The Vitals: the burger: The Big Hat – double cheeseburger featuring cheddar, lettuce, tomato, red onion and house pickles. Custom add ons included bacon and a mustard based house sauce. the bucks: $7.20 the coordinates: Austin, TX My first impression of Hat Creek Burger Company took about 30 seconds. It more or less amounted to a slight glance to my left, as I drove north on a dusty restaurant row called Burnet road, surveying my new home base of eating. Playgrounds at restaurants ...

The Vitals: the burger: The Lucky, USDA Prime Angus patty, Iceberg lettuce, Spanish onion, vine ripened tomato, deli pickle, house sauce on a Martin’s Potato bun the bucks: $6 the coordinates: New York, NY I’m sure for many a New Yorker, Lucky’s Famous Burgers is just another blip on the burger radar screen. If you didn’t narrow your search down to $10 and under, it may not even pop up on Yelp. With no shortage of burgers in New York vying for your snuggle ...

The Vitals: the burger: The Mikey: 5oz NY Bar/Pub style meatballesque patty, topped with lettuce, tomaton, onion, corned beef hash and a mustard sauce the bucks: $6.5 the coordinates: The Lower East Side, New York, NY I have a confession to make: I have no sense of direction. Feels good to get that one off my chest. So, last week I took on a rather gargantuan task of bringing Bang for your Burger Buck to New York City. One week and ...

The Vitals: the burger: Mini Burger Sampler Basket: three topping concept driven sliders from a selection of eleven different renditions plus a 50/50 mix of regular and sweet potato fries the bucks: $9.49 the coordinates: Austin, TX Sliders and the restaurant “Playland”. Two crucial components to Phil’s Icehouse. Two elements that are frankly way undervalued in the burger world. After recently completing a 1500 mile road trip from Los Angeles to Austin with a three year old, I came to appreciate ...

The Vitals: the burger: Double Fast Burger: two 3oz patties of enlightened grass fed beef, house made American cheese, custom burger sauce, lettuce, tomato and onion the bucks: $8 the coordinates: Los Angeles, CA One of the most compelling debates on how to make great food erupted perfectly on Twitter a few years ago between Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert over which factor was more significant: technique or ingredient. Bourdain’s argument for technique sort of “won”, as he pointed out that ...

The Vitals: the burger: The Big Mouth Burger: a 1/2 pound of USDA Prime All Natural Chuck, charbroiled and served with lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle and mayo the bucks: $8.95 the coordinates: San Francisco, CA Most of the country would balk at a cheese-less burger for $9, even if it was a 1/2 pound of USDA Prime all natural chuck and came with fries. But most of the country ain’t got nothing on a warm sunny day in San Francisco, ...

The Vitals: the burger: The Jucy Lucy: a burger stuffed with american cheese, topped with grilled onions and thinly sliced pickle the bucks: $6.75 the coordinates: Minneapolis, Minnesota The search for Bang for your Burger Buck can certainly take you places. You may find yourself so deep in the hood your Spidey Sense might be tingling to the tune of a scene from Training Day. Or you could find yourself smack dab in the middle of fly over country, at a modest ...

The Vitals: the burger: The Eggs Benedict Burger(Angus beef and pork breakfast sausage patty blend, topped with a poached egg, hollandaise sauce, lettuce, tomato and onion) the bucks: $8.50 the coordinates: Austin, Texas Two foods that we all know, love, and trust have been conducting a covert takeover of menus across the country. Yes, I’m talking about Bacon and Eggs. When spoken in the same sentence one quickly dismisses them as two pals who take morning strolls in the neighborhood together. ...

Ali Khan Eats the burger at Hinano Cafe in Venice Beach, a neighborhood of Los Angeles CA.

The Vitals: the burger: 7.5oz bacon cheeseburger with house toppings(lettuce, tomato, thousand island dressing) the bucks: $6 the coordinates: Pasadena, CA(14 miles northeast of Los Angeles) Eating alone is a fascinating thing to observe. In the modern era, thanks to smartphones and social media, I suppose we never are really alone. All the Twitter followers and Facebook friends in the world can’t mask that lone diner. The lone diner is certainly more common in certain venues as the likelihood of spotting one dropping $300 ...