Restaurant Type

Mad Madelines Classic Cheeseburger

Excels in Preparation
Balance

Does Poorly in Price
Quality

 The first runner in the line-up of burgers is the Restaurant Type Burger. Although one could argue that if it is not homemade then it came from a restaurant of some sort; not all the burgers that you buy are classified under restaurant. A lot of burgers fall under other  types as well.  A Restaurant Burger is simply that, a burger from a restaurant.

For the most part this burger is made in restaurants that don't specialize in burgers such as family restaurants and steakhouses. The burger is usually added to their menus to satisfy kids or for those who prefer to order something simple and familiar, or even for your local burger connoisseur. Although these restaurants don't usually put much significance into this burger it usually does have to meet some standards to match the rest of their food, usually in aesthetics only.

Since this burger has to match the rest of their menu items, there is usually a lot of emphasis put into look of this burger. They have to try hard to make your plate look like the photo in the menu. That also means that all the ingredients are well placed and not falling out and it doesn't look like it is all tipping to one side. They are usually kept together with a toothpick or wrapped in some paper.

However, since this burger usually is the cheapest thing on the menu restaurants don't usually invest as much in the quality of their ingredients as they should. Unless the place is known for its meat then this burger is made from some of the cheapest beef that you can find under all burger types. Especially in the last five years the quality of the beef has gone down drastically. Therefore this burger is usually not worth the price.

This burger is elegant and pristine; definitely something to admire. However if you are looking for a luxurious taste to match then you probably will be left unsatisfied. Unless you're bummed because you were supposed to get a burger that day but someone forced you to go to a sit-down restaurant with them, order what you want or the house specialty. This burger's taste is average at best.


Recommend
Marie Calenders Grill 
Sizzler
Lucille's

Reconsider eating from
Dennys
Chilis
 

What is the best burger?

Undoubtedly the question that I most often get asked is "What is the best burger?" The simple answer to that is that not all burgers are created the same so you can't have a "best" burger. Like movies have different genres, all burgers fall into different categories. Just because a certain movie won best picture of the year doesn't mean you're going to show it at your little sister's birthday. In the same fashion, just because you enjoy a Wendy's Old Fashioned Triple doesn't mean your going to buy one for everyone at your UFC Finals party.

After years of eating and researching burgers I have come up with a set of 10 different categories that all burgers, at least in the USA, fall under. I will present the categories first then write detailed posts about each individual category.

The Restaurant

The Fast Food

The Brewhouse

The Tailgate

The Homemade

The Gourmet

The Mom & Pop

The Substitute

The Overload

The Bite Size


Of course within all these categories there are an infinite amount of styles that these burgers can be prepared. Can there really be a #1?

What is a Burger?

 In its most basic sense a burger is a beef plate sandwiched between two pieces of bread. There are many stories of where it first originated. The most believable story that I've found says that it was created by American Soldiers after coming home from being stationed in Germany. They found a dish that they liked in Germany decided to make easier to eat by compacting the ingredients between two pieces of bread. Similar to how the immigrant Mexicans in California created the burrito.

Although some might argue that a burger has to look a certain way or be certain size the truth is that today the burger has become so complex that almost anything can be considered a burger. You can find some places  naming sandwiches that use other meats as burgers (turkey, pork, chicken...) and some don't even use meat at all like veggie or boca burgers. In the last decade it was decided that you could also remove the buns and wrap it in lettuce and call it a low-carb burger.

Although very modern and questionable I consider all these variations burgers. Essentially today, all a sandwich needs to be considered a burger is a patty or filet of some sort as the main source of protein, sauces, at least one more ingredient, and an encasing ingredient. That is why the only thing that I wouldn't categorize as a burger would be a "A plain burger with nothing on it." That is just a meat sandwich.