American Burgers SUCK Nowadays

When was Burger King ever good? Get real OP.

American burgers have never been better, just not at the places people think of traditionally

There have never been better burgers. Just not fast food places- they can't sell anything decent for 5 bucks.

OP is fat.

Sometimes I ask them to make just like in the picture.

Unfortunately, one must exit their car to get a great burger. Sorry OP.

Some real restaurants have beautiful big burgers. A place I usually get delivery from, close enough that that the burger and fries are still piping hot when they get to me has burgers so big I can't even get it into my mouth. I have to take it apart to eat it and usually at best eat 2/3 of it and half the fries and they have such good slaw I always order an extra side portion so I can have a little a day for a week. Another place near a doctor I go to also has very delicious huge burgers. I don't get bacon or anything extra, just a cheese burger and I have to take it off the bun or I'll end up leaving half over. I will take a bite or two of the bun on the side and take most of the bun out to give to the birds.

What most places are skimpy on is soda. Years ago you had a choice, regular or large. Now you get one small glass for 3 dollars and if you want more, another 3 dollars. I'll be damned if I'll pay 6 dollars for two small diet Cokes or Pepsi. I bring my own 20 oz. bottle mixed 3/4 diet Pepsi and 1/4 lemon juice and tell them I have medication in the bottle and have to drink my own. I also tip good. Most restaurants don't complain. Of course that is not an issue when I get a cheese burger deluxe delivered. I never order a drink too unless like once a year I feel like a vanilla shake. At 5 - 6 dollars for a small shake I sure don't do it often, not to mention the extra fat and calories. BTW, I don't do burgers to often because I don't even what to think of the fat, calories and sodium in those huge burgers, and then there's the cost. I never do fast food. Not a snob. I don't drive anymore and there are none I can walk to.

Really rather sweet, R10. Thanks. So those are mom and pop local joints?

James Beard's American Burger is worth trying.

This recipe is for 4 servings. Adjust measurements accordingly:

[quote]You take 2 pounds of top-quality chopped round or chuck, spread it out on a board, and grate 2 to 3 tablespoons of onion into it—use a fairly fine grater so you get just the juice & very finely grated raw onion. Now mix in about a tablespoon of heavy cream and some freshly ground black pepper. Form into patties; I like a 6- or 8-ounce patty for an average serving.

[quote] As to the cooking, it is my firm belief that a hamburger is best cooked in a heavy skillet with a combination of butter and oil, which prevents the butter from burning when you cook at high heat. I think that gives a crustier, juicer hamburger than broiling, unless you happen to have a really good broiler that browns the meat fast. So take your trusty old black iron skillet or your best copper one or your pet aluminum frying pan, Teflon-coated or not (with a Teflon coating you won’t need much fat, just a little bit for flavor), and cook your hamburger in the butter and oil over fairly high heat, giving it 4 to 5 minutes per side, depending on how well done you like it. I like mine crusty on the outside and very rare in the center. Salt this creamy, oniony, peppery hamburger before serving it on a buttered bun or English muffin, or as a main course with sliced tomatoes and onions or home-fried potatoes.

Ewww...grated onion. TBNT.

I remember the Quarter Piunder had to come in a styrofoam box because it was so tall and McDs didn’t want it to get squished down to regular burger size.

R10, so all you care about a burger is the size? And I don't drink soda, but I can't remember the last time I was charged for a refill on an iced tea in a sit-down restaurant.

Maybe make a friend that will get you out of the house and can drive? Your world is shrinking.

You get what you pay for. $5.00 Burger King/McDonakds don’t expect to get great ingredients or real meat.

IHOB

[quote] I can't remember the last time I was charged for a refill on an iced tea in a sit-down restaurant.

You don’t live in the NY metro area. The only free refills are of coffee in diners. That’s it.

Well, tea refills are free in SoCal. Don't care about NY.

Don’t care about SoCal.

R20, pity.

Why are you cheap queens arguing about soft drink refills as though you are flyover gluttons?

I'm not arguing about soft drink refills. FYI, iced tea is not a soft drink you fucking cunt. I'm just stating than it is common in CA. You buy your $15 burger, they bring refills. At real restaurants- not drive though shitholes.

[quote]FYI, iced tea is not a soft drink

It's not? "Soft drink" = something without alcohol.

Are you telling me that fast-food restaurants in NY don't have self-serve soda machines with unlimited free refills? Because everywhere else in the US certainly does. (Although not in Europe, unfortunately.)

You people are so spoiled! I'd be happy with one of these.

[quote]Unfortunately, one must exit their car to get a great burger. Sorry OP.

Au contraire. Try Cookout or In n’ Out. You’re welcome.

Fun fact I learned while in vet school: cow vaginas are the main ingredient in McDonalds burgers. Yum! And you wonder why they are so cheap? That’s why!

Another thread about burgers.

There are so many more semi-upscale burger places ("fast casual," I guess) now -- The Habit, Smashburger, Shake Shack, Five Guys, etc.-- that I almost never go to regular fast-food burger places anymore.

I like Wendy’s.

I like it so much that I read Brand Eating just to keep up to date on their latest offerings.

Oh, R23??

We don’t know her...

COOK...............YOUR..............OWN

I hate how you either have a choice of fast food crap or a HUGE burger from a restaurant loaded with cheeses, bacon, buffalo wings, onion rings and so on. I just make my own from ground beef.

I'm stuck on "cow vaginas." I ate pussy last week.

What's a "burger"? Sounds low class.

Wayback has good burgers :)

I never buy hamburgers when I'm out. Every now and then, I make my own. If I buy ground beef for chili or tacos, I'll just make a single hamburger as a special treat. I have hamburger buns in the freezer, and I just defrost one. I don't want the burger to be too big: I make a relatively thin patty, so that it cooks quickly, and season it with salt and pepper. Heat a cast iron skillet, sprinkle it with kosher salt, then add the burger. When it's almost done, add shredded cheddar cheese, and put a lid on the pan just for the 30 seconds it takes to melt the cheese. I like a little mayonnaise on the bun (sesame seeds on top, please), and catsup (preferably Brook's, if you can find it), a thin slice of onion, and a couple of dashes of Tabasco. It's a complete meal, and I've never had one eating out that can compare.

All that effort wasted on a frozen bun

Way back in the 70s, when I was a teenager, I worked at McDonalds. It was a big deal to work at McDonalds. We took pride in what we were serving. The Big Macs were always tidy. The Quarter-Pounders were well-cooked. We would put a new basket of fries into the oil if the batch on hand was over ten minutes old. We did it all voluntarily.

McDonalds disgusts me now, mostly because I know the work can be done so much better. One of the meat patties on the last Big Mac I had was leaning on the bun, on the outside. The last Quarter-Pounder was raw. The oil my last fries were cooked in was rancid. The manager admitted the oil hadn't been changed in weeks.

I won't go back, ever.

R40, people don't believe me when I say fast food places used to be decent. You can't serve things for a buck now and have it be anything but shit.

[quote] Are you telling me that fast-food restaurants in NY don't have self-serve soda machines with unlimited free refills

Go back and read the posts. We’re talking about regular sit down restaurants where you get waited on, not fast food joints.

R27, I love In N Out for what it is- the best of the fast food places.

So the big thing in homemade hamburgers now is to mix your meats. You can add pork and even lamb to your chuck.

Fast food didn't cost a buck back when it was decent. But meat was meat. Milk was milk. Potatoes were real and cooked in beef fat.

Swiss McDonalds uses Swiss food. This year they announced they couldn't buy enough Swiss beef and would have to import something like 10% from Austria and Germany. Slippery slope. When I moved here I noticed that McDonald's shakes tasted like milk. There aren't enough Swiss farmers and its so expensive to run farms to swiss quality and also sell the meat and produce at swiss prices. People want cheap, all over the world. A lot of people can't afford whole real food. 4 swiss eggs raised from free range chickens are about a buck a piece! Imported European industrial eggs are much cheaper. Dutch industrial eggs were contaminated recently. All the tomatoes the working class can afford are grown in Spain and Italy. You can buy a local tomato but pay through the nose. blah blah blah blah.

Yes, R11, basically ma and pa places, diners owned by one owner, no chains. What I like, besides a decent size is that the meat is decent quality and both places charcoal broil which I love. I know it probably causes cancer but I love food that has been charcoal broiled or grilled. I don't eat it that often so I don't really worry.

Now there is a place a few blocks from my doctor that has organic 100% grass fed burgers on homemade organic buns with organic fries and ever organic pickles that come with it. But a burger deluxe there is about 30 dollars. Oh hell my once every few months cheeseburger is not going to cost me 30 dollars before tax and tip. I think I'd choke on such an expensive burger.

My food coop has grass fed beef for $6.99 a pound. If I want that quality so badly I'll make my own. I can't charcoal broil as I have an apartment but the 30 buck one isn't charcoal broiled or grilled either. It's small wonder that the place I go has people waiting for tables at lunch time and the organic place has a couple of rich yuppie moms with 3 blond children at two tables and the rest are empty. Why do these rich women always have 3 kids, like 2 is not enough and 4 is too many?

This thread made me hungry and sad.

Roadfood dot com is a voluminous, crowd-sourced compendium of casual regional eats in the US. We've relied on the print editions of Jane and Michael Stern's [italic]Roadfood[/italic] to guide us to where the great American burgers are, beyond the national and global chains.

Jane and Michael Stern had and have big time psychological problems that they managed to hide from the world until gossip after the divorce started to leak.

Jane is an absolute basket case, with zero self awareness.

The cheapest grass fed Swiss ground beef is 12-15 bucks pound. R47 the burger at The 21 Club was 30 bucks last time I ate there. Riche bobo's can fuck themselves, that's why they have 3 children.

OP types sad, fat and P O O R

R50, I actually knew Jane Stern, a long time ago, from a different forum. I always liked her. She's opinionated, and a devoted animal lover.

Anyway, I posted upthread, but I managed to remember a good hamburger that I had eating out. It's only six bucks, but it's very good. It's a Ma and Pa place that's been in operation for a long time.

Jane is bitter AF in all “their” interviews since Michael left her.

That she thinks she is being subtle is quite amusing.

Why on earth would anyone eat a burger at a fast food chain when there are places to eat that serve real food (including burgers)?

Because they are cheap.

Now a McNugget I miss. Yes, a decent restaurant will have chicken fingers but there is something about those McDonald nuggets that I loved, especially with the sweet and sour sauce. That's the only thing I miss about McDonalds. I have access to a 5 guys but don't like the burgers or the dogs. The fries are good and healthier than most because they use peanut oil. Sometimes I'm tempted to take my good diner burger into 5 Guys and just ordering a small fries but I'd feel awkward, even if I didn't get thrown out for bringing someone else's food into their place. They do have all the soda you can drink at 5 Guys. You order the smallest size cup and just keep refilling. I love that they have diet root beer. No one else has any diet soda other than Coke or Pepsi. But sadly their burger is gross and their fixin's tasteless and make a huge mess because they have terrible buns that fall apart.

As many others have said, American burgers are fantastic. If you are eating fast food crap though, that just speaks volumes about you.

R12 that looks great in a photo, but it is completely impractical. No one should be required to eat a burger with knife and fork.

You can even make a good burger out of cheap/basic ground beef. Here's the hack - before forming your burger or patty, work the meat with your hands and fingers scrunching it over and over for a few minutes, breaking it down - sort of mashing it. This will create a tender burger even using basic ground beef.

R60 that is method to make cheap meat worse. The only time mashing it makes sense is when adding other moistening ingredients to make meatballs for example.

R60 = the opposite of true

All I can say is that it damned well works for me and always has (good God! these dudes really grate on my nerves some times)

Hey guys! I say BLACK.....

The Habit makes a good relatively healthy burger with good alternative options. Wish they would open out East.