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/

Cracker Barrel - if only it was fried

This weeks edition of "I eat too much red meat" takes us to an old family favorite. My grandfather happened to be in town for the weekend and my dad was out and about on the town with him, so they decided to meet me somewhere that suits both the young and old. Cracker Barrel Restaurant and Old Country Store. Most of you are probably away of Cracker Barrel, it is good homestyle cooking with a country barn atmosphere. They serve both breakfast and lunch all day long, and we've had both. I can honestly say that I have never been disappointed in anything I have eaten here. But what about the burger? Keep reading and you'll find out, can't give up all my secrets in the beginning. We got to the restaurant around noon on a Monday, right around the normal lunch rush. Surpringly enough, they seated us within a few minutes. I guess they realized that we were not going to be buying any of their vintage candy or random trinkets, so might as well seat us. Either that or they figured that Daddyo and I might have been hurting their trinket sales by joking around about the random items they had sitting around by the bucketload. Either way, we got our seat quickly.

They sat us in the way back corner, probably another byproduct of our previous country store shenanigans, but it was nice because it was quieter. At least until the three of us sat down. We went ahead and ordered our drinks and meals at the same time. Daddyo got the vegetarian platter with a whole bunch of actual vegetables. Not mac and cheese like I normally get as my Cracker Barrel "vegetable". Pop-Pop ordered the chicken salad, which was a lot more difficult that you might imagine. He had a hard time explaining to the server that he wanted a chicken salad, not chicken salad. You know, a salad with chicken on it, not something that you call a salad but bears no semblance of healthiness outside of the added protein. I, for the first time ever, bypassed the chicken fried chicken, chicken fried steak, or anything fried at all and went with the Bacon Cheeseburger. They even asked me how I wanted it cooked, which was unexpected. I ordered medium of course, with a side of fries. After we ordered, we waited a very long time for our food. Eventually it felt like we were the only people sitting in the back of the restaurant. Pop-Pop had the strange idea that I was in a hurry to get back to work, so he was getting a little concerned. Daddyo and I got a good laugh over that, but we got an even better laugh when a random stranger came up and asked Pop-Pop if he was a relative of Uncle Sam. We thought at first if he was asking him if he was a veteran, until we looked up a picture of Uncle Sam and realized that he actually did bear a striking resemblance to him. Not long after, our food finally arrived.

 The burger was what you would expect to see. Pretty basic bun, cheese, bacon, fries, and a side of slaw. No condiments on the burger, but there was ketchup on the table so I threw a little on it along with some slaw on top. So how did it taste? As spectacular as standard Cracker Barrel fare? Unfortunately, it did not. Probably safe to say this might possibly be the worst thing on the menu. I actually wished I had ordered a salad or a vegetable plate. Yes, I did just say that. And I'm talking real vegetables too. This burger was completely overcooked, like the question of how I wanted it cooked was merely just to make conversation. And as if they didn't overcook the meat enough, the bun was burnt on the inside. Even the bacon had no flavor. I don't even know how that is possible, I've eaten my fair share of Cracker Barrel bacon and it is always tasty. This was like the reject bacon. Almost as if the chef was like "man, no one is going to want to eat this bacon, I'll just hide it in this dude's burger." He probably realized I wouldn't taste it over the charred bread anyway. Luckily, I had two of my best conversation partners with me, and we all shared a good laugh over it. In between Pop-Pop's continued concern over the length of my lunch hour, that is.

So how does this big country plate of disappointment rank on the Angus Barn Burger scale? I'm guessing you can see where this is going. Overcooked meat, tasteless bacon, burnt bun, not a whole lot going for it. Even the fries were not as good as they normally are. Really other than the slaw, which technically counts as my vegetable, this meal was way below normal Cracker Barrel standards. So with all this being said, I have to give this the dreaded one Angus Barn Burger rating. While I highly recommend almost everything on the menu here, steer clear of this burger. Might I suggest something fried?

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
955 Airport Blvd
Morrisville, NC 27560
(919)463-9222
https://www.crackerbarrel.com/

Red Robin - Ummmm......

Yes, it has been a while since I have written a blog. I do apologize for those of you who have been patiently awaiting my expertly crafted blogging, but life is busy. I actually had a few others that I planned on blogging about, but got sidetracked with other more important things. What is more important than burger blogging? Oh you know, making money and things of the sort. Unless you guys can help me find a way to make money by eating burgers, you'll just have to be patient. So sorry D and MC, you guys will have to just suffer through another burger dinner with us somewhere to be featured again on the infamous Burger Time Blog!

So for this installment, we decided to try an old favorite of ours. While not a local establishment, they are well known for their burgers. Red Robin was going to be our target for the night. Our last Red Robin experience was slightly disappointing, so we decided to give it another shot. Will their claim that they serve the "finest gourmet burgers" stand up to these burger aficionados' standards? Well, we were definitely out to find out.

We arrived right at peak dinner time on a Friday night, but luckily got seated immediately. The restaurant was definitely packed though, so I would say that wait times would vary. Our server came up and was polite and helpful, got us our drinks and took our orders. We started with an appetizer, ordering the half stack of onion rings. Highly recommend this, it is really just some deliciously fried onion rings with two different dipping sauces that are equally delicious. For our entrees, C-Monster joined the burger crew and went with a bacon cheeseburger while J-Train took his meat in the spherical form for this night, ordering the meatballs off of the kids menu. The lovely and beautiful K and I were on the page with our palates and both ordered the Smoke and Pepper burger, which is a burger with black-pepper bacon, extra-sharp cheddar cheese covered in Smoke & Pepper™ ketchup sitting on a ciabatta bun. We weren't sure what smoke and pepper ketchup was, but it definitely sounded tasty. Of course, we ordered them medium, our BTB standard. Everyone also ordered fries as their side, which are bottomless. They will literally keep bringing you fries if you ask. OK, so J-train didn't get fries, he got apples. I don't get that kid sometimes.

Our food came out and it looked great. A little odd bacon presentation, but still looked good. Unfortunately, that's where the word "good" stopped for this meal. While they somehow managed to cook it how we ordered, pink in the middle right at our desired "medium" level, they also somehow managed to cook any semblance of flavor out of it. I am not quite sure how this was possible. The burger was juicy and gave every expectation that it would be delicious, but it lacked any hint of anything that could be considered delicious. It was almost like the burger had been boiled rather than grilled, and the lingering water was the juice that came forth in each bite. This burger was the equivalent of the little trophy that you get as a consolation prize for coming in last place. It looks good, but it really just is a junk piece of plastic that looks like real gold. And much like the plastic trophy, it is probably are equally flavorful. The only flavor came from the smoke and pepper ketchup, which wasn't bad but really not much more than regular ketchup. I honestly would have rather eaten 12 orders of fries with this smoke and pepper ketchup than eating this burger. K concurred with my assessment, stating that after this meal, she could honestly say that she has no desire to come to Red Robin again. The worst part of the whole experience was when we got the bill. Our burgers were a whopping $13.95 each. These sad excuses of red meat patties came out to be $2 more than one of our highest rated burgers at Bad Daddy's.

So the final verdict on this consolation burger? While Red Robin uses the YUMMMM as their slogan, we give this a big giant UMMMMMM. As in ummmmm, where did you hide the flavor? Or maybe ummmmm, why is this burger $14? Or even ummmmm, how about making your menu less confusing so we realize that we are ordering a $14 burger before we get the check? Seriously, we can not recommend this place. The only high point was having a great server, who made sure we had everything we needed and took care of us fantastically. The burgers however, can not be spoken with the same enthusiasm. They get a down low one Angus Barn Burger rating. Save your money and your appetite for somewhere else!

Red Robin
7860 Alexander Promenade Place
Raleigh, NC 27617
919-957-2880
http://www.redrobin.com/

Frankie's Fun Park - at least the kids enjoy it

It has been a very long time since I have done a burger blog, and I do apologize for that. I wish I could claim that I am trying to eat healthy, but really we just haven't gone to anywhere new to eat burgers. It isn't that I haven't been eating burgers, it is that I haven't had any new and exciting burgers to babble on about. Unfortunately, I am not going to give you a great place to run out to in this blog, but I am going to give you a review of a burger that one day you just may find yourself stuck with. Yes, this comes from the castle of children's fun that is known as Frankie's Fun Park. On this fine day, I decided to go have a night out on the town with J-Train. Just a little daddy hangout night. I gave him a lot of options on where to go. Basically everywhere in town was on the table, I think I even offered to go buy him a car, but he chose Frankie's. Not only does Frankie's feature arcade games, go karts, miniature golf and lots of amped up kids, but they also have a restaurant inside. Creatively known as Frankie's Café, this restaurant features about what you would expect, burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches and the like.

Surprisingly enough, they were not that busy on this particular night. Normally they are very crowded, but this night it was pleasantly slow. We were able to walk right up to the counter and order our food without any wait. I ordered the Bacon BBQ Burger, which is a burger with cheddar, bacon, BBQ sauce and onion rings, and J-Train ordered the bacon cheeseburger. Now, at this point I was intrigued. The atmosphere and service had me thinking this was going to be a lunch burger, we were in a glorified arcade after all, but the prices had me thinking it might be a good dinner burger. Our two burgers and two drinks came to $24 and change after taxes. I didn't realize this at the time, but this was burger only, we would have had to drop an extra $3.50 each if we wanted fries. We would have been sitting at over $30 for our total if we added fries. My burger alone would have come to $13.50 before taxes if I had fries. For comparison, one of my highest rated burgers from Bad Daddy's Burger Bar would come in at $11.95 before taxes and came with fries. So needless to say, I was very intrigued to see if this pricing was justified.

We grabbed our drinks and found a seat, waiting way longer than I would have expected considering the absence of diners in the restaurant. It was ok though, I was getting an earful from J-train about how Madonna looked weird in the music video on the TV and how one of his classmates eats with her mouth open. There were other kindergarten items covered as well. Finally our food came and it was at this point I realized that our order did not come with fries. I held high hope that this burger was going to be delicious and make up for the lack of fries. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It was a marginal lunch burger at best. The best part of it was the bacon and the onion straws. Not sure how they got off calling these onion rings, because they were merely a tumbleweed of fried onion shavings, but they were tasty so it was not a huge issue. The burger itself was cooked through but not terribly tasty and not overly juicy. More than likely it was just a premade burger that they threw on the grille. The worst part was the bun. I was unsure if it was an actual bun or two tiny Frisbees that I could have gotten for 45 tickets in the arcade. It was as if someone took dry bread crumbs and somehow managed to sculpt them into bun shaped halves. Maybe the burger itself actually started out more juicy, but the bun soaked any moisture out of them. Kind of like when it rains in the desert, it just disappears. J-train on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying his burger. Just watching him eat his made me want to rate this burger higher. He honestly could make anything look tasty, I think he could be eating a cactus and you'd think "that looks painful but delicious!"

So overall, all things considered, this burger is not one that we can ever recommend. Quality was not there, price was way too expensive, and atmosphere makes you feel like you were in a kid's birthday party. Well, we actually were because we sat in the wrong section, but still. Maybe if the bun was better it may have changed things, but I just left feeling disappointed. I would have rather taken our $20 and stuck it into one of those claw games. At least then you know you aren't going to win and you don't get your hopes up. So folks, this burger get a lowly one Angus Barn Burger rating. Thanks for playing Frankie's, try again next time.





Frankie's Fun Park
11190 Fun Park Drive
Raleigh, NC 27617
(919) 433-7888
http://www.frankiesfunpark.com/raleigh/frankies-cafe/

Lynnwood Grill - something is missing

This weeks edition of burger review brings us to a restaurant a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. OK, not really, but our plans this week did take us to a restaurant in close proximity to a movie theater where we would later watch the newest installment of Star Wars. We decided to take C-Monster and J-Train to see the movie so we met up with some of our previous partners in burgerage D and MC at Linwood Grill in Raleigh. Linwood is a Grill and Brewing Concern is a sports bar that brews their own beer, which seems to be a common theme in the area now. I am not really sure why the word "concern" is in their name, but read further and see how it might apply to our meal. The wait for our table was not bad at all, but mostly because we got there late and D and MC had already gotten the table. Our waitress was very polite and attentive and took our drink orders promptly. I actually tried one of the beers they brew in-house, the Mosaic Pale Ale, which was pretty good but exceptionally fruity. Probably not one I would order again, but it was very good. Their menu is the normal sports bar menu, appetizers, pizza, sandwiches, burgers and the like. They do have items like calzones as well. One of the things that they do that is creative with their burgers and chicken sandwiches is that they have options for "up scaling" your burger for an extra charge. It kind of seems like a way to charge you more for your sandwich though, rather than having four different burgers they have one burger that you can add four different toping combinations for around $3 extra.

We split some cheese fries 6-ways for an appetizer, and then ordered our meals. MC went with the Chicken Pesto pizza, D went with the BLT (also known as the burger, hold the burger) and the beautiful and lovely K went full vegetarian and got the Southwest Black Bean Burger. I decided to go with the Pub Burger and do the up scale option with the California Club. This was a burger with bacon, avocado, and provolone cheese. Sounded good, and it had bacon and avocado so figured it was worth a shot. C-Monster and J-Train followed in my footsteps and ordered cheeseburgers off of the kids menu. I did ask for my burger to be cooked medium, but they said that they only cook their burgers medium-well or well done. Terribly unfortunate, but I asked her to make mine as pink as they would allow. Shortly after placing our order, the cheese fries came out and they were great, perfectly cooked and cheesy and bacony to perfection. We easily cleaned the plate, which technically wasn't hard considering there were 6 of us.

Then our food came. Everyone's food looked fantastic. Well, almost everyone. I was foiled by
the allure of bacon and avocado. My burger looked sad, like someone was trying to play a cruel joke on me. "Hey, this guy loves burgers, let's throw a McDonalds patty on some dry toast and see his reaction!" I bit into my burger and quickly realized I had made a tragic mistake ordering this specific burger. It was as if I had somehow gotten my order reversed, like instead of ordering a burger with avocado on top, I had somehow ordered an avocado sandwich with a burger topping. The burger patty was tiny, a sad wafer of meat. To their credit though, they somehow managed to leave a little pink in the middle. How it didn't all turn brown as soon as it hit the grill will forever be a mystery. About halfway through my first half I realized that something was missing. Through the blast of avocado I noticed that there was no bacon on my burger. I brought this to the attention of our waitress, who took the burger back to the kitchen and promptly came back with bacon on my burger. Of course, I didn't get the half burger's worth of bacon that I should have been able to eat, but whatever. It wasn't until I am sitting here writing this blog and looking at the pictures that I realized that they forgot to add the provolone cheese to my burger too. There was so much avocado that I failed to notice this. Three toppings on this burger and they missed two of them. K let me try a bite of her black bean burger and it was very tasty. For probably the first time ever, I found myself disappointed that I ordered a real burger and not the vegetarian option. To add insult to injury, C-Monster and J-Train had two delicious looking burgers.....from the kids menu. Jacob did not finish his burger, so the vulture came out and I swooped in and confiscated what was left of his burger. I mean, I had to get a fair comparison, right? His burger was actually fairly decent, the bun was really delicious, burger wasn't bad, not a terrible burger. Actually quite good for a kids menu item. The last bit was what got me though when I bit into what was either a tooth or a bone. Whatever it was, it was hard and it hurt. After C-Monster inspected my mouth to be sure this chunk of white didn't come from my chompers, we figured it was probably a piece of bone. I'm just glad J-Train didn't bite into it.

So final verdict? Would not recommend. For burgers at least. Everyone else was happy with their food, but the burgers left much to be desired. Maybe had I gone with a different burger option it may have been better, since I think the boys kids menu burgers had potential minus the potential dental damage. My burger was quite horrible really. The worst part of it all was that it was an up charge item, so all said and done I paid roughly $10 for something not befitting of a school cafeteria. And then they charged me an extra 50 cents for the ranch to dip my homemade chips in. So with all things considered, I am forced to give Lynnwood Grill a one Angus Barn Burger rating. So if you come to Lynnwood Grill for the beer, stay for the appetizers, not the burgers. And watch your teeth.






Lynnwood Grill & Brewing Concern
4821 Grove Barton Rd
Raleigh, NC 27613
919-785-0043
http://www.lynnwoodgrill.com/

Sullivan's Steakhouse, eating from the kids menu

So in my quest for a burger rivaling the Angus Barn, why not start with another nice expensive steakhouse? On a recent weekend my wife and partner in crime, the lovely and beautiful K, decided to visit Sullivan's Steakhouse with a few friends for a night out. It shall be noted, that over a few glasses of wine that my good friend D convinced me to start this blog. It can also be noted that D and I scheme a lot so it is good that the only thing that came out of the dinner was a blog and not some strange contraption that our wives would be scared of. They actually thought this was a good idea. Score one for us. Anyway, I digress. Back to the burgers.

We arrived at Sullivan's for our 8:00 reservation right on time. Sullivan's has a great atmosphere, based off of a turn of the century boxing theme. The name, I can only assume based off of all the photos and championship belt on the wall, comes from the boxer John L. Sullivan who was the last bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champion. So does this boxing themed restaurant have what it takes to knockout the Angus Barn from the title of Triangle burger champ? Let's find out.

We had a party of 6, which wouldn't seem to be that big of a party, but it was a busy Saturday night so it took a little while to get our table ready. A little over 20 minutes, but at least we were in good company. Might have seemed a lot longer if you were on a bad date, but if you were on a bad date you probably wouldn't be waiting in line at an expensive restaurant now would you? We took our seats and our waitress came over and explained all the options and gave us our menus. Two of our friends are wine connoisseurs, so they brought three bottles of wine with them. Sullivan's allows this, but charges you a "corking fee". They take your wine and put it in a decanter, or a canter, or whatever you do with wine. I don't really know, all I know is that they charged each couple $25 for this service. I am not positive that this is a flat fee or if it is per bottle or what. We drank three bottles of the wine, so maybe it is $25 per bottle. I looked at their website and couldn't find any info on this. All I know is that K and I normally drink $8 bottles of Pinot Grigio at the house, but our friends brought the wine so we were fine with it. Thanks guys! We definitely won't be bringing our own bottles of Sutter Home with us if we come again, that is for sure. Sullivan's is definitely on top of things though, they handled the wine great, made sure we had fresh glasses for the different wines, swapped out clean plates and silverware, and just generally gave us great service. K and I also realized that we actually like red wine as long as it isn't the cheap stuff that we normally buy. Who knew?

So on to the menu. Sullivan's has an extensive menu, with several different items to choose from - salads, steaks, seafood, and many appetizers. K chose to go with what Sullivan's calls "The Sure Thing" which includes an appetizer, salad, and an entrée. She went with the Crispy Shanghai Calamari, Caesar salad, and the 6oz Filet Mignon with a baked potato. I, of course, ordered the American Burger. My friend D also got the American Burger once we verified that we would go down together if we were going to do this thing. I got fries with mine. He may have gotten vegetables. I am not positive, but I know he asked about them, feigning some form of healthiness I guess. The calamari arrived first and K shared hers with me. It was quite delicious, very similar to the Bang Bang Shrimp at Bonefish Grille. Sometimes calamari has the tendency to be rubbery, but this was cooked perfectly and it had a little spicy kick along with the sweet fried sauce. Definitely recommend this starter menu item. Afterwards they brought out the salads for those who ordered them. D and I did not get them, as we were the lone burger eaters in the group. K did, however, give me a taste of her salad and it was also quite delicious. Only complaint I would have is that the croutons were about the hardest crouton I have ever eaten. I was half questioning if they accidentally left one of the display croutons on the salad or something. It was like I was chewing stale sourdough. Maybe that is trendy, and I am definitely not. I just know I didn't like them.

After this delicious appetizer and salad, I must admit I had some high hopes for this burger. Maybe that set me up for failure. Or maybe the burger just failed. I think it is the latter. They brought out our entrees, and everyone's looked quite tasty. D an I got ours, and it was just a basic burger on a normal looking bun with some fries in a little metal cup and a little tub of ketchup. No real fancy display, but what do you expect, you just ordered a burger in a steak restaurant. I lathered some ketchup on my bun because I like condiments on my burger. I know what some of you so called "burger connoisseurs" are saying - "ketchup on a burger? Travesty!" but I like a little bit of something on there like the normal population. I am glad I did too, because the bun was drier than a Depression era wheat field. It was like they toasted the bread in the oven, forgot about it, then scraped off the burnt and used it. Guess what I am saying is, the bread was NOT GOOD. D backed me up on this, as his bun was dehydrated equally. I also removed my tomato and onions, the tomato because I just don't like them and the onion so K would want to kiss me later in the night. The burger itself was unimpressive. I normally order my burgers medium, a little pink in the middle, even a little bloodiness is ok with me. This was well done. Not overdone, but there was definitely no pink. Not medium at all. This is a usual occurrence and I'm not sure why I don't just order them medium rare, but that is my mistake. It did have enough juice to make the bun seem less dry, so that was a good thing. K asked me how the burger was and I told her that it was ok. I gave her a little bit and she responded that she wasn't sure why I said it was ok, because it was just not good. I agreed and said I was just trying to not be negative. D promptly responded that we were eating off of the kids menu. That is exactly what this burger was like. Totally unimpressive and something that was hastily thrown together for some kid to eat a quarter of, so that the other three quarters could be taken home and fed to the dog after sitting in the fridge for three days. The fries go along with that, they were overcooked and equally unimpressive. Just for comparison though, K did give me some of her steak and baked potato and it was fantastic. I would definitely highly recommend this restaurant for the steak, which quite honestly would be the normal sane person's real reason to come here.

So final conclusion? Sullivan's has a fun atmosphere and great food. Other than the burger. Would I recommend Sullivan's? Absolutely, just not the burger. See a trend here?

So on a scale of 1-5 Angus Barn Burgers........I unfortunately have to give Sullivan's a ONE Angus Barn Burger rating. Just not good. Sorry guys, stick to those delicious steaks!

Sullivan's Steakhouse
410 Glenwood Ave Ste. 100
Raleigh, NC 27603
For more info - Sullivan's website