Burgers and half-empty bottles.
Talked/thought so much about burgers recently I thought I’d try my hand at actually making some. After all, I’ve got the Zuni recipe…that at least gives me a good blueprint. After perusing the web and thinking about what I would want in the perfect burger, I settled on a recipe. To wit: the meat was a three-way mixture of eye of round roast, sirloin tip roast, and short ribs, equal parts of each. The short ribs were salted two days before cooking, the round and sirloin one day before. All three meats were ground in a food processor, then mixed by hand. The patties were seared on the stove, then finished in the oven with a slice of smoked gruyere.
Verdict? Pretty good. Not perfect, but the burgers definitely displayed the effort put into their creation. The salt did come through in the flavor, so I’m glad I presalted. I try to presalt meat as often as I can, and this was simply another lesson in how important that is. The three-meat mix was interesting. The depth of flavor was more pronounced than I thought it would be – it almost took your tastebuds a second to recover after taking a bite. That sounds ridiculous and narcissistic, but that level of richness in the meat wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It sits heavy on ya after a while, and after a whole burger, you feel kinda “ugh.” In the future, I would want to play around with the percentages of the meats a little, and maybe change the meats themselves, too. Eye of round probably isn’t the best meat to mix with the short ribs, another flavor-heavy cut that is dense and usually requires long, slow cooking. Perhaps top round next time.
The other problem was the texture. The burgers were very thick and heavy, which made for a bit of a laborious chewing experience. Why was this? Three reasons: 1) choices of meat – this is probably not as important since the food processor destroys texture, but two of the three meats are very heavy, which tipped the scales a little; 2) the food processor – really, meat should be ground with a meat grinder, not a processor, since the processor can pulverize the meat beyond the necessary level of grind. I don’t own a grinder, but I think I let the meat get a little too chopped up in the ol’ Cuisinart, which made for very small meat particles and led to heavier burgers. Next time, I have to keep a close eye on the meat in the processor, and take it out the moment I can form a patty out of it; and 3) the process of mixing the three meats together required some effort, which further messed with the meat’s texture. Next time I think I’ll try to mix the meats in the blender to save some mixing effort.
So I have a ways to go before I can craft a burger like Sang Yoon or Judy Rodgers. But I felt that it was a good first step, and I look forward to the next one.
We drank most of a bottle of the 2003 Twenty Rows Cabernet Sauvignon with the burgers. This is an okay California cab that you can find for less than $20 most places; we got ours at Silverlake Wine. 2003 wasn’t a great year for California cab, so it wasn’t surprising to note something of a green character to this wine. It had some nice notes of spice on the nose (and what I swore smelled like ketchup – maybe cumin? I dunno…), and dusty, tart berries on the palate. A bitter note on the finish. A workmanlike effort, let’s say, and not nearly as exciting as the 2004 Sandoval Cabernet Sauvignon I picked up last week at Colorado Wine Company on the recommendation of Dr. Debs. No formal notes for that one, but it had great dark fruit and good structure. Well worth seeking out for $13.
Bay Area roundup: they have beef.
The news of my other mission on my trip north is slightly mixed in comparison to the success of the wine picks. Due to a combination of shortened trip time, restricted budget, and general business, I was only able to make it to two of the burger spots that I had planned for the holidays: Zuni Cafe and Cafe Rouge.
J and I went to Cafe Rouge after I’d already been to Zuni, but I’ll mention it first because there’s not a whole lot that comes to mind about it. The burger was nice – fairly juicy when ordered medium rare, not too big, and with a rich and sweet egg-bread bun (sort of a light brioche, almost) that complimented the meat very well. The optional onions weren’t grilled enough and were huge, so I ended taking some of them off, but other than that I didn’t have any real complaints. It was a good burger, but in my mind, there are many burgers north and south that are in this same ballpark, if not better – good or very good taste, one or two things that make you think “hey, that’s really nice,” probably worth the money/cholesterol as long as you didn’t made a daily habit of them. You can find these at The Counter, Cora’s Coffee Shoppe, Cassell’s. But in the company of Father’s Office and…uh…another place…, this is some Super Bowl-esque, 2005 Patriots versus Eagles-type competition. So, the middle of the pack for Cafe Rouge, or maybe slightly behind the middle. Or in the middle of the behind?
My cousin Dave and I went to Zuni a few days after Christmas for lunch. The restaurant is built on one of those triangular corners where a street intersects with another street at a steep diagonal angle, which dictated the restaurant as long, skinny, and tall. I didn’t get a chance to see much upstairs, but I’ve heard that there are a number of small, oddly shaped rooms along the top floor. Hope to check them out some day. The downstairs area is certainly very attractive on its own, however – lots of natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows, hammered brass bar tops. Dave pointed out some questionable art on the walls, but there was enough people-watching available that it could be easily ignored.
In truth, I felt kinda bad ordering a burger at Zuni. Why? Well, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, written by Zuni owner/chef Judy Rodgers, is without question the greatest cookbook I’ve laid my hands on. If you enjoy cooking or want to start using the kitchen for something other than the take-out container depository, you owe it to yourself to go pick this book up. It’s got a host of great recipes, but more importantly, it very patiently and thoroughly lays down all of the technique, preparation, and experimentation that you need to take each recipe to its most appealing form. It’s the work of someone who clearly loves food, loves talking about food, and loves sharing food. I’ve made fewer than a dozen recipes from the book in the past six months, but they have all turned out pretty damn good, and in the cases where there was something missing, the steps for correction are usually obvious. Which is a long way of saying that I really wanted to see what Judy Rodgers’s kitchen could do, what its ceiling was, and a burger really isn’t the best way to go about that. But it was lunch, and nearly everyone around us was ordering either the burger or Zuni’s other famous lunch dish, the Caesar salad. So I got over it.
And boy, am I glad I did. Taking a bite of that burger, fit between two pieces of rosemary focaccia with a slice of gruyere, was like (warning: PG-13 content ahead) that moment in “Traffic” when Topher Grace gets Erika Christensen to freebase for the first time. She looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, trying to form a smile, and he says to her, “Now you see.” Indeed. THIS is how you make a burger. For one thing, you can immediately tell that Zuni grinds its own meat, because the meat is of a much finer texture than any other burger I’ve had. Some may not like this, but combining the grind texture with Zuni’s other practice – salting the meat days before the grinding – makes for an incredibly juicy burger. It had a higher liquid content than I thought possible in an appetizing burger. The meat and juice seemed suspended within each other like the oil and vinegar in a vinaigrette. That may not sound great but believe me, it was something else. On a slightly sour note, the fries that came with the burger, while plentiful, were a) not quite hot enough, and b) so tiny that they were impossible to pick up and dab in the tins of ketchup effectively. What gives?
All things considered, however, the problems with the fries were minor compared to that burger. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it again. Either that, or I haven’t eaten all day. I don’t quite remember. But all this Zuni raving prompts the inevitable question: was it better than Father’s? Hard to say – the two are so different, it makes comparison sort of useless. Father’s Office piles so much onto its burger that the primary burger components – meat and bun – become simple cogs in its Rube Goldbergian burger machine. It’s a burger that is about a very complex taste experience. Zuni, on the other hand, has mastered the basic burger and refined it to a nearly perfect state of being. So what you pick between the two probably comes down to what you think of when you think of a great burger. Me, I go with Father. How about you?
Across the great burger divide
I was going to talk about a couple wine bar/small plates places J and I have visited recently, but I have been talking about wine quite a bit recently, even with my recent salad rant. I mean, I love wine as much as the next guy, but a lot of you (i.e., at least one) must be thinking, “Come on, is this whole thing gonna be about grape juice? Where’s the beef, man? Why not just get it over with and rename the thing The Coaster? Up top!!” No, sir. I will not show you some love up top. But I will talk about burgers.
With some food types, it makes complete sense that LA would have a leg up on the Bay Area in quality and diversity. Given the number of Korean immigrants and their descendants in the Southland versus the Bay Area, for example, it follows that Korean food is generally better and more widespread down here than in Northern California. You could make the same argument about Thai food, Armenian, and others. But it doesn’t really make any kind of geographic sense that hamburgers would be so much better down here than in the Bay Area, would it? Yet that’s pretty much the case. No matter what side of California you butter your bread on, LA boasts the better burger. No buts about it, bub.
LA definitely seems to have something of a culture of the burger. For one thing, there is the mecca known as In-N-Out, which has a pretty remarkable following among fast food devouts and philistines alike. It’s the kind of place that can attract patrons who swear that they never eat fast food, that they wouldn’t possibly touch the stuff – and yet there they are in the drive-thru, ordering a 3×3 animal style and thinking nothing of it. There are other LA-centric burger chains, too – Tommy’s, Astroburger and Fatburger, for example. How many counterparts do they have in the Bay Area? Barney’s? Nah, Barney’s has a different feel to it. Like they’re happy to serve you a burger and all, but maybe you should put something healthy on it like some spinach and feta cheese, and are you sure you didn’t want a turkey burger in the first place? As if they’re ashamed of putting meat on the damn plate. Stand up for yourself, Barney! You serve dead cows for a living. Don’t hide behind that sesame-glazed pineapple!
Allow me to generalize wildly for a moment: the schism between In-N-Out and Barney’s says a lot about how Northern and Southern Californians think about burgers, and by extension, meat, as food. In-N-Out fits neatly into the collective self-image of those who immigrate to the Southland: looking at the tiny red palm trees printed on the burger wraps and drink cups, it’s easy to imagine that same bag sitting on the dashboard of a Mustang pulling into the parking lot of a Santa Monica beach, the milkshake within still reasonably thick due to the shade cast by the surfboard in the back. It’s all part of the fantasy that everyone wants to buy into, whether or not it exists or ever did exist. So what if it’s bad for you? It tastes good, it was cheap, and everyone was so nice to you when you showed up at the burger stand to make your order, even though you forgot that you were only wearing your Action Speedo at the time.
Barney’s, on the other hand, despite the fact that they have a menu that is almost entirely populated by burgers, somehow makes it seem like they are trying to make you forget you’re eating a burger. “Don’t feel bad! That roasted pasilla pepper was alive too, and you’ll never see the vegetarians complain about that. Hey, did we mention that we tinted our windows? No more angry glares from passersby! How about a side of guacamole?” The chosen complex of the Bay Area omnivore is one of complete and all-encompassing guilt. If the ultimate perspective of the Bay Area citizen is one from the top of the moral high horse, how does one account for all that meat one eats? How can you look down on your neighbor, your uncle from Gilroy, and the rest of the country if you can’t get yourself to stop eating all those goddamn bratwurst at Top Dog?!?
Not to rub it in or anything, but this whole discussion hasn’t taken into consideration the fact that I think that the best burger in LA, the Father’s Office burger, doesn’t even really have a Bay Area equivalent. It’s off in its own galaxy. And not far behind are the upscale patties at Cora’s Coffee Shop, The Counter, and (according to some, but these are unverified) The Hungry Cat, 25 Degrees, and Lucky Devils. Let’s not forget, as well, the old stand-bys like Pie N’ Burger, Apple Pan, and Cassell’s. Those last three serve the same kind of “LA burger” as In-N-Out – thin patty, often accompanied by a secret sauce – but with a dash of age-addled irritation thrown in just to keep you on your toes. and they’re pretty damn good to boot. Where in the City can you get yelled at for taking a napkin from an empty table?
Maybe I’m being too tough on my old stomping grounds. There are those who claim that the better burger rests by the Bay. Betrayer! they bray. Backstabber! Brutus! And frankly, I don’t have much in the way of a rebuttal. Most of the places that have been bequeathed with besotted burger backers are places I have yet to bob up at.
Mmmm, that’s probably enough.
I would like to try some of the places that are reputed to have excellent hamburgers in the Bay Area. This whole post is unfair unless I allow the Bay Area to show me the best of what it has, and there are a number of places that come up in those “best of the Bay” threads and articles you see now and then. During the time I’m visiting family and friends up in the Bay over the next couple weeks, I’m going to try to go to at least three popular burger joints. The list I’m working off so far includes Zuni Cafe, Cafe Rouge, Joe’s Cable Car Restaurant, Bill’s Place, Val’s, Luka’s, and Darla’s. Any other recommendations?
Hopefully, at the end of the year I’ll have a much better idea of the burger battle. Belt buster, you say? I’m bound to be burdened with bodily bulk and bloating? Bah. It’s all for the beauty of the burger breakdown. And who knows? Maybe at the end of it all, the Bay Area burgers will prove their mettle, and we’ll all be blessed with a breathtaking burger bouleversement.
(Yes!)
