Rundown
The Crawl: Four Boston burger joints
The Contenders: UBurger (cheeseburger), Tasty Burger (The Big Tasty), Boston Burger Company (Boston Burger with Cheese/The Pilgrim), Mr. Bartley’s (bacon cheeseburger, The Fiscal Cliff)
The item: A cheeseburger, cooked medium, with fries
The Judges: Brooke Jackson-Glidden, Ross Hsu, Cat McCarrey and Joe Incollingo
Brooke Jackson-Glidden
The Bio: Brooke Jackson-Glidden is the Muse food subhead at The Daily Free Press, a position she previously held in 2012. She is also a former features editor, former Muse editor and Simmer Magazine contributor. Once, she made a Boston chef curse on the Internet. She would like to be embalmed with fry sauce.
UBurger: We tried the cheeseburger at UBurger, and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavorful patty and crunch of the pickles. The shredded lettuce on the burger was a little bit of a turn-off (I’m a one sheet of iceberg kind of gal), but I couldn’t complain. UBurger is a classic, “better than Big Mac” kind of burger, but no one’s writing home. The fries were nice and limp, flavorful both from the oil and the potato. Grade: B
Tasty Burger: If Boston had an In-N-Out, Tasty Burger would be it. I wouldn’t call myself a patriot, but nothing makes me feel more American than ordering a cheeseburger from a white-and-red stand, sitting a stone’s throw from the oldest ballpark in major league baseball and unwrapping a sesame-bun with ground beef and American cheese. Don’t get me wrong, I like a schmancy burger with brie or blue cheese (there is a Gorgonzola burger at Tasty, but you better REALLY love stinky cheese), but Bon Appétit Magazine said it best: “You know that moment when American cheese reaches a molten, near-liquid state, seeping into the crags of the crisp patty, merging with the juices and special sauce? That’s what you want.” Grade: A-
Boston Burger Company: God, I hate this place. I really do. The patties are completely bland, even with a menu that boasts “100 percent angus beef.” I like that the buns are charred on the bun side, but you can’t even taste that touch with all the junk they pile onto the patty. Look, putting mac-n-cheese on a burger is sexy; I can’t deny that. But when the patty is a puck on a fluffy, flavorless pillow, even cheese and noodles can’t seduce me. Grade: C-
Mr. Bartley’s: Mr. Bartley’s is another Boston institution, dragging in tourists and students alike in the heart of Harvard Square. The names of the burgers are nauseatingly kitsch, but damn do they make a good burger. The patties are the most flavorful out of the bunch, and even the cheese, the gooey American cheese, tastes like actual cheese. I’m not sure how they did it. It blew me away. Grade: B+
Ross Hsu
The Bio: Ross Hsu is the current Muse editor at The Daily Free Press. He has been eating solid food for about 19 years, and burgers are probably his favorite kind of sandwich. He saw Henry Winkler in an airport once, but he was too young to know how cool that is.
UBurger: I don’t want to call UBurger mediocre; it has never wronged me or let me down, and that didn’t change during this Burger Crawl. A cheeseburger here is a cheeseburger set at factory default, delicious while it’s happening and without any lasting impression afterwards. The shredded lettuce, while appreciated by some, drives home the idea that UBurger is an off-brand McDonald’s, but $2 tastier and $5 pricier. That being said, they have the best fries out of all the places we visited – salty, floppy, finely cut and delicious. Grade: Hard B-
Tasty Burger: Aptly named. I’ve been a big fan of Tasty Burger since my first few weeks at Boston University, and my brand loyalty is much more than habit. Besides being fast, filling and close to campus, it’s the only place on our tour that perfected the art of the basic cheeseburger. Tasty Burger’s sesame-seed buns are sweet and doughy, their beef is flavorful and thin without resembling a steak and their pickles are a perfect mix of bitter and sweet. Best feature: The bottom bun will be soaked through with juice before you’re finished. Grade: Tasty A+
Boston Burger Company: I was so let down by this place. Like many modern gourmet burger joints, Boston Burger Company is all about the toppings. Mac-n-cheese, mozzarella sticks, piles and piles of bacon, sauces of all flavors and colors – the list is daunting. I was most excited by The Pilgrim, a turkey burger with Thanksgiving stuffing and cranberry sauce. Alas, such diversions can’t deter gourmands like us. Their cheeseburger disappoints, the fancy buns and thick patties difficult to eat without the fixin’s. Even The Pilgrim was lackluster. On top of everything, their speakers were so bass heavy that Joe couldn’t recognize Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” when it started playing. And Joe loves that song. Grade: Rock solid C-
Mr. Bartley’s: Bartley’s is a Cambridge institution that imitates Boston’s loud, dingy bar vibe, and does it so well that the amount of kitsch in the decor and burger names began to give me an actual headache (or maybe that was all the meat I had eaten that day). Luckily, the burgers make up for that and nicely complement the atmosphere. After sampling four other burgers in the previous few hours, it is impressive the degree to which Mr. Bartley’s burgers wooed me. The patties are juicy and genuine, and the cheese leans delightfully closer to cheddar than to standard yellow American. Despite their steeper prices, Mr. Bartley’s is a worthwhile stop on any burger tour. Grade: Groovy B+
Cat McCarrey
The Bio: Cat McCarrey writes about movies and television for Muse. Everything she knows about cherry pie she learned from the first season of “Twin Peaks.” She’s made it all the way through “Julie & Julia” twice, so you might as well call her a food expert. Cat is essentially the human embodiment of a pickle.
UBurger: Is this meat? It looks like a hamburger patty; the texture is sending a signal to my brain screaming, “HAMBURGER!” But the actual flavor sensation? I’m getting nothing. There’s no taste here. Same goes for the cheese, but isn’t that the design of American cheese in general? It’s the ultimate cheeseburger cheese, but it doesn’t have a taste. It’s just gelatinous goo meant to convey the illusion of melted cheese. It works – it’s goopy and melty and awesome, but it doesn’t bowl over my taste buds. Combine that with the sad shredded lettuce and the bland bun, and you’ve got a lackluster sandwich. Any points granted are for the secret sauce. Overall, UBurger is a slightly dressed up Big Mac. At least the fries are thin and delicious. They’re pre-salted In-N-Out fries. They’re happy. They’re gone too quickly. Grade: B-
Tasty Burger: You guys. There’s a pickle on this burger that bumps the entire ensemble up three notches. It’s got the perfect zip to counteract the rich meaty meat and the smooth cheesy cheese. The patty has a great char and the dimension of crumbliness that any good backyard barbeque burger should have. The sauce is more stripped down than UBurger’s sauce – just standard fry sauce on a burger. It’s all part of the clean, basic burger elements: juicy tomatoes, a solid leaf of lettuce, chopped up onions sprinkled on (so much better than plain white rings on top of the burger). Instead of becoming a mash that hints at the impression of a cheeseburger, this is the real deal. Also, I’m pretty sure the fries were made in peanut oil, so they’re extra sharp and tasty. To eat this cheeseburger in the cold parking lot by the stand is to touch Burger Heaven. Grade: A
Boston Burger Company: Everything about Boston Burger Company oozes of the try-hard. The place was too crowded, thanks to an illogically narrow floor plan. The music was deafening, thanks to poor level mixing that made the ‘90s tunes all bass and no ambience. And the burgers were underwhelming, thanks to a reliance on gimmicks instead of good food. The Pilgrim, a turkey burger with Thanksgiving fixings, had a pretty smooth cranberry sauce mix, but skimped on the stuffing. And when is a turkey burger ever satisfying? Ground turkey just feels wrong, leaving a slight unease on the tip of the tongue and the pit of the stomach. The regular burger, on the other hand, I couldn’t finish – greasy pebbles instead of meat and slippery toppings on collapsible buns that were more air than bread. I did dig the fries, which were giant crinkly potato wedges that summoned instant nostalgia for childhood days spent feasting on convenience store fried chicken and just that kind of fluffy potato. Grade: C-
Mr. Bartley’s: The retro-themed décor and overall clutter make this place homey, manic and exactly the kind of institution that warrants at least one visit. The fries are Burger King fries — bland thawed morsel — so skip those. Go straight to the juicy, elaborately-and-often-politically-named burgers. The no-frills bacon cheeseburger was solid, with crispy bacon and no detractions from the lack of toppings or condiments. But sweet mercy, The Fiscal Cliff. Just the right amount of creamy blue cheese, and the mistakenly-charred burger was actually fantastic (Go meat! Real meat!). Bonus: it came with onion rings. Thinly cut with a non-greasy batter. Recommend. Grade: B+
Joe Incollingo
The Bio: Joe Incollingo is the Muse Film/TV subhead at The Daily Free Press. He has no business writing about food, although Alton Brown sometimes visits him in the night and whispers food science and sweet nothings in his ear.
UBurger: Ultimately forgettable. UBurger slings a tasty sandwich, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had comparable flavors (at better prices) across Kenmore Square at the shady McDonald’s. I could get fired for saying this, but I count the shredded lettuce (only found here on the tour) as a plus; it makes what would have been a stale, wet crunch into something subtler. The meat and the sauce, though, are nothing anybody can’t do better. Grade: Hard B. McAverage.
Tasty Burger: I don’t know what it does differently, but Tasty Burger does it. The Big Tasty, your best bet in the “classic” department, hits every mark: milky-sharp American cheese, an appropriately tart Thousand Island-type concoction (the experts call it fry sauce?), a succulent beef patty that soaks the bottom bun into oblivion. The pickles were a bit bitter for me, but I think they complemented the fatty, fatty meat. Overall, this is where I’ll always come for a burger. (If you’re feeling fancy, go for the Kona or Rise and Shine burgers.) Grade: A
Boston Burger Company: Dude, Tasty is only a five-minute walk away. Don’t let the pictures seduce you; the novelty of having bread stuffing and cranberry mayo or mozzarella sticks on your burger will wear off as soon as you take the first bite. I’m not a professional, but I do dabble in cooking, and I’m pretty sure a good lean-fat ratio for burgers is 80-to-20, not the other way around. The burgers fail, but I’ll give extra credit to the Carolina vinegar beans and the 1990s grunge radio. Grade: Chalk it up to D+, and save your money and your tummy.
Mr. Bartley’s: For what it’s worth, this place is a Boston staple and you probably should give it at least a visit. The good news is, it’s not a bad place to grab dinner. They do the BoBurCo shtick and get weird with toppings, but they do it with better ingredients (albeit cooked funny – “medium” is a very loose term here) and an atmosphere that’s probably the most fun we saw. Grade: B+
