Fatboys Kitchen - Fat chance

After many blogs about burgers, I am going to bring you a first. No, I am not going to review a vegetarian burger or a turkey burger or anything. Besides, vegetarian and turkey are close enough as it is. This blog is going to be about my first review of a food truck. Now, I've never really been a huge fan of food trucks. Something about paying a decent amount of money for food made in the back of a truck and then having to stand outside to eat it just doesn't appeal to me. God created air conditioning for a reason. Or at least he invented the dude that invented it. Whatever the case may be, I like to be comfortable while I eat enough to be uncomfortable. So this week we have a review of Fatboys Kitchen.

I had brought my lunch to work, but the appeal of something besides a Lean Cuisine was readily apparent. So when my friend Coco Cricket recommended trying out the food truck in the parking lot, I decided to ditch the cardboard food in the freezer and head outside with a few guys from the office. Fatboys is technically is not a food truck but a food trailer. However, as my friend TBilt commented, it was being pulled by a truck. So I guess semantically it is correct. They had a ton of stuff on the menu and posted all over the trailer. The menu that was handed to us featured a few burgers to choose from, some wings, dogs, seafood, and some other items. I can't remember what the stuff posted on the trailer was, but I am writing about burgers so I don't really care to use my brainpower to remember. I was at work after all, and not like brainpower is readily abundant here in my cubicle. We ordered our food at the window, I ordered the Breakfast Burger which I always seem to gravitate towards. The Breakfast Burger is a 1/2lb Angus beef burger with cheddar cheese, fried egg, bacon and lettuce on Texas Toast. Ordered medium of course. Coco Cricket ordered a chicken Philly, or cheesechicken as we like to call it, while TBilt got a real Philly cheesesteak. The Intern also ordered a Breakfast Burger.

We stood around outside waiting for our food, making stupid conversation about things that I will not care to share. You guys already think I'm weird, no need to give any more fodder. Luckily the weather was pleasant and not the usual surface of the sun temperature that I haven't yet gotten accustomed to. After a bit, our food came out in white paper bags and we took them back inside to our desks to eat. I guess we found a loophole in the food truck phenomenon, you must be able to go

inside after you get your food. At least I do. Once I got back to my office I opened up my bag and tinfoil wrapper on my burger. I immediately noticed my burger was missing the lettuce. Oh well, not like it was missing the meat or anything. It looked pretty good and I had high hopes. I thought it would be hard to go wrong with a cheeseburger and bacon on two buttery pieces of bread. Well, apparently it is easy to go wrong. The burger was overcooked, on the well done side of well done actually. It was like they didn't even attempt to cook it medium. Almost like a cruel joke, like the cashier was like "hey, I just asked this guy how he wanted it cooked, he doesn't know we're going to cook all the juice out of it!" I expected a place with the name Fatboys would have a burger dripping with grease and flavor, but there was no juice at all. Dare I say it, it was not moist. I finished the complete burger and there wasn't a bit of juice on the foil, it was as dry as a bad sense of humor. It did have good taste, but it was offset by an over abundance of salt which might explain the dryness. It was like they were trying to preserve this burger for the apocalypse, joining cockroaches and Twinkies as the only things to remain when we are all gone. Coco Cricket also had the same issue with his cheesechicken, although TBilt said his cheesesteak was pretty good. Maybe he also has a high salt content and will join the list of things to remain after the apocalypse. At least he will have some cheeseburgers there with him.

So where does this rank? I say pretty low for several reasons. One being overcooked and over salted. The biggest complaint is the price. With fries it cost me $13 for this meal. That is a heck of a lot of money for something that comes out of a truck in a parking lot. I'll reference one of our favorite burger places and note that Bad Daddy's burgers are about a dollar less. And they have air conditioning. So I will bestow upon this trailer meat a lowly one Angus Barn burger. I thought about possibly giving it a 1-1/2 burger rating because it did have some flavor, but then I realized my lips were burning from the salt and I dropped it back down to a one. I was always told to be wary of things that come out of the back of a truck, I guess that applies to trailers too.

 

Fatboys Kitchen

No Location - truck only

(919)798-8789

https://www.fatboysnc.com/

Bedford Bistro - reservations not required

Hey everyone, remember me? Yeah, that guy who used to blog about burgers and then disappeared? No, I didn't finally die from a heart attack. Life was just busy and didn't get a chance to do any burger reviews. I definitely ate a lot of burgers in my hiatus, I just did not write about them. Surely you didn't think I'd gone vegetarian. That would just be crazy. Man can not live by fruits and vegetables alone. Actually, he can, and he'd probably live much longer. I'm willing to take such risks though! After much pleading and prodding from my dedicated fans, I am reviving the Burger Time Blog! And with it comes my first new review - Bedford Bistro.

So it was a dark and stormy night, and the beautiful and lovely K and I found ourselves with an available night for a little date. Actually, it wasn't dark nor stormy, but that was a good enough lead in to grab your attention. And having an available night was totally planned as we conned Daddyo and Ma into keeping C-Monster and J-Train. And by conned I mean simply asked. So with a nice night and a planned date, K recommended we try a place called Bedford Bistro. She had been there before with some friends and thought I would love it. To get there you basically have to drive through a neighborhood and then boom, you're at a restaurant. It is right in the middle of Bedford off of Falls of Neuse, so I guess it literally is in the middle of a neighborhood. We had called ahead to make a reservation for two, which may have been the most confusing ordeal I've ever had while making a reservation. The first guy acted like he didn't know what a reservation was, but took my name and details before handing me off to the guy who does reservations who also took my name and details. By this time, I'm sure they knew exactly who I was. When we got there, it was fairly empty, but I still told them we had a reservation. Apparently they didn't know who we were because they were confused until they saw my name taped to the counter. Whew, that was close. Also, sarcasm is hard to relay when written.

We sat down at our table and were greeted with menus and a very friendly waitress. They had a bar with a decent beer and wine selection so K got a glass of red wine and I got a People's Porter beer. Apparently this beer was billed as an English style beer, so I ordered it in honor of the royal wedding. After all, we have an American in the royal family now, so we'll be taking them over for the inside. On the eve of Independence Day no less! They brought us out some of their delicious bread to snack on while we scanned the menu. This bread is kind of a buttery, parmesany tiny breadstick kind of bread that comes with two delicious dipping sauces. Almost worth coming just for the bread. Just as a heads up, the first one is free but if you want another, it is $2.50. I'm not going to say we got a second round, but I'm not going to say we didn't. The menu here is pretty extensive. They have everything from sandwiches and burgers to pastas and entrees all the way to pizzas. Amazing how they can be so diverse. Of course, I was drawn to the burgers. K was torn, as she planned on having something nicer and fancier. Since she had her heart set on the grilled salmon, so we went with the culinary version of the mullet and split our dishes. We would start with splitting a first course of business with the grilled salmon, and then finish with a party of burger on the back side. So with a compromise in action, K ordered the grilled salmon and I went with The Day Breaker burger. The grilled salmon is, well, grilled salmon while The Day Breaker has Applewood smoked bacon, fried egg, American cheese and Sriracha mayo on a pretzel bun. Burger ordered medium, per the usual.

The food came out promptly and looked fantastic. The salmon came with a side of asparagus and tiny little potato pieces while the burger came out looking like a burger with a side of homemade chips. We started by eating the salmon and I must say, for something that is not red meat it was fantastic. Grilled and seasoned perfectly, and the sides were amazing. K even said we should try to grill it at home. She has too much faith in me. I can barely catch a fish any more let alone grill one. Don't worry though, I will not be starting a salmon blog. That would be crazy. After we finished off the fish, we moved on to the real reason you guys have read this far through my ramblings. We split the burger in half and we went to dig in. It looked so good that I was excited, but had baited enthusiasm. The blogs are much more entertaining when the burgers are bad than when they are good. I'll suffer through a bad burger in the means of entertainment. That's how much you all mean to me. It was cooked almost medium, maybe a little bit too much on the well side of medium, but not too much. Then we bit into the burger and angels sang and doves flew overhead. Well, not quite, but it was really darn good. The buttery pretzel bun offset by the runny fried egg and the Sriracha mayo was the perfect combination. I had feared that the burger might be slightly dry due to it not being legitimately cooked medium, but it still had plenty of juice and was far from dry. K even gave me a bite of her side of the burger, just to be sure both sides were equally quantified. Surprising to no one, they were equally delicious.

So how does this burger stack up against the competition? This one is a definitely competitor. I might actually have given it a 4 Angus Barn burger rating had it been cooked more medium. Stacked up against the other 4-rated burgers that were cooked perfectly medium, however, we had to dock it half a burger. So this burger gets a 3.5 Angus Barn burger rating, but it is on the high side of the rating. I might even give it a 3.75 rating if I wasn't too lazy to make up a new graphic. I do highly recommend Bedford Bistro though. It had a good atmosphere, friendly staff, and excellent food. We'll definitely be going back. Don't worry though, you don't need a reservation, there will be a seat waiting for you.

 

Bedford Bistro & Bar
3607 Falls River Ave, Ste 101
Raleigh, NC 27614
(919) 720-4482
http://www.bedfordbistroandbar.com/