Burgers! Burgers! Burgers!

Those of you who know me, you know what I like. A good NFL Sunday at home, a nice crisp beer on a sunny day, a smoky glass of scotch on a cold night, Mexican food any time, and every now and then, a good ol' hamburger.

In a heated discussion over the best burgers we've ever eaten, my good friend Sam Diablo thought it a great idea that I blog on my thoughts about hamburgers. So I'm going to do it. Specifically, I'm going to tell you about the five best hamburgers I've ever had.

A Note to the Wise: Every hamburger eater is different, and I respect that. We all have different wants, needs, likes and dislikes when it comes to what's on the plate and between the buns. So think what you will about my choices here, but that is just what they are--MY choices, fueled and motivated by a lifetime of eating rather mundane, boring, overly ambitious or just plain shitty hamburgers, in my opinion. With that, we'll get on with it.

A truly good hamburger needs to score highly on three fronts: ingredients, execution, and, to borrow a phrase from Fiji Water, "mouth feel." A good side doesn't hurt, but we're here to talk about burgers, not the entire meal.

Personally, on ingredients, I like a high-quality, probably ridiculously fatty beef like Kobe (Angus is fine too). Plain ol' chuck just doesn't do it for me. Although I am no cheese connoisseur, I do like a nice cheese on my beef--an aged Vermont cheddar, a sharp, salty blue, or something similarly bold and noticeable. For toppings, I am generally agnostic. The only reason I want toppings is to add a small variation in taste, texture and temperature to offset the beef and cheese (like a crisp sliver of onion or tomato or pickle or of course, a couple slices of bacon). Condiments, again, I'm pretty ok with a lot of stuff--plain ol' mayo, mustard and ketchup is fantastic. This is generally where restaurants get derailed--they throw some ill-conceived garlic aioli or IPA-infused chipotle habanero (insert culinary buzzword) mustard on there that ends up overpowering everything else. The condiment should simply be what the word is intended to mean--an enhancer, not a feature. Not that I'm against fancy mustards, but it should be subtle, not in my face. Finally, there's the bread. Here is where I'm surprised to say a ton of places go horribly wrong. Some places offer a "burger" on "five-grain bread" which is basically sliced bread like you get at the store. To me, this is a flat cooktop and a couple Roll Tide shirts away from being a "Patty Melt" at the "Waffle House." Ok? THIS IS NOT A BURGER. Others will serve a burger on the impenetrable-by-teeth ciabatta bread. Again, get the f*ck out of here. If I literally have to recruit my neck muscles to help tear bread away from itself, it's game over. For my money, the bread needs to be a roll or bun, not sliced bread; it also needs to be soft--I don't want to have to bite so hard into the bun that everything inside slips out the other end while I still haven't made a dent in the bread. Brioche bread, now that's nice.

Even when some restaurants get the ingredients right, the execution falls flat. Perhaps the veggies are so wet that the whole thing becomes a soggy mess, or the secret sauce is slathered on so sloppily it's impossible to eat without putting your shirt cuffs at risk. Eating the burger should be a seamless process. A bite should be cleanly taken from the burger while leaving the rest intact. Anything less is extremely annoying and all too common. Also, done-ness is something that restaurants more often get wrong than they get right. If I order my burger medium, there should be pink in the middle and the burger should be hot. It shouldn't be red and cold in the middle surrounded by a millimeter of gray. While I'm aware that I eat and love meat, I don't need to be reminded that this thing was once bleeding and apparently, still is. Even if they get the meat right, some places eff up on the veggies. I don't need a tomato with a whitish-green center on my burger. Please, give me a nice, ripe, soft, flavorful tomato! Is that so much to ask? Easy fixes, people!

Finally, the be-all and end-all of tests, the mouth feel. This concept involves the "experience" of eating the burger. This blogger's opinion is that a bite into a burger should be effortless--your teeth should sink easily into the bread and beyond and meet gloriously in the slightly pink center. No need to tear away with my teeth, no worrying about the burger shitting ingredients out the other end. No ingredient should stand out too much, but all of them should harmonize in a well-conducted symphony of flavor featuring the beef (did I just make a classical music reference while writing about eating a piece of beef? Why yes, yes I did!). Soft, melty, uniform feel anchored by the beef and highlighted by distinct notes of every flavor that has gone in-- as with a Christmas tree and its ornaments, the beef should be decorated but not lost in the act (seasonal metaphor, check!). And if the burger is a good one, the bites-within-the-bite should be multidimensional. "Whoa! I just got a little bit of pickle. Whoa! There's the sharp vermont cheddar! OOH! BACON!" Each bite should not feel like work followed by reconstruction and re-positioning of the bun, patty, lettuce, bacon, etc. Rather, each bite should be an invitation to come again. The burger should remain intact--one shouldn't feel compelled to hold the burger the entire meal for fear it will disintegrate; rather, one should comfortably be able to set the burger down, trust that it will not fall apart, and have a french fry and a swig of beer. Self-contained, well-crafted burgers are a thing of beauty. And these are the few that have topped my list:

#5. Tie: Cheeseburger - Five Guys Burgers and Fries; SuperSonic Double Cheeseburger - Sonic, America's Drive-In

What? You thought TheRanga was above putting fast-food burgers in his top five? Well think again! While the average person with my education scoffs at America's fast food culture, I embrace it. Nay, I LOVE it. And there's nothing like a good old-fashioned, plain-vanilla cheeseburger that just feels and tastes like baseball, pickup trucks and dirty blue jeans. Five Guys gets major points for eliciting a smoky "cookout" flavor in its burgers with surprisingly fresh toppings. Sonic gets props for crafting a nearly perfect burger by all three of my litmus tests.

#4. The Melvyn - Melvyn's Restaurant, Monroe, LA

I had this burger just once in my entire life, and it makes the list simply because I remember it. I ate it in 1991 after a soccer game and still remember it like it was last week. Melvyn's is a little greasy spoon in my hometown--a dimly lit, fully carpeted dive replete with an old-fashioned jukebox, duct-tape enhanced barstools and low-hanging pool table lights shrouded in cigarette smoke and racism. When you eat at Melvyn's, your food comes in a styrofoam box. In my styrofoam box was one of the greasiest, most beautiful  sights TheLittleRanga had ever beheld. I actually remember a small pool of grease collecting in the corner of the box, because yes, I dipped my fries in that grease. A legitimately HUGE piece of beef, kind of crispy on the outside but beautifully soft on the inside, accompanied by condiments that perfectly matched the patty--a HUGE tomato and a HUGE bun and a HUGE piece of cheddar cheese. Of course, I was in third grade and probably weighed 55 lbs, so there may be a scaling issue at play here. But this was one well-crafted burger that still endures, even though this fine establishment does not.

#3. NY Steakhouse Burger - Prime 16, New Haven, CT

This comes extremely close to my idea of the perfect burger. 8 oz. of quality beef topped with bleu cheese, wilted spinach, fried onion strings and two crisp, tangy pickles. Where it misses: I'd love some hint of a sweet  sauce to complement the whole thing, like a jam/compote and perhaps some bacon; also, consistency is an issue at Prime 16, where the burger sometimes ends up a bit dry--I've had this burger probably five times, and only twice has it blown me away. However, when done right, it's glorious and rivals #1 on this list.

#2. FO Burger - Father's Office, Los Angeles, CA

This burger helped solidify my entire philosophy on what makes a good burger. Father's Office is so cock-sure that they got it right, they won't even let you make changes to their burger (or any food, for that matter; maybe it's arrogance, rather than cock-sureness). Anyway, while most of L.A. is up in arms about their rigidity, I'm fully on board. I think they use Kobe beef, but I could be wrong. They garnish it with bleu cheese, caramelized onions, crisp arugula, and some sort of secret sauce that perfectly answers the taste buds' call for something sweet. This burger is so glorious and easy to eat that when you're done, you forgot where the time went. This burger made such an impression on me that TheWife, a vegetarian who thrives on audibles when ordering food, took me there for my bday. I love you, TheWife.

#1. Backdraft Burger - The Wing Dome, Kirkland, WA

The last place I would expect to find a burger that tastes this good is at a place that specializes in wings. This one wins on the concept alone, because the concept is fantastic. Kobe beef, wing sauce, bleu cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion and that's about it. This one is not clean and drips all over the place, but I'm willing to look past that because it tastes unbelievable. I think the human body is only capable of taking this one down once a year, so plan carefully.  Along with the extra crispy waffle fries that the Wing Dome serves up, this one is a 100% winner and my choice for best burger ever.