled on rye bread. “Rogue cheese variety” notwithstanding, it’s as close to the tried-and-true patty melt as you get. But there’s a pretty devoted following for the next item on the menu, the Frisco Melt:

One Steakburger is topped with American, one is topped with Swiss. Then comes a layer of Frisco sauce, and it’s all sandwiched between pieces of sourdough. Patty Melt Nation flips out about the presence of American cheese and the use of sourdough. The sauce, too, is the cause of great debate. Plenty of old-school diners who do a proper patty melt will slather it with Thousand Island or even Russian dressing, even though the loyalists opine that the use of any condiments is detrimental to the patty melt’s already-perfect taste. (Most online copycat recipe sites estimate Steak ‘n Shake’s Frisco sauce to be a 2:1 ratio of Thousand Island dressing to either French dressing or ketchup.)

What I know is that the Frisco Melt is a tasty little sammie. Put off by way too much bun on my last Steak ‘n Shake burger, I welcomed the flattened sourdough toast, which seemed much more proportionally-appropriate to the double Steakburgers. I liked the interplay of the two cheeses, with the American and Swiss working well together in a kind of United-Nations-of-Cheesy-Goodness. And while I’m generally not a big condiment fan, the Frisco sauce provided just the right tangy kick. I’ve always been a Frisco Melt fan, and this latest visit reminded me why.

Maybe it’s not a true Patty Melt. Some will argue it’s not even a legitimate cheeseburger. Call it whatever you want. But serve it up with some skinny fries and a tall bell glass of Coke-with-a-shot-of-vanilla, and I’m a happy guy.

Zagat Ranks Top 5 Fast Food Burgers

Todd — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:10:24 +0000

We all know them, the little burgundy-colored books with the funny name on the cover, packed with restaurant reviews for dozens of cities.

Long before anyone with an ISP could “Like” something on Facebook or give 5 stars and their 2 cents on a website, Zagat’s restaurant surveyors were assigning scores on food, decor, service, and cost. The grades, along with the famous, often-wickedly-cutting one-liners, appeared in the ubiquitous little red travel guides. Now, it’s not only eateries: these days, Zagat (it’s pronounced “zuh-GATT,” by the way) ranks everything from movies and hotels to nightspots and zoos.

This week, they released the findings of their latest survey on fast-food joints. 6,518 Zagat.com diners, eating at chain outlets an average of 10.7 times a month, weighed in on 97 major fast-food chains across the country. Burgers commandeered their very own category, and the results just might surprise you.

#5. McDonald’s: The clown took top honors in Best Value Menu, Most Child-Friendly, and Best Drive-Thru, and won Best French Fries for the third year running. But their burger came up short. The Angus Third Pounder was a step in the right direction, but it’s not as good as, say, the Hardee’s Thickburger. Maybe the Golden Arches were carried to this spot because there’s one within sight of practically any point on earth, ‘cos if you ask any true cheeseburger chowhound, Mickey D’s burger kind of sucks.

#4. Burger King: BK has had a busy year. They’re opening bars, they’re whipping up BBQ ribs on their fancy new broilers, they’ve got NASCAR stud Tony Stewart on the payroll. And I still think the King does a seriously tasty burger, although his Bacon Double Cheeseburger has been dethroned in my mind by Jack in the Box (if only they were closer!). Zagat surveyors, though, ranked BK the 4th-best fast food burger of 2010.

#3. Wendy’s: Okay, I’m calling foul. No way does the pigtailed girl score the bronze medal here. I know there are some fanatics out there who totally dig Wendy’s, but you can’t tell me that this hot mess is the third best burger in all of Fast Food Nation. And the chain scored Top Food overall among “Mega-Chains” of over 5,000 US outlets! Blecch. There must be an awful lot of Frosty lovers out there.

#2. In-N-Out Burger: Here’s the upset of the list. The burgermeisters of Baldwin Park were last year’s winner in this category. And while they still took home the prize for Top Food among “Large Chains” (up to 5,000 US outlets), the burger that makes them a cult favorite everywhere they go was deemed only the second-best in the country. Opening a store in Texas is sure to wrangle them a few million more votes next year.

And the #1 Fast-Food Burger in the US, according to Zagat: Five Guys. The East Coast upstart had a monster year after getting put on the map by none other than the leader of the free world. In 2002, there were 6 locations. By 2009, they were an underground hotspot. Then NBC aired video of President Obama making a Secret-Service-guarded lunch run for their greasy-good burgs in plain paper bags. And very little in BurgerWorld has been the same since.

How wildly popular is Five Guys now? Popular enough that the backlash has started: Men’s Health piles on the chain for not having “anything nutritionally redeeming” on the menu, and concerns have surfaced among aficionados about a drop in quality (especially regarding their buns) after their meteoric rise to the top of the burger stratosphere.

What do you say, Cheese-burger.net Nation? Agree with these rankings? Disagree? Will they sway your fast-food habits at all?

Heinnie’s: Best Burger in Indiana?

Todd — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:54:35 +0000

Elkhart, Indiana knows hardship. Three times within the past century, whatever industry Elkhart has pinned its livelihood on has dried up and blown away, leaving this small town of about 50,000 with little more than a blue-collar work ethic to fall back on. (You may recall that President Obama all but named Elkhart the poster-child-city of the Great Recession, and NBC embedded teams of reporters there for over a year to track the town’s struggle to overcome the greatest economic crisis since the 1920s.) It’s also where I grew up, from the age of 8 until I moved away at 23. In that time, I never once heard or thought of Elkhart, Indiana as a hamburger hotspot.

So when George Motz devoted three pages of his book Hamburger America to a tiny eatery on West Lusher Avenue there, I was dumbfounded. I’d been to Heinnie’s Back Barn several times growing up. I didn’t even know they served a cheeseburger, to be honest… and Motz picked it as the only one to represent the entire state?!? (He highlighted only one Georgia joint, and it just happened to be Ann’s Snack Bar, home of perhaps the best burger I’ve ever had. So the guy does know how to pick ‘em.) During my most recent visit home, my mission was clear.

Heinnie’s definitely has that smalltown everybody-knows-your-name vibe. In my case, that was helped by the fact that my uncle’s shop is literally 100 feet across the parking lot. He’s there every day. He and my mom have lunch there once a week. When I walked in with them on a recent Wednesday afternoon, I heard someone in the kitchen yell, “The food critic is here!” Apparently, my mission had come up in conversation.

Owner Bill DeShone came out promptly to say hi. He’s a down-to-earth guy who’s a little taken aback by the minor fame his neighborhood place has earned because of Motz’s book. He says at least 3 people a month come in (from some pretty faraway places) with a copy of the book to do exactly what I was doing: sample the Heinniecheeseburger.

The Heinniecheeseburger may be the one Motz raved about, but it’s not the biggest on the menu. That would be the Claybaugh. A double Heinniecheeseburger topped with mozzarella, American, Swiss, and cheddar cheeses- plus bacon, mushrooms, and grilled onions… and held together by a steak knife rammed through the center of it- the Claybaugh was named after a local cop who frequents Heinnie’s. Why? According to Bill, they’re both “big and full of shit.” Bill told me he didn’t think that story would be in the book. (As a writer, I can assure you there was no way that Motz WASN’T putting a line like that in the book.) But Officer Claybaugh had a sense of humor about it, and Bill showed me his autograph (complete with badge number) on his personal copy of Hamburger America, which he proudly keeps behind the bar.

My lunch came out of the kitchen looking like a thing of beauty, served up with some thick-cut fries and topped with American cheese and onions.

It was plain, simple, and really f**king tasty. The juicy meat was cooked to perfection by Bill’s best line chef, brought in that day just because I was coming. I’m not sure I was totally buying the “best burger in Indiana” argument, but I was enjoying the hell out of my double Heinniecheeseburger…

Until Tammy the waitress came out of the kitchen with a horrified look and told me that I wasn’t eating a double Heinniecheeseburger. She sheepishly explained that she had mistakenly written up a mere “double cheeseburger.” When asked about the difference, she told me that the Heinniecheeseburger uses third-pound patties instead of wimpy quarter-pounders, there’s an upgraded bun… and that the meat has onions and seasonings mixed into the beef before cooking. And with three bites to go on my double cheeseburger, Tammy told me that my double Heinniecheeseburger was on the way. That’s right, I’d be using a two-third-pound double cheeseburger to chase down a half-pound double-cheeseburger-appetizer.

My tasting notes on the double Heinniecheeseburger are now kind of lost in a fog of sizzling beef and oozing cheese. Was it markedly better than the regular double cheeseburger? Hard to say, as I’d been somewhat beaten into submission by this point in the meal. But suffice it to say that it, too, was awesome. In all, a pound-plus of spectacular beef (from a local butcher who’s been supplying Heinnie’s for three generations) cooked wonderfully, surrounded by my family, served by a waitress who treated us like her own family, hanging out in an uber-friendly neighborhood place where the owner paid for both of my burgers as a way of apologizing for the “trouble.”

Best burger in Indiana? That may be hard to prove. Best burger in Elkhart? That’s probably true. A new tradition for me to look forward to on future visits home? Nothing hard about that call. (But next time, I might just eat light and get the Claybaugh.)

NYC’s Shake Shack Goes to Washington

Todd — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:39:31 +0000

That sound you just heard was legions of Beltway burger fanatics having one collective (albeit anticipatory) burgergasm. New York City’s venerable Shake Shack announced plans this week to open a new location in the nation’s capital, causing an East Coast version of the foodie frenzy usually reserved for In-N-Out grand openings out West.

The DC Shake Shack, to open in “the first half of 2011,” will be located at 1216 18th Street NW in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, seen in the following photo released by Shake Shack HQ:

The space is certainly no stranger to cheeseburgers, having formerly been a Fuddruckers location. But the cultlike following that Shake Shack has garnered since debuting in 2004 will undoubtedly make the NYC chain’s 8th shop an incredible overnight success.

Danny Meyer opened the first Shake Shack in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park and quickly won New York magazine’s “Best Burger” award.

Satellite stores have since sprung up on the city’s Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, in the Theater District, and at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play ball. (Another one’s coming to Battery Park in 2011.) This year saw the chain expand operations outside of the Big Apple, putting one Shake Shack at Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York and another in Miami Beach, their first restaurant beyond the Empire State’s borders. But the Madison Square location is still the flagship, and even boasts a webcam streaming a live look at the ungodly-long line, where hungry customers often wait for over an hour to place an order.

But for their trouble, they’re rewarded with one of the most celebrated burgers anywhere. Their “proprietary blend” of daily-ground beef is a well-guarded secret that took New York meat maestro Pat LaFrieda almost 20 tries to perfect. (Our burger buds over at Serious Eats approximate it to be a 2:1:1 ratio of sirloin, chuck, and brisket.) The “roadside” burgers are then smash-cooked on a griddle and dressed in very simple toppings: American cheese, green leaf lettuce, plum tomato, and their famed Shack Sauce on a grilled potato bun.

Five Guys, Ray’s Hell Burger, BGR, Ben’s Chili Bowl… and now Shake Shack. Washington, DC is indeed a burger-mad town. And thanks in part to the Carnivore-in-Chief and his heavily-publicized lunch runs, the city is rapidly becoming a true mecca for cheebie chowhounds everywhere. Sounds like I need to start planning a road trip…

Classic Indiana: The Breaded Cheeseburger

Todd — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:39:19 +0000

A recent family vacation had me “Back Home Again in Indiana” (native Hoosiers and anyone who has attended the Indy 500 over the past 30 years now has Jim Nabors’ velvety baritone voice stuck in their heads – you’re welcome) for a couple weeks of R&R.

My trips back to Indiana- like most homecomings- are typically filled with as much nostalgia as I can pack in: seeing family and friends, taking trips down Memory Lane, revisiting sites from my past. Not that long ago, all I wanted was to move away… and now when I go back, I revel in all the little things that are unique to the place I call home.

One Midwestern tradition that’s hung on through the decades is the root beer stand. Not “faux-retro” like Sonic, these largely-independent, often-dilapidated mom-and-pop drive-ins are the real deal.

They’re not retro because a design team came in and made it look that way during the last week of construction; they’re retro because they’re really damn old. This roadside sign would fetch an eBay fortune as “vintage Americana,” but here, it’s just their sign.

That’s the B-K Root Beer Stand in Warsaw, Indiana, a city of 13,000 in the middle of the state’s North Central lake country. Despite the “Best Kind” notation on the sign, B-K really stood for “Bergerson and Kenefick,” the 1940s-era founders of a small chain of such stands in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.

At one time, there were 238 of them, according to records. But now, they’re few and far between in a world where McDonald’s isn’t satisfied until they’re selling wraps and smoothies on every street corner and Burger King has cold beer and free Wi-Fi. These places struggle to survive, each a tiny oasis of remember-when, where the owner himself takes your order with a pencil and notepad when you roll your car window down and brings your food on a metal tray that rests on the glass.

The centerpiece of this lunch was another Midwestern classic, the kind of menu item that you’ll only find in the right kind of place. Among cheeseburger fanatics, it’s practically a Great White Whale, an elusive mystery that exists in fables but is ever seen by just a lucky few. Ladies and gentlemen, now presenting… the breaded cheeseburger.

The pork tenderloin sandwich is Indiana’s unofficial state dish, a plate-sized piece of pig that’s pounded paper-thin, breaded, deep-fried, and served right-out-of-the-oil hot with pickles and mayo (or mustard) on an absurdly-small bun. The breaded cheeseburger is its close cousin.

A thin cheebie is given that same crispy coating to seal in the cheese, which turns into a molten liquid just a tad cooler than fresh magma. Biting into one end of the burger often causes the back side to rupture, resulting in a fiery fromage freefall. It burns like hell, even through standard-issue cargo shorts.

The taste is a strange thing to describe. Very hot and juicy, since the breading seals everything in. But it’s small and relatively thin, and that can make the overall experience feel like a letdown, since we’ve all been numbed by the industry-wide Big Badass Burger Syndrome. My breaded cheeseburger was a nice little nosh that I enjoyed with a not-quite-frosty mug of handcrafted root beer…

And nothing more. Or so I thought. I mean, honestly, it didn’t taste discernibly different from a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich… just a lot smaller. So what’s the big deal, right? But damn if I didn’t find myself literally craving another one within the hour. Blinded by nostalgia or not, THAT’S the mark of a good cheeseburger.

Red Robin Puts Kids’ Contest-Winning Burger on Menu

Todd — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:28:30 +0000

Gourmet burger chain Red Robin has opened up their annual Kids’ Cook-Off Contest. For the fifth year in a row, pint-sized chefs between the ages of 6 and 12 are invited to submit their best burger recipe through September 12. Finalists compete in a live cook-off in early December, and a grand prize winner will be chosen from that group. And, as in years past, the winner will see their culinary creation put on the Red Robin menu.

2009′s winner was Emma Potts from Bonney Lake, WA. The 10-year-old’s blue-ribbon burg started coming out of the kitchens at Red Robins all over the country this week. Take a closer look at her Spicy Honey-Glazed Bacon Burger:

That bad boy is topped with Havarti cheese, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise, cayenne pepper, bacon, and honey. And for the next 6 weeks, when you order one at Red Robin, fifty cents will be donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Red Robin has contributed over $170,000 to NCMEC since 2006 through this campaign. You know, it would be easy for Red Robin to use this annual promotion strictly for their own benefit, or to have some corporate fatcat sponsor merely looking to help push product. As a father of two young daughters, I love this tie-in, which explains why I’ve written about it here for two years running.

But as a cheeseburger chowhound, I also love the creativity that the next-gen burgermeisters showed in the 2009 entries. Fifty of the best are compiled in a free cookbook that Red Robin offers for download via their website. If you ask me, Richard Blais, Michael Symon, and Rachael Ray had better watch their buns, because some of these kids are showing real burger-topping talent. Recipes in the cookbook include insane ingredients like deep-fried dill pickles, peach chutney, artichoke slices, prickly-pear mayo, calamari, and deconstructed jalapeno poppers. Heck, a kid from California even used mac and cheese as burger dressing, in a move I whole-heartedly endorse.

If you’re the parent of young children, or even just a burger-loving fan looking for some new tastes, download the cookbook full of kid-friendly recipes and back-to-school safety tips. And visit one of the 430+ Red Robin locations across the US and Canada to order a Spicy Honey-Glazed Bacon Burger, knowing that you’re helping the burger chefs of tomorrow get home safely to their test kitchens.

Bub’s: Elk Burgers in Indianapolis

Todd — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:27:38 +0000

In writing for this site over the past 14 months, I’ve read reviews of hundreds of burger joints from all over the country. The ones that really strike my fancy go on a master list I keep. When I find myself traveling, I check my records, looking to cross off another hamburger hotspot while I’m there.

Summer vacation took us through Indianapolis, where we have family. En route, we got a text that they wanted to meet us for lunch as we passed through. Despite my intestines still recovering from the Krystal-vs.-White-Castle showdown the day before, my tummy perked up when my brother-in-law suggested a place from my list.

Bub’s Burgers and Ice Cream is a cutesy little cottage in Carmel, on The Circle City’s north side. The whole area- the town’s Arts & Design District- was crawling with people on a picture-perfect Saturday. Bub’s is located smack on the Monon Trail, a 15-mile rail trail (an abandoned train track that’s been paved over) that runs through the heart of the city and sees well over 4,000 cyclists, joggers, and rollerbladers every day.

And most of them, it seemed, were at Bub’s. “Bub” is the nickname for owner Matt Frey, but it’s also shorthand for their flagship menu item. The Big Ugly Burger is a 1-pound cheeseburger… and that’s the “AFTER” weight of the fully-cooked patty. (It hits the grill as a 22-ounce mountain of meat.) Polish off a Big Ugly, and your Polaroid goes up inside.

But Bub’s other claim to fame, the thing that put them on my master must-eat list to begin with, is their elk burgers.

Elk meat is low in fat, calories, and cholesterol, high in protein, and just exotic enough for me to be very, very intrigued. Like the beef burgers, elk burgers are offered in the 1-pound Big Ugly size, the half-pound Not So Ugly, or the quarter-pound Settle for Less Ugly. Already eyeballing the hand-dipped milkshakes exiting the kitchen, I went Not So Ugly.

The menu at Bub’s is really basic; in addition to burgers, they sell hot dogs, chili and soup, a chicken sandwich, a big-time mahi-mahi sandwich, or a salad. Their toppings list was equally sparse: burgers come standard with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles, although bacon can be added. Five easy cheeses: American, Swiss, cheddar, pepper jack, or bleu. That’s it. No Gruyere, no guacamole, no foie gras, no peanut butter and bananas. I was glad to see that, to keep me from being tempted to get too jazzy with my fixins, like I did with my Ted Turner bison burger. A bare-bones lineup allows Bub’s to focus on doing pure, simple burgers exceptionally well.

And they do. My elk burger was ka-razy good. Instant induction into my Top 3 Burgers of the Year. No gamey quality whatsoever. My sisters-in-law divvied up a hunk that fell off the loosely-formed patty and were convinced that the elk meat “picked up the taste of the grill” better than beef. I was too busy inhaling my burger to do any side-by-side comparisons.

The bun was of particular awesomeness. Bub’s says their buns were custom-designed to fit their large burgers and are baked fresh by a local bakery. What I know is that they were really buttery and pleasantly squishy, easily the best buns I’ve had in a long time.

It was all washed down well with a black cherry milkshake to go, but what I really wanted after my phenomenal half-pound elk cheebie… was another one. I think I’ll keep Bub’s on my list. Next time through Indy, I’m taking down the Big Ugly.

Jamba Juice Unveils Cheeseburger Smoothie

Todd — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:53:24 +0000

McDonald’s announced recently that they’ll start selling smoothies. That news has prompted an unusual response from one smoothie chain. If a burger joint wants to go after a piece of the smoothie pie, then Jamba Juice has decided that they’ll break into the burger biz. They’ve released a video spot to debut their newest creation, the Cheeseburger Chill Smoothie:

The 45-second ad, viewed here, features an uber-catchy ukulele tune with lyrics that explain the new menu item:

We got lots of love for the cheeseburger/And we’re all about the smoothies, all right/We put ‘em both together/Put the burger in a blender/Good stuff comes out just right.

As the music fades out, a narrator informs you that “to get one, go to cheeseburgerchill.com.” When you do, the landing page within Jamba Juice’s site features a visual of the burger-in-a-blender, with the tagline, “Taking the burger to a whole new level.”

…And then the screen changes to reveal that it’s all an elaborate hoax. The text reads: “For real? Is Jamba Juice getting into the burger business? NO WAY. But it does seem some burger chains are getting into the smoothie business- which to us, is about as weird as a Cheeseburger Chill Smoothie.“ The copy goes on to state, “Thanks for being in on the joke,” and offers a dollar-off coupon for any real Jamba Juice smoothie, good at one of the chain’s 700+ locations in 30 states.

It’s a well-done jab, right up there with famous Saturday Night Live parody ads like “Colon Blow” breakfast cereal, “Schmidt’s Gay Beer,” and “First CityWide Change Bank.” But Jamba Juice may actually be feeling a little bit of heat from Mickey D’s foray into their marketplace, as early taste tests report that the clown can do a damn fine smoothie. By that crazy logic, I say Jamba Juice really should start doing cheebies; even after they’ve been pureed in a Cuisinart, they’d likely end up being better than what you’ll find at the Golden Arches.