Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger

Here is an update on my ill-fated San Francisco cheeseburger project.

Actually, it was literally ill-fated for the first restaurant in this series, Midi, where I ate their cheeseburger at the bar and then they went out of business. Good size with gorgonzola cheese, the meat was fairly lean, the burger properly cooked. Great fries. $13. RIP, though I’d likely not return for that anyway.

When I drive home headed down Sutter Street, I always pass a place called Sliders on the corner of Sutter and Polk. It’s a chrome plated modern diner serving primarily burgers and sides. They cook the burgers on a four foot round grill. The meat is nothing special, and the burgers look greasy on the grill. You can get 6 or 8 oz. burgers, and pretty much anything you want on it. In fact, they have a condiment bar with a pretty wide array of dopey things. I ordered an 8 oz. cheeseburger, put some lettuce on it and powered it down with a side of onion rings. Cost was about $10 total. Burger was fair. Nothing special.

A client took me to The Daily Grill on Geary off Powell. I’ve been by that place a million times, but it never occurred to me to give it a try despite its proximity to my office. The restaurant is a beautiful New York style B & G with lots of dark wood. They have a fairly complete comfort food menu. Nice, not great burger for about $13 with shoestring fries. I liked the restaurant quite a bit, and imagine I’ll be back, though I’d probably work the rest of the menu and pass on the burger.

Finally yesterday I went down to the Ball Park with the Colonel and C. Lo. for our rendezvous with "our" World Series Trophy. I’ll post the picture when the Colonel gets me a scanned copy. Afterwards C. Lo. and I talked about going to Marlowe (home of Michael Bauer’s favorite burger), but we were concerned that they weren’t serving lunch at 2:30 when we left the trophy line, so we settled on The Public House. At the time KNBR was broadcasting there all day, pushing an auction* of stupid sports stuff for youth sports. We caught the end of Fitz and Brooks and the beginning of the Razor and Mr. T.

* Is there anything dopier than listening to an auction on the radio, particularly an auction of stuff like hanging out with the radio hosts? Hearing them plug themselves over and over reminded me of the scene in “That Thing You Do” in which The Wonders are interviewed by an self-important windbag on the radio in which the only thing they actually say is “Hi.”

By the way, that's me wearing my double Nobel Prize in front of the Willie statue, the ball park and The Public House.

Anyway The Public House had an incredibly limited menu (3 appetizers, 5 sandwiches including a burger). I went for the burger, C. Lo. for the Cuban sandwich which turned into a burger when they determined they were out of the Cubans. Jeez. How do you run out of 20% of your menu at 2:30 PM?

The burger came with bacon, avocado and cheddar. The meat was somehow very smokey, and worse, overcooked – medium well instead of medium rare. It was a tall burger, but pressed down with a little pressure. Somehow the contents disappeared well before the bun. It was messy to eat (I think avocado makes the contents slide around too much), not terribly tasty. It came with a choice of fries, chips or coleslaw for $13. Bad burger, bad restaurant. What a disappointment. And not a particularly nice sports bar. With Paragon a block northeast, I’ll never be back.