50 Burger Challenge

Slow Ride - Hassan Kebab Van - Oxford - kebab #25

9/10

Bitchin' good kebabs out of this van. Especially nice to be able to escape the tourist crowd (the ones looking down their noses at the mud covered trail runner with disgusting street food) by flashing my employee identification and entering the grounds of one of the closed colleges.

A review here: http://1pumplane.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/hassan-kebab-van-oxford-kpw-for-week-23/

Bingo Burger Pueblo CO

#17 9/10 green chilis cooked in the burger

Timko - Waterloo - Louisville, CO - Burger #47

8.5/10 - potato added into the meat!! Win. Cooked perfect. Could have been a bit more seasoned.

JP - 360 Burger - Nashville - #26

Burger: Grass fed beef, country ham, fried egg, pretzel bun. Hand cut sweet potato fries. Really good!

Beer: Lagunitas IPA

Animoul / Fiesta del Sol / Solana Beach, CA / #12

Cheeseburger: 10 / 10

Wimpy / Fiesta del Sol / Solana Beach, CA / #9

Hamburger: 6 / 10

Timko - BJs brew house - Boulder, CO - Burger #46

4/10 - "crispy jalapeño burger" - sounded much better than it was.

Wiley - Drycreek cafe - Houston TX - #14

7/10
Simple cheese burger.
Just wish I hadn't seen the cockroach running a couple inches past my toes. Had to knock off 1.5 point off the grade.

Slow Ride - Flames - Trowbridge, Wiltshire - kebab #24

Quite the worse for wear on my birthday run (51 years) due to the 9 pints over a thirteen mile jog (with two more pubs between me and the bus) this could have been anything with fat, salt and protein and I would have been delighted. But it was surprisingly good on it's own merits (full comments here). 8/10

Rayzor - In-N-Out Burger - allen, tx - burger #19

Double double animal style. What can i say, it's in-n-out. While i'm not the fanatic some people are, i do think they make a very good burger. The fries were good, too. 8/10.

brownie/Phantom Canton Brewing/CSCO/burger #31

GZ Souths, Cork Ireland Burger #12

They don't call em buns here, they call em baps.

Murphy's and Beamish are better than Guinness.

Burger was only so so but the real Irish bacon and cheese brought this along to my average 6/10.

Co workers are starting to wonder WTF is going on with me with all these burgers this week.

JohnF - Downtown Burgers - Austin, tx - #22

This shack across form the convention center just serves up a couple of basic no frills burger options. They do it well for a basic burger. 7/10

HaVoCLaD - Elevation Burger - ATX - #29

6/10

Good solid hand formed burger

Unlike several other places I've been to, I'm pretty sure they're serving grass-fed beef. It's good flavorful beef.

I had the Elevation Burger, the counter person asked me if I wanted one slice of cheese or two. Good idea, one is enough. I added ketchup, mayo, raw onions, jalapenos and pickles.

The fries were past thin and on to scrawny sized. There was a good amount, but in addition to being thin, they were also short. I had to deduct a point for the fries.

Peter Pepper, Crown Pub, Fort Collins, Co., Burger #23

Relleno burger 7/10

GZ Kirby's Korner Restaurant - Cork Ireland, Burger #11

http://www.kirbyskornerbar.com/

A lot of bun, a lot of lettuce but hidden in there was a good hunk of beef and some real bacon (Irish do bacon way better than the US). 7/10.

HaVoCLaD - Hopdoddy Burger Bar - ATX - #28

8/10

Now that the Hopdoddy's on Anderson has been open for a while it's trendiness has died down and the line looked manageable. Time for me to give it a try. I got there at 11:50AM and had my burger by 12:10, the line was small and moved quickly.

I ordered the Diablo Burger. The folks on Foursquare were saying that it was for serious heat fans only. It's too bad those folks haven't met my friend Jack S., they clearly don't know him.

The ingredients were
- Caramelized Onions - tasty, but not hot. Honestly I prefer the crunch of raw onion though.

- Pepper Jack - nice and gooey, not what I'd call spicy

- Chipotle Mayo - there in abundance. They should trim in down to a smear on the bottom bun, not a couple tbsp worth.

- Salsa Roja - Did not identify this on the burger

- Serranos - I had maybe a half dozen paper thin slices, at most a third of a serrano total

- Habaneros - Nope, not there at all

All in all, it added up to - maybe - the level of the hot wings at a casual dining place like Chili's.

My waiter asked how things were and I expressed my disappointment with my burger and he replied, "We'll make it hotter next time". My question of "How?" went unanswered, directed as it was to his back as he made his quick exit.

The fries were thin and unexceptional.

As a meal, I'd give it a four based on lame spicy burger. However, if I treat it just as a generic burger I have to admit it was a damn fine one. The patty was very moist and done perfectly medium as I had asked. The bun was flavorful and held up admirably against the onslaught of the dripping burger. It was very tasty, I'll probably go back this year and try another burger.