The Pastry Chef's Baking: Smashburger

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Smashburger

Smashburger - dinner on October 31, 2015

I’d heard about Smashburger from other foodies so like any good foodie lemming, I wanted to try it for myself. Much as I like burgers, I only like certain places for burgers, namely the ones that let me build my own. Because I’m such a picky eater. As in, a good burger to me is the burger and the bun. I add a slice of cheese if I want to get really crazy. Do not put condiments on my burger or I’ll never eat it. No pickles, no onions, no tomatoes either. Nothing but meat and bread. I’m okay with leaf lettuce as long as it’s not chopped like coleslaw.

You can imagine the inner eye rolls I probably get whenever I order a burger off the menu and ask for it “plain”. So I’m always pleased to find a place where I can build my own burger and don’t feel like I have to defend my plain choices. Plain eaters, rejoice, because Smashburger is such a place. They have pre-built burgers you can order but, similar to the Counter, they also let you pick and choose what you want on your burger. Or in my case, ensure they leave off what I don’t want.

For this inaugural visit, I went with the brioche bun, a 1/3-lb burger, a slice of cheese, a slice of leaf lettuce and a fried egg. That’s walking on the wild side for me. But it had everything I liked and nothing I didn’t like. Consequently, I enjoyed my burger a lot. It’s just the right size if you’re hungry, not too big or too small, and the burger was tasty. Not thin like a fast food burger but not so thick that you couldn’t eat it without feeling like a pig.

Smashburger also offers sweet potato fries which naturally I had to get. I always like sweet potato fries better than regular fries. Unfortunately, their sweet potato fries weren’t as good as their burger though. They weren’t quite cooked to mealy perfection and needed a couple more minutes in the deep fryer. They were still good but could’ve been better.