Burger Blog

I was going to start a whole blog dedicated to my review of burgers. But then Ali told me I could review one burger a week here, and that is about all I planned on doing. I'll be sure to label all of my burger blogs with the label "burger blog," so you can find them when trying to decide.

This weeks burger: Chili's Mushroom Swiss.

Let me start by saying that I expect a hamburger from a real restaurant to be significantly better than something I could get at a fast food place. At about 8 bucks for the Mushroom Swiss with fries, this was really a pretty reasonable deal. I would spend that much for a combo meal at Carl's Jr. or Jack in the Box, so maybe I shouldn't have expected this to be spectacular. In a word, the Mushroom Swiss disappointed.

I like mushroom burgers. A good mushroom burger will really taste life a fine steak. This was just a hot mess. The shrooms came off dry and quite flavorless. The swiss was also a disappointment. It never got hot enough to melt adequately, leaving a piece of swiss that was drained of its good oils, kind of yellow-y, and not firmly affixed to the beef patty.

I was pretty excited when they asked me how I wanted my burger done. Sure, I don't want to eat raw ground beef, but over-cooked burgers are a big problem. I ordered medium-well, expecting to get a moist patty with light-gray innards. What I got was a crispy outside (which is fine) with a dry, dark inside. The beef was kind of crumbling as I ate it. It wasn't horrible, but why ask me how I want my burger done if you are just going to over-cook it anyway?

I think one of the more over-looked components of a burger is the bun. A good bun can go a long ways to either covering up other problems or just making a good burger better. This bun had potential, but the presentation was all wrong. It was squished, soggy, and I think they might have put the top bun on the bottom! Other than that, it was pretty good bread.

The other toppings were sufficient, I guess. I was a little disappointed that there was only one tomato slice, and the tomato was clearly over-ripe. I'm not a big tomato fan anyway, so I pulled it out after eating about half of it.

If the burger comes with a side, I'll discuss it, too. This came with fries. They were bad enough that I only ate half of one then offered the rest to my daughter Morgan. Morgan uses fries as a utensil to get "dip it" (ketchup, mayonaise, ranch, fry sauce etc.) to her mouth, and they worked well for that. But they were medium-cut fries that were under done and un-seasoned. Those kind of fries that kind of hover between 'steak fry' and 'crispy fry' but wind up being the worst of both worlds.

Maybe I just got a lower-quality Chili's Mushroom Swiss. I might have to try another one, maybe next year, to see if they can do it better. But I would rate Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Portobello Mushroom Swish burger AND Wingers Mushroom burger well ahead of the Chili's variety. . . and I think it goes without saying that neither Carl's Jr. or Winger's aren't exactly 5 star restaurants.

Alison thinks I should have a standard rating system. I might develop one, but for now I will just explain the relative qualities/ranking of a burger. I'm hesitant to go with a standard rating because there is so much variety in the burger world. How do you compare something like a Teriyaki Pineapple burger to a Jalepeno Cheddar melt? Also, I'll try to take a picture of the burger I actually eat. The above is just from the Chili's website . . . it looks better than my burger.