The Unvegan

Inspired by my own awesome burger list and having passed the new place last week, my girlfriend and I headed to Burger Kitchen on 3rd Street over the weekend. The place just opened two weeks before, so I figured it had worked out enough its kinks and was ready for a good old unvegan review. After looking over the 22 burgers (including one for $50 and another for $65!) for a bit and having a hard time deciding, the girlfriend discovered a great deal, The Champagne Brunch.

This brunch, served on weekend until 3:00, had a limited selection of burgers and came with a side and a glass of champagne for only $15. This was a great deal since the burgers were all around 10 bucks and the sides were 3.50. Fortunately, the brunch also included one of the burgers I had been eying. It was called the breakfast burger and I had been drawn to it for a few reasons. The first was that it had a fried egg and bacon on it. I love bacon on burgers, but love it even more when I discover one with an egg. The other reason was that the burger made no mention of coming with lettuce, as all the others seemed to. It had tomato on it, but I just ordered without. For my side, I chose their home made waffle cut chips.

The champagne and side came out first, and while the chips were a definite step above regular bagged chips, they were greatly aided by the garlic aioli that came with my girlfriend’s sweet potato fries. The glass of champagne was also a decent size, too. It definitely wasn’t some sissy champagne glass that you pay 14 bucks for at a martini bar. After sipping and snacking, my burger arrived and I was quite disappointed with what I found. Piled on top of the top half of the bun was a whole load of lettuce. And not just some leaves, no, this was the shredded kind you usually find in a taco. Fortunately this was served open-faced and I could wipe the lettuce off pretty easily, but it was certainly an effort I had not anticipated. After taking care of the greens, I found one massive top half of my bun. This thing alone was taller than the rest of the burger (including the bottom bun) combined, and when I placed it on top of the burger and began eating, it really showed.

The burger was cooked to a nice medium and had a pretty good taste. The egg was slightly runny, but could have used a little more juice. Yet, overall it was tough to get a good grip on how tasty the burger was. This was because the bun was just overwhelmingly big. It was a shame, too, because the bun was actually good. It was soft, a little buttery and had a good amount of moisture. The bottom half did a good job of absorbing burger juices, but I was tempted throughout the burger to just take that top half off and eat the thing open-faced.

Despite the bun difficulty, I felt pretty contented with my meal. They didn’t try to do anything crazy with the burger and stuck with some nice ingredients. The Champagne Brunch portion definitely made the meal worthwhile, but next time I’d like to see a little less bun and lot more burger.