Hibernian - A very special special

Hopefully like a fine cheese this blog is aging beautifully, although might smell just as bad. Anyway, back from the dead, here I am to serenade you with more tales of red meat! This one comes to you courtesy of Hibernian. The lovely and beautiful K and I decided to have a night out with some friends. We met up with our good friends and OG burger blog veterans D and ML. Initially, this dinner wasn't intended to be a burger excursion, but rather some other form of food. Yes, there are other forms of food that aren't in burger form. Who knew. The plan was to go to this wonderful Irish restaurant and get some fish and chips or bangers and mash or whatever other foods come out of the British Isles. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that Monday was burger special night! Yes, Saint Lawrence of Rome was looking down upon us and blessed us with discounted burgers. For those of you who don't know, that would be the patron saint of cooking. And yes, I totally Googled that to make myself seem smarter. So what heavenly meat was bestowed upon us? Of course, the lot of us all ordered the burger special.

The menu at Hibernian is your standard Irish pub/restaurant fare. I can honestly not remember what was on the menu because we just looked at the burger menu on this particular night. Going off of memory it has stuff like fish and chips and shepherd's pie. The Monday night Hibernian burger special though is a $5 burger that includes your choice of side. Now, that is the base burger, the price goes up from there as you add things but still will get you in way less than a burger off the menu any other night. K ordered her burger with some cheddar cheese and avocado and maybe something else I can't remember. It is so much easier when I can remember a name and look up the menu online as I write, thus making myself seem much less forgetful. What I do remember is what I ordered. I got the burger with cheddar cheese, fried egg, and rasher. I had an adult joke that I was going to write in here about bangers and rashers, but I'll save K any embarrassment and leave that one go. Seriously though, you can easily come up with your own joke there, I'll leave you to it. What is rasher, you might ask? It was listed on the menu as Irish bacon. I asked our waiter what exactly was the difference in Irish bacon and regular bacon. He said that bacon is, well, bacon and Irish bacon is basically Canadian bacon. So Canadian bacon is ham, but Irish bacon is Canadian bacon. Henceforth rasher is ham. Basically, I made a breakfast style burger with fried egg and ham. Ordered medium, of course.

The burgers came and looked fantastic. It was kind of interesting though, because the burgers were not actually one giant patty but two smaller patties awkwardly stacked. Kind of double cheeseburgerish but more like a split-level cheeseburger. Once you started eating though, it was indistinguishable, as you can imagine. My fried egg was cooked exactly how I like, slightly runny, and the rasher was ham. The taste was excellent, juicy and flavorful. Nothing lacked flavor in this burger. The meat was cooked as I wanted, although with it being two smaller burgers it kind of went back and forth between pink center and brown edge. Kind of like eating a marble meatloaf, if there is such a thing, which I imagine there is not. The rest of the table concurred that the burger was highly acceptable of praise, putting this burger up high on our ratings list. Even the fries were delicious, preventing me from using any Irish Potato Famine references.

So the final word on these burger platters? I highly recommend, gladly labeling this burger with our 3-1/2 burger rating.We wouldn't say it is to the level of some of our higher rated burgers, but we would definitely go there again to indulge ourselves. Especially on a Monday.  So thus ends this edition of Burger Time, and as the Irish say, a turkey never voted for an early Christmas. Whatever that means, I found it on a Google search. So long friends, may God be with you!

Hibernian Irish Pub & Restaurant
8021 Falls of Neuse Rd.
Raleigh, NC 27615
(919)803-0290
https://www.hibernianpub.com/

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/

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/

Buffalo Brothers - burger with a side of pizza

After a few weeks of recovering from my Houston, TX burger research trip, which technically was for a work meeting for K but let's not split hairs, we decided to set out on the town in search of another burger for the blog. We loaded up the family Jeeper and headed out to one of our favorite restaurants, Buffalo Brothers. I will go ahead and tell you, my fine readers, that this blog was an especially difficult one for me. We absolutely love Buffalo Brothers for their awesome pizza, and by deciding to burger blog this place on this trip, I had to forgo the usual amount of pizza I would normally consume. Sure I still had some, let's not be crazy here, but it was in far fewer numbers. Buffalo Brothers has a few locations across the Triangle, but the Wake Forest location is our usual location of choice. It has a sports bar atmosphere and is very laid back. Perfect for families or kid-free nights alike, they really have a great layout and perfect atmosphere for an enjoyable evening. Their menu has a lot of options, standard bar food appetizers, pizza, pastas, sandwiches, soups, salads, etc. They have quite an extensive selection. On this night, against the pleading wishes of C-Monster and J-Train, we decided to forgo the appetizer and went just with a meal. We have, however, gotten them before on various occasions and they are all fantastic. The fried pickles are high on my list of tasty starters. The fam ordered some drinks and I ordered my favorite local beer, Lonerider Sweet Josie. It has been said by the beautiful and lovely K that I may be having a love affair with Sweet Josie, that she is the other woman in our relationship, but that is simply not true. Although wonderfully delicious, too much Josie will eventually make me sick. There is no such thing as too much beautiful and lovely K. So enough with the shameless kissing up to my wonderful wife, back to why you really came here. The burgers, of course! Surely it is not my cunning literary talent.

So the food, where did we stand with that? The hardest part was deciding what burger to order. The pizza was already decided before we even showed up. K, C-Monster and J-Train all decided to split a mac & cheese pizza. Yes, you read that right. It is macaroni and cheese, some kind of cheesy white sauce as a base, and little bits of bacon spread over the whole thing. Sound delicious? It is. The first visit to Buffalo Brothers saw J-Train eat 3/4 of a large mac & cheese pizza. Once again, you did read that correctly, a 5 year old boy ate 3/4 of a large pizza. It was like watching the Coney Island hot dog eating contest, slightly disturbing but couldn't help but be entertained. I scanned the menu and decided that the Pretzel Burger was the one for me. This is a burger covered in sautéed onions, shaved ham, and smothered in nacho cheese served on a pretzel bun. I am always a big fan of pretzel buns, and combined with nacho cheese this sounded like a combination that was hard to pass up. Once again, I ordered my burger medium, for consistency's sake. With a side of fries, it sounded good enough to make me not worry about that delicious pizza that they were going to eat.

Our orders came quickly, as they usually do, and they looked delicious. The burger looked like it was cooked well, and the pizza looked absolutely wonderful. My burger was, well, just ok. I'm not going to say it was bad, but it really wasn't great. The bun was pretty tasty, and the nacho cheese was a great addition to the burger, but overall it just wasn't great. As soon as I bit into it, I was overwhelmed with a salty taste. Yeah, I know I was eating a pretzel burger, but it was really too salty even to warrant that name. I guess the combination of the pretzel bun with the shaved ham may have done it. I am not a big fan of very salty things anyway, but I really felt like it was a detriment to my arteries to be ingesting this much sodium. The burger was once again overcooked, it was cooked straight through, no red to be seen. It was still juicy, but overcooked. The burger itself wasn't impressive either, it appeared to just be straight meat. You know how you go to a cookout at a friend's house, one who doesn't really know how to cook but wants to have a party? His burgers are basically like he took the ground beef straight out of the package, pattied it up, and threw it on the grill? That's kind of what this looked like. Kind of like straight meat, that they apparently threw some salt on to try and disguise it. Once I finished my burger, I was very disappointed to see how much the rest of my family was enjoying their pizza. Did that sound selfish? I don't care, it is friggin' mac & cheese pizza. Luckily, I have a wonderful family who peeled off a slice and cured my wounded palate. It was as delicious as it normally is, and not salty at all.

So the final word on Buffalo Brothers? You must absolutely most definitely go try this place for the pizza. I can't speak highly enough on this. The burger? Do not even consider it as an option. I'm going to bestow on this one a two Angus Barn burger rating. Not absolutely horrible, but not good enough to make me want to eat it again. Sure you may think to yourself "hey, it must have been a fluke, that guy is a burger snob!" Do you really want to risk it though? The whole "road less traveled" concept is not something that is lost on me, but sometimes the road that is more heavily traveled is more heavily traveled for a reason. Did I just get all philosophical over some food? Why yes I did, because this is a restaurant that you Kant pass up, for the pizza at least. Thanks for reading and please join us next time for more dad jokes and eye rolling puns. And please don't pass the salt.

Buffalo Brothers
11735 Retail Drive
Wake Forest, NC
27587
(919) 570-6004
http://www.buffbrothers.com/

 

Carolina Ale House - the burger before the storm

So how do you prepare for a snow day? Many people run out to purchase mass quantities of bread and milk for their French Toast or milk sandwiches or whatever they might feel the need to make in the two days that we end up without road access in the South. Some people gather their family and head out for cheeseburgers. We would be the latter. On this fine chilly pre-snowmageddon day here in North Carolina we decided to celebrate a pending snow day by heading out to one of our favorite places to eat, Carolina Ale House. There are several of these locations, but we normally go to the Wake Forest location. We have been to the Brier Creek one as well, which is about equal in terms of service and quality, in my opinion. Carolina Ale House is basically an upscale sports bar, with a bar and pool tables, but also complete meals that is family friendly. This location, on this particular night, was having a Carolina Hurricanes night with games and giveaways and a visit by their mascot Stormy. The beautiful and lovely K, C-Monster, J-Train and myself had a seat on their patio that was heated and covered on this blustery night. Our waitress came and took our drink orders promptly. C-Monster, through the sea of Carolina Hurricanes fans, politely asked the waitress to turn one of the many TVs showing the Hurricanes games on to the Philadelphia Flyers game. Surprisingly enough, she asked the manager and he switched the TV closest to the table to the Flyers game. This is one of the advantages of being a Philly fan in the South, because if this was the other way around we totally would have gotten booed or hit with a D-cell battery.

When it came time to order, we all decided that burgers were the standard fare for our family. K and I both ordered the Pub Burger, which is a standard burger with bacon, American cheese and "Papa Lou's secret sauce" on a standard burger bun. K ordered hers medium well and I ordered mine medium. I figured for the sake of consistency with this blog, I won't change up my method of ordering. You readers only deserve the best! And when that doesn't work, my mediocre will have to do for you guys. Both of the boys ordered off of the kids menu, both going with the Bobby Burgers, which are two mini cheeseburgers. Our wait for our food was short, which was great considering how busy they were this particular night. Our food looked fantastic when it came out. Big burgers, the fries looked great, everything was perfect. The only real issue was that they gave my burger to K and her burger to me. We realized this after we both took our first bite, so we just switched. This probably worked out to my advantage, because I take bigger bites and I scored some extra burger in this deal. These burgers were fantastic. My burger was cooked just how I like it with some pink in the middle. K's was cooked just how she liked it. Everything about it was great. If I was going to have any complaint at all, and this is searching here, it is that the burgers were not quite as juicy as I would have liked. K argued this point when I brought it up, but I felt that was the case. She is more than welcome to address my complaint on her burger blog. The fried onion straws were great, tied in the bacon taste in with the fresh bun and everything. And how about Papa Lou's special sauce? It was tasty, but not sure how special it is. Maybe Lou's last name is McDonald, or maybe his son is a large dude named Mack, because it is really just the same sauce they put on a Big Mac. Not that it makes it any less delicious. That stuff does wonders for a sad artificial burger like a Big Mac, so just imagine what the same stuff does for a delicious real burger like this one! It is wonderful.

So the final verdict? This one is good. Very good. Not quite Angus Barn good, though. And thinking back at previous burgers, it is still just a smidge below Bad Daddy's. Still fantastic and it gets the BTB stamp of approval. Burger was great, service was great, atmosphere was great, highly recommend. The kids even got to see Stormy, the mascot from the Hurricanes on their way out. So what rating do we bestow on this this burger? I am going to throw a 3.5 Angus Barn burger rating on this burger. So close to a 4, but not quite there. If Bad Daddy's got a 4, this is going to have to sit at a 3 and a half. Keep up the good cooking and we'll see you guys for the next Flyers game!

Carolina Ale House
11685 Northpark Dr
Wake Forest, NC 27587
(other locations as well)
919-556-8666
https://www.carolinaalehouse.com

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/

Piper's Tavern - maybe it was the holiday

On this fine day, we found ourselves searching for a restaurant on the early side. C-Monster was slinging bells and belting out the low notes at our church's early Christmas Eve service, so following that we rolled over with my parents and grandfather in search of some holiday grub. A quick search of the local establishments that were open found us visiting The Piper's Tavern, a popular Irish themed sports bar and restaurant in the North Raleigh area. We have been to this restaurant before, but I don't ever remember getting the burger here before. They have a fantastic brunch buffet that we have visited numerous times, but not sure if we have visited for dinner before. We arrived on the early side, but my mom has recently retired so we were just preparing her for future blue plate specials before bingo games. Is there a Bob's Big Boy in Cary, Ma? We were seated quickly, but this was also a combination of us getting there at 4:00 and the fact that it was Christmas Eve. I can't honestly say what the wait might be for dinner, but it is a smaller establishment so I would imagine getting seated immediately is not the norm.

The menu at The Piper's is about what you'd expect at a bar and grill. Normal appetizers like wings and dip and things like that, steaks, sandwiches, burgers, pizza, etc. They do have a few Irish related things like Shepherd's Pie, but we all know what I was leaning towards. If you are here for the burgers like I was, they have several to choose from, and half of our group opted to follow my lead. The beautiful and lovely K, along with my Pop-Pop, decided to go with the Smokehouse burger, which came with bacon, jack & cheddar cheese, chipotle BBQ and fried onion straws. The J-train went with his age and ordered a cheeseburger off of the kids menu.  I decided to go with the Black Forest Burger, pushing my luck again with thinly sliced ham on my burger. This burger also came with Meunster cheese, caramelized onions, pickles and brown mustard served on a pretzel roll. I was sold at the Muenster cheese, which is quite tasty but also fun to say. Is it Munster, or is it Meuwnster? Who knows, I always chose the latter. Once again, I ordered my burger medium, a little pink inside. Filling out our dinner dream team was C-Monster who went with the bacon pizza, Daddyo who went vegetarian (actual vegetarian, not turkey vegetarian) with the Portobello sandwich, Ma who went with the Reuben, and Brother D went with the fish and chips.

Our food all came out fairly promptly, soups and salads came out early for those who ordered them, then the entrees came out. All of our orders were correct, and they all looked quite delicious. Deceivingly delicious. OK, so maybe that is a bit of an overstatement. K summed it up best when she said her burger was "not bad, but really not terribly good." My burger was, once again, overcooked. My medium burger was cooked well done, not a speck of red on it. Pop-Pop had ordered his burger rare, and I jealously noticed his burger was cooked a perfect medium. Maybe he has gotten the hang of this burger ordering thing more than me. His burger was also acceptable to him, and I know this because if it was bad, he would have definitely let them know it.  The best part of my burger was the bun. The pretzel bun was fantastic, and Brother D suggested I might start a bun blog after saying how good it was. We decided that telling people I write about buns online would just be weird, so we scrapped that idea quickly. I had some friends who complained they didn't like it when I used the word moist to describe the bun on a burger. I will not say that this bun was moist, I'll say it was perfectly hydrated. See that, didn't use moist at all to describe it. Not at all. The meuwnster muenster cheese was, predictably, delicious and the ham was actually cooked perfectly and was not tough at all. Another big disappointment was the condiments on the burger. Both my brown mustard and K's chipotle BBQ were scarce on the burgers. You know how when you get to the end of a bottle of ketchup and you shake it around and try to get every last drop out, causing unfortunate noises that you have to explain to every one around you? It was the ketchup bottle, I swear! That's about like this, it was just a splatter of sauce, barely enough to taste really.

So the final verdict? Not impressed, unfortunately. Now, I almost hate to say this because it was a holiday and they were working with a smaller crew from the looks of it. There was much potential in the burger though, and I honestly would consider giving them another try if I found myself here. But for now though, I just can't give this burger a good rating. I'm going to have to drop this one as a 2 Angus Barn Burger. This one gets a solid "meh" for me, sorry Piper's. Please don't spit in my brunch buffet!

The Piper's Tavern & Restaurant
8304 Falls of Neuse Road
Raleigh, NC 27615
919-676-7413
http://www.thepiperstavern.com/

Five Guys - fast food without the stigma

So in celebration of the last day of work and school before Christmas, we decided to have a nice meal out. By nice meal out, I mean going out to eat somewhere our kids can be just as loud as the other kids and no one will notice. C-Monster and J-train were begging me to take them out for cheeseburgers, and requested a family trip to Five Guys. This restaurant is another place that we frequent, so I already know the quality of these burgers. Full disclosure there. Five Guys is a fun restaurant that borders on fast food. The reason I say that is because the food is not terribly fast, but fast enough that you could bounce over there for lunch and not miss too much work. If you care about that sort of thing. Their menu is pretty basic - burgers, hot dogs and a few sandwich choices. Burgers come in two varieties; the little cheeseburger which about the size of a normal burger, and the cheeseburger which is too large for any normal human who cares about being healthy. Basically you just go up there, say what size burger you want and then start rattling off the toppings you want from their list. I am pretty sure you could get them to put almost anything on there with how many options they have. "Yes, I'd like the cheeseburger with mustard, catchup, lettuce and a couple of hair nets. My wife would like the same but can you find some old toothbrushes to drop on there? Thanks." They'd probably do it, or at least not be surprised at the notion.  Their hot dogs are good quality beef hot dogs, which I have only ever seen one person order in as many times as I have been to Five Guys. That person was C-Monster and he hated it because it was real beef and not made from chicken hooves. I did eat it that time, and it was delicious. The sandwiches they offer are just burgers without the meat. Grilled cheese, BLT, and a veggie sandwich which is really just a fully loaded burger without the meat.

Last night though, we got there right before the rush hit. We managed to get to the front of the line quickly, but shortly after a big line formed and I think it overwhelmed the staff there. It did take a while for us to get our burgers, but there were people waiting a lot longer than us. This is not normal, but it must happen from time to time. The C-monster, J-train and the beautiful and lovely K all ordered little bacon cheeseburgers with their selected appurtenances, and I of course got the bacon cheeseburger with a full load of condiments and vegetables on there. We also ordered a large fry, which is plenty for a family of four. I once made an attempt to eat an entire large fry from Five Guys, it ended in heartbreak and stomachache. Don't do it. They pretty much just take a large drink cup full of fries and drop it in your bag, and then just throw a whole bunch more in there. It's like they do fries by weight rather than size.

We happily sat eating the peanuts that they have for you while you wait, which did take a while but not terribly long. Once our order came we realized that we somehow had ordered an extra hamburger. We knew right away that this was an error because no one in this family would have one without cheese, but the people at Five Guys were very nice and gave us our money back and let us keep the burger. The J-train also had a little mix-up on his burger and they missed the bacon. With the massive amount of customers they had in there, I am surprised it wasn't messed up more. My burger was, as expected, quite delicious. Now, Five Guys cooks all of their burgers "juicy and well done" so I didn't get to try my normal "medium" cooking on them. They were definitely cooked through and still juicy though. The patties were very well made and juicy, the bread was moist and tasty, and all of the veggies and condiments were just right. My only real complaint was that it was not quite as good as it is normally. The cheese itself was a little cold and not very melted, which made the entire burger a little less warm that usual. This is no doubt because of the influx of customers right around the time we ordered. I still prefer my cheese much more melty. K also reinforced this statement. The boys both devoured their burgers and C-monster requested a second burger. These guys are getting big, that statement struck fear in our hearts and our wallets. We told him he could eat a banana when he got home. He declined. Crisis averted. Our dog did quite enjoy the hamburger later as well, but I did not get a good statement from her. Because she's a dog.

So where does this burger rank on the scale? This burger is more of a lunch burger than a dinner burger, I would say. It is a basic burger, nothing really special, churned out as fast as they can. Five Guys is definitely not a place you would bring a date. If you are taking a girl out for a first or even second date, you definitely don't want to have her feeling stuffed and having to dry clean her dress to get the grease smell out. There would be no third date. If you are past the point of trying to impress each other though, head on over. But how does this rate as a tasty lunch burger? I give it a 2-1/2 Angus Barn burger rating. Solid quality lunch burger, but not the quality of a dinner burger that would get it into the 3+ range. Don't change anything Five Guys, but maybe melt my cheese a little next time.






Five Guys Burgers & Fries
8107 Creedmoor Rd
Raleigh, NC 27613
(many other locations as well)
www.fiveguys.com

Bad Daddy's Burger Bar - too good to be bad

So apparently, some people seem to have been reading my blog, and apparently they like it enough to give me recommendations so that I can write further drivel about burgers! Now, I am not a person that takes recommendations without a bit of hesitation. Ever since my mom tried to set me up with that girl who she thought I would like because she was "athletic" and I was into sports, I've been wary of recommendations. Special thanks to my dad for assuring me my mom would never try that again. The recommendation for this burger place came from one of C-monster's favorite teachers however, so I figured it was a viable source and worth investigation. This place is known as Bad Daddy's Burger Bar, and unlike the name it was actually quite good.

Tonight the beautiful and lovely K and I found ourselves without children and decided to take some time to have a little dinner. Our search for some burgerage found us within an onion ring's throw of Bad Daddy's. Another stroke of luck found my sister, FB, and her husband also in search of some fine red meat, so they met up with us for a fine evening sans offspring. We all met up at Bad Daddy's and after a little wait we found our seats. The atmosphere of this place is a sports bar of sorts, with a small bar in the front and seating throughout. There were TVs playing sports games and drink specials almost every night. Speaking of drink specials, my brother-in-law will henceforth be known as the Mathematician because he realized it was cheaper per ounce to buy 16oz beers than it was to buy 20oz beers. My sister married a winner for sure. The Mathematician and I ordered our 16oz beers and moved on to the food search. We scanned the menu and decided to bypass the appetizers for tonight, although their selections seemed quite appetizing. The restaurant came highly recommended so we decided to save our stomach space for the burger. You hate to get into a good burger only to find out you don't have the space to finish it. Ah, who am I kidding. I would finish a bad burger, much as I just can't change the channel on a bad Hallmark Christmas movie even after K falls asleep. You just need to get to the end. We looked at the menu for burgers since after all, that's what we came here for. On top of burgers, they have many other selections like chicken and salads and the like. Burgers are their specialty though, it's right there in the name.

I had a very hard time deciding on what to order, there were so many delicious burgers, but ultimately could not break away from my love of a fried egg on my burger. I went with the Sam I Am Burger, which comes with a fried egg and ham with pesto on the bun. K went with her heritage and ordered the Classic Southern Burger which comes with chili, relish, and slaw. The Mathematician went with the Nick's Patty Melt after briefly contemplating going vegetarian and ordering a turkey burger. FB decided to build her own burger, which is an option Bad Daddy's offers. Rather than take a normal menu item and tailor it to her liking, inevitably angering the chef, she decided to forgo the added kitchen spit surprise and get it just the way she liked it, One of the other great things about Bad Daddy's is that they offer several sides to choose from, and they have many different sauces that they offer for dipping those sides at no additional cost. I even got a pimento cheese dipping sauce for my homemade chips. Don't forget to ask for the sauce options!

Unlike the painful wait for the inevitably predictable movie ending, our food came quickly and was absolutely fantastic. Per the usual, I ordered my burger medium and it came out exactly medium. Perfectly cooked. The bread was fresh and moist, the lettuce was crisp, and the burger was juicy and fantastic. They got our order perfect, every one of our burgers was cooked to perfection and as delicious as we hoped. I had feared the ham on the burger was going to be overcooked, as many times thin ham gets cooked to the same consistency as the sole of an old flip-flop, but this was moist and soft and delicious. The egg was cooked great, everything was exactly as I would have wanted. K's burger was equally delicious, although terribly messy. Her plate looked like she did battle with some form of tiny chili monster, but luckily she won. She did give me a taste and it was also cooked to her perfect liking and absolutely delicious.

If you are looking for a place to get a drink and an absolutely delicious dinner burger, I highly recommend Bad Daddy's. So far this is the closest we have found to an Angus Barn burger. Of course, we have only rated two other places, but it is still high up there on the list. We happily give this burger joint a 4 Angus Barn Burger rating. Try this place out, you won't be disappointed!






Bad Daddy's Burger Bar
3300 Village Market Place
Morrisville, NC 27560
919-297-0953
http://www.baddaddysburgerbar.com/
(also location in Raleigh, address on website)

Shorty's - old time greasy

Our last burger experience took us to the highfalutin Glenwood South area, dropping coin on a sad little cheeseburger at Sullivan's Steakhouse. Granted the rest of the food was great, but this is a burger blog folks so stay focused! On this crisp night my partner in crime the beautiful and lovely K and I decided to take our boys down to our hometown downtown to do a little holidaying with the lighting of the Wake Forest Christmas tree. After doing our best Whoville impression while the mayor plugged in the tree, we decided to find ourselves some grub before taking the visit to see jolly ol' Saint Nick. Just a short walk from town hall and we found ourselves at an old timey restaurant that looked straight out of the post WWII era. Shorty's World Famous Hot Dogs was the name of the place, but don't let the name fool you, they serve burgers and fries too! I'm not exactly sure who Shorty is, but he definitely doesn't work there any more. This restaurant is celebrating its 100th anniversary next year, so simple math will tell you that he is no longer the proprietor.

One thing to remember when visiting Shorty's is that you need to order at the counter. They do not have waiters, just order takers and cooks. The first time we visited Shorty's it threw us for a little loop when we thought the service was terrible before realizing that there were no waiters. Save yourself the trouble, just go to the counter. The menu is the basic fare. Burgers, dogs, fries, your normal small town burger joint items. We ordered up some, you guessed it, burgers and hotdogs and even splurged for some chili cheese fries. The place was packed but our food came promptly, served on sheets of wax paper rather than plates. K and our youngest, J-Train, got cheeseburgers while I opted for the double cheeseburger. Filling out our family was our older boy C-Monster, who decided against the burger and went with a pair of hot dogs.

Now, I'll start this off by saying that this was a very tough comparison. I mean, this is a whole different breed of cheeseburger. At a restaurant like the Angus Barn or some of the other nicer
restaurants you get a big cheeseburger cooked just how you want it with different presentations for different burgers, places like Shorty's are just cranked out and everyone's the same except for differing condiments. So how did I enjoy this burger? I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unlike the toasted communion wafer that was the Sullivan's burger, this cheeseburger was dripping in grease. There was no shortage of juiciness. It even somehow found a way to soak through the wax paper. How is that even possible? I don't know, but it definitely did. My double was optioned with relish, chili, and ketchup so I'm sure that added to the liquidity of it, but I think just plain this thing would be dripping wet with artery stoppage. Then on to the chili cheese fries, which were an equal level of deliciousness. Covered in melted cheese and an equivalent amount of greasy chili as the burger, the fries were little more than saturated potatoes in a grease and cheese soup. Not that this is a bad thing, although even my iron stomach was a little beat up from all this grease. The rest of the family also enjoyed their meals, although Shorty's "world famous hot dogs" are little more than the red Brightleaf hot dogs that every single restaurant in the South serves. Still tasty though and C-Monster promptly gobbled them down. The J-Train did not finish his meal because he said he was full. I initially thought all of the grease might have made his stomach hurt until he informed me that he was "full for this food" but had "plenty of taste buds for hot chocolate." A likely story.

So what is the final verdict on this century old small town joint? As much as I enjoyed this burger, and would highly recommend visiting this place , I can only give it 2 Angus Barn burger rating. The burgers were awesome, but they were not the same level of burger. It is hard to explain, but it is kind of like the difference in a "lunch burger" versus a "dinner burger." If you are in a hurry and want a great burger fast, this is the place to go. For a night out, where you want something a little nicer, you'll be looking for a different place. Plenty of flavor, juicy, and very enjoyable, but a different food experience than we were going for with an Angus Barn burger challenger. If you ever find yourself in downtown Wake Forest for lunch though, this is a place you should definitely stop by. We highly recommend it and will be visiting again.





Shorty's Famous Hot Dogs
214 S White St, Wake Forest, NC 27587
For more info - Shorty's Facebook page

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

It all begins

Who is this burger loving fool and why does he feel the need to blog about it? Those are definite questions that do not necessarily need answers. Too bad, you are going to get answers anyway. I came to the realization the other day that I find myself to be something of a burger connoisseur. Much as a normal sane person might be into different wines or beers, I find myself rating different burgers when eating out. Every time I am at a restaurant my first order of business is to look straight for the burger menu to peruse their options. Over the years I have had many delicious burgers, and also many burgers that have let me down. After all these burger experiences I feel like I have a good grasp on appropriate burgeryness that will allow me to give you a very good review on restaurants and their burgers. I am local to the Raleigh/Durham area in North Carolina, but do make occasional trips around and will review those as well. Any chance to eat a burger, I will take that opportunity, and fill you in on the details whether you care or not. What is my best burger to date? That would be, without a doubt the cheeseburger at the Angus Barn in Raleigh. Now, I don't exactly know what the menu name of this is, and I am not even sure that it is on the menu, but if you ask the waiter for "the cheeseburger" I'm pretty sure they will know what you mean. After all, this is a very nice expensive steakhouse, there is only one cheeseburger because normal human beings prefer their steakhouse steaks cooked like normal steaks and not ground up on a bun with cheese. I, however, am not a normal human being. Look for a complete review on this plate of yummy deliciousness in the next month or so, as I will be going back for the holidays and will give a thorough review. Just know this - it is the basis for all my reviews, and I will give burgers ratings based off of this. So read on if you'd like, I hope this blog may lead you in the right direction in the quest for the best burger in the area.