Gott's Roadside / San Francisco

But the sauce…

This place is nestled within the Ferry Building Marketplace, which fells like a cross between Borough Market and the arty-farty food court at Stratford Westfield. Only more awesome. Than both. See #AmericansDoItBetter. It has a canteen/trendy bar/workshop vibe about it, which works since it does indeed manage to be both trendy and comfortable at the same time.

I like that they are attempting to blur the line between the restaurant burger and the fast food burger here - It was pretty quick to arrive and looked great, the yellow colouring of the bun innards popping on first glance.

It was a solid effort. A well cooked patty and wicked gooey American cheese with all the necessary extras. But the sauce… well, the sauce just added a *meh* factor.

Yeah, most ‘special sauces’ have their basis in a version of Thousand Island. But, don’t just use Thousand Island, which it tasted like Gott’s did. Maybe I’m being harsh and they do create their own sauce, but it’s so uncannily Thou’land that it just detracted from the positives of the rest of the burger.

I’d go back to try their other offerings, and their bacon cheeseburger, because it’s such a neat place, in a really neat place.

gotts.com

• Rob.

Cafe 222 / San Diego, CA

It’s a hard knock yolk

In the past, I’ve always been ‘You CANNOT get a bad Eggs Benedict in the states esse’ (Yup, just like that). Well, you can scratch that now, I found a place.

Having found some good reviews of Café 222, we wandered for way longer than our hangovers desired to check it out. We were both in a Benedict mood so I had the pork patty version, whilst my compadre had the standard.

It was a less than overwhelming sight when it arrived. The hollandaise looked like it had separated a bit on both our plates, leaving speckles of melted butter floating around. It tasted like it looked, heavy and buttery. And when I cut into the eggs, the yolks were hard. I was like, this must be a mistake, but my friend cut into his and.. the same. Who cooks the yolks to solid in a fucking Benny?! The griddled potatoes were ok, but not enough of a saving grace for that travesty.

This place had won some gold medallion food award SIX years in a row? Fuck that shit.

Luckily, we also ordered a much-lauded-on-the-interwebs waffle. Our choice was the stuffed granola, and it was great. The chunks of granola intermingled with the waffle batter was a novel touch, and tasty as with heaps of maple syrup poured over. Now *there* was the saving grace we’d been looking for. If I’d’ve just had the Benny, I’d’ve been pissed.

cafe222.com

• Rob.

Slammin' Sliders Truck / Los Angeles, CA

“I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title…”

Sadly, the story of where I had to go to find this truck is *far* more interesting than the food that came from it: I found myself on USC’s Fraternity Row during some mental party night. Not only did I feel like a weird, peckish paedophile - trying not to look at any of the scantily clad sorority girls walking from frat house to frat house. But simultaneously, I felt like I was in some irreverent college film, so familiar did the surroundings feel to my moviephile self. Odd.

The beef sliders were distinctly unimpressive.

Uncondimented.

After adding some ketchup to them they tasted almost identical to McDonald’s cheeseburgers, just with slightly better meat - not necessarily a bad thing, I like the way they taste, but I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title.

The pork sliders looked great, but the pork was really dry, with no BBQ sauce to accompany it. The slaw, whilst a colourful spectacle, tasted like crunchy-but-watery mayo and failed to moisten the pork.

In their defence, I did catch the place just as it was about to close, so maybe I didn’t get the freshest peak-time fare, but it turned me off going back there, and left me thinking that a good slider is always hard to find, even in the States.

slamminsliders.com

• Rob.

Henry's Tavern / Portland, OR

Points go to this Bar-cum-Craft Beer Mecca-cum-Restaurant for having a Happy Hour that runs from 9 till close pretty much every night, and for putting a burger on their Happy Hour menu. We were slightly hesitant as the place looked a touch on the expensive side, but we were flipping starving and so pleased to see the Happy Hour Cheeseburger come in at a very budget-conscious six bucks.

The burger wasn’t too shabby - it was a good size, if a little dry due to condiment shyness. The plentiful cheddar complimented the onion bun really well creating a pretty good flavour combo. I mean, cheese and onion, who’d’ve thunk it?

I wolfed it down. I then spent some quality time with some of the local Oregon beer offerings, of which there are maaaaaany. I recommend the Widmer Drifter.

Henry’s Tavern

• Rob.