The Unvegan

Da Burger Boss is part of the newer wave of food trucks and while they aren’t brand new, they’re still plenty new to me. Their schtick is naming burgers after mob terms like The Strongarm, The Collector and so on. It’s an interesting schtick that has produced some interesting-looking combinations, but the sole reason I found myself waiting for Da Boss was to partake in The Patrolman.

You see, The Patrolman is no ordinary burger. Sure, it’s filled with a half-pound patty, bacon and blue cheese dressing, but after that the burger goes in a frightening and exciting direction. First is the cran-apple reduction, which is not crazy on its own, but when you throw in the grilled glazed donut bun, things get goddamn nuts. Yes, I said a grilled glazed donut bun. I was unsure of how any degree of this would be pulled off and figure it was worth the 9 bucks to find out.

And find out I did. The first thing I wondered was how it would stay together. For starters, this wasn’t some soft, melty Krispy Kreme donut, but a thick grocery store-style breakfast sweet. It was still wildly inadequate at holding together a burger, especially when you throw the donut hole in the mix, so the make up for it the burger was wrapped in paper. Nonetheless, this was nothing less than a mess to eat.

The next thing I wondered was how I would handle the sweetness. Not only was there donut, but also fruit reduction to consider. And the truth is that the sweetness was a bit much. There was certainly a lot of savory between the bacon, patty and blue cheese, but this was not enough to counter the fruit and donut punch. My suggestion is to either swap out the glazed for old fashioned donuts or to drop the fruit. I can’t say whether either would work, but I do know that either way would be less sweet.

But who am I kidding here? Is The Patrolman really seeking out the perfect blend of burger balance? Oh dear I hope not. This burger represents America and our undying dream of gluttony and excess. In that regard, this burger is a major success. Yeah, I can get finicky with the details, but in the end, Da Burger Boss delivered a pretty good, juicy burger and topped it with an obscene bun. And I annihilated it. In other words, it was glorious.

I should also point out that Da Burger Boss in no way invented the glazed donut bun. This was something I had heard about before and Da Burger Boss is simply the first I had ever actually seen.