Harbor Springs in Northern Michigan is a long way from Japan, but that doesn’t stop a place called Vernales from sporting a Wagyu Brisket Burger. You see, Vernales is kind of a sports bar masquerading as an upscale restaurant, so it only makes sense that if they are going to serve a burger, it’s going to include some fancy beef. And after a long time looking over the menu, I knew that burger was what I had to have.
I should say, in addition to being topped with BBQ brisket, it also had cheddar cheese and onion straws on a kaiser bun. It was also served with fries, but there was no warning that pickles would also be alongside the burger on the plate. Fortunately the juices didn’t do any damage, but that’s always a tough thing to see.
As for the burger itself, unfortunately it did not quite live up to its perfectly unvegan description. I mean, yes, it was plenty unvegan, but the ingredients really lacked any sort of pop of flavor. Perhaps Vernales leaned too heavily on the fact that this was Wagyu beef and assumed that all the flavor would come from those tasty Wagyu fats. But The fact of the matter was that there seemed to be little seasoning on the patty and just not a lot to the brisket either. The fried onion strings and cheese tried to compensate, but unsuccessfully.
I can’t say that the Wagyu Brisket Burger was bad. It definitely was not. On the other hand, it really struggled more than it should have to be good.
