A Burger, but make it "sorta different."
Utah throws its hate into the burger race.
I think most foods could take a tip from Coco Chanel. To paraphrase, “Take a hot look at your ingredient list and take one thing off.” Especially if that thing is truffle oil. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re using truffle oil, you’re using too much truffle oil.
Truffle oil. Truffle. Oil. TRUFF-le Oil. Truff-LE Oil. Truffle OY-EL. That’s a weird combo of words if you use it often enough in a row, isn’t it? Also, it’s gross. It’s the quickest route to ruining otherwise delicious things like pizza or french fries. Don’t think I’m right? Anthony Bourdain (RIP) thinks so too, so I’m in good company.
I digress. Back to it in 3-2-1…
As a rule of thumb, I find that the simpler the ingredient list, the better. I like my alcoholic beverages to be four ingredients or less (and I’m only putting it that high because I like margaritas). Breakfast tacos are allowed three fillings, one of which is required to be cheese. After the lettuce, salads should be capped at five other fruit/veggie/nut additions. Pizzas are best when kept to two toppings or less. None of this “Mega meat Exxxxxtreme” for me, please.
Of course, to link this ranting opinion back to the purpose of this newsletter, this all goes for sandwiches as well. Of course, there are exceptions — here’s dreaming of you, Cubano — but for the most part, K-I-S-S: Keep it simple, sandwiches.
As we near the end of the list (#44 out of 50!!!) Utah has presented us with our third (and final) of 2.5 burgers on the list (that’s a solid half point for the Patty Melt).
I would argue that in the last fifteen years, it’s become a thing for restaurants to offer “gourmet” burgers with a unique or absurd amount of toppings. It’s like everyone heard the news that you can’t reinvent the wheel, but saw a round burger patty and said, “BUT I CAN REINVENT THAT” and here we are.
Utah’s sandwich is one that was made famous by Crown Burgers, a chain restaurant based out of Salt Lake City. The Burger aptly (or uncreatively??) named “The Crown Burger” is a “quarter-pound burger patty on a sesame seed bun with Thousand Island dressing, lettuce, tomato, and onions, cheese, and topped with lots of hot, juicy pastrami.” Already, Crown Burger, my eyes are telling my stomach this is too much. But, let’s continue on.
The burger to me seemed as though someone wanted to do an evil scientist experiment and combine the Reuben and the burger. I mean, sure there’s no sauerkraut, but the Pastrami and the Swiss are very “Reuben” and Thousand Island isn’t even a cousin of Russian dressing — it’s a sibling.
When the now-impossible-to-not-call-it-in-our-household Sandwich Sunday rolled around, Nate was the Captain Hook to my Smee and he helmed this voyage.
He fried up the pastrami, toasted the buns, cooked the burgers, topped them with melted cheese, slathered on some homemade Thousand Island Dressing (<—brag much?), and put them all together in a beautiful little burger stack.
Did we skip out on the lettuce tomatoes and onions? Yes, we did. There were enough ingredients already, and that poor man’s salad is typically just there to make people feel better about their veggie intake for the day.
The burger as a whole was very good. To be perfectly honest, I think I needed some red meat in my diet because it was hitting an umami spot on my pallette that screamed, “You need iron!!!” The homemade Thousand Island dressing was *chefs’s kiss.* It was easy to make and I think would be a good addition to any homemade burger. That right there was worth the price of admission.
The pastrami, however, was an element that I only got every third bite or so. It essentially served the same purpose as bacon on a burger. It added an extra salty quality. But you know what would have been a better ingredient to add that bacon quality? Bacon. Bacon would’ve.
Credit where credit is due, once you take off the superfluous standard toppings, this sandwich actually manages to hit that sweet K-I-S-S spot. Not too much to preparation or assembly, which is key. It also made this a sandwich where you could taste and appreciate all of its elements.
But alas, in its dare to be different, I think this sandwich just missed being superb. The effect of the pastrami is too easily comparable to the — let’s face it — always superior bacon, which just opened the door to more critique.
Was it good? Absolutely. Is it something we’d go out of our way to repeat at home?
Think you can build a better burger? Hit up the comments with your favorite toppings.
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