The Peter Luger Cheeseburger

So the NY Times has a burger of the month club and the judges go out every Monday and try burgers from all over the city. Then they rank them and share that knowledge with everyone who wants to know where the best burgers are.

My husband has been on the best burger quest for about two years now. It's kind of ridiculous actually. But he once told me that one of his favorites was the burger at Peter Luger. (Which coincidentally is ranked #1 on the NY Times as well). The thing is, you can only get the burger at lunch and who the hell has time to go to Williamsburg for a burger at lunch time? You like need the day off for something like that! Well, recently we did have the day off and we took our journey over the Williamsburg bridge for a meaty lunch. We had our friends Terence and Brandi with us too. Terence has been a vegetarian for as long as I've known him and he just recently started eating meat. This was quite a memorable lunch!

Ok, let's talk about this burger. We all ordered the burger with cheese. You can get it with bacon, but we didn't opt for it. When it came out to the table it looked really plain. A burger on a plain bun with cheese and red onion. There was no ketchup or mustard or tomato or lettuce - none of that! It was almost like Peter Luger's was saying, "We only care to do one thing right and not dress it up with condiments!"

Did it hold up? Well, yes and no. The meat is undeniable - the best hamburger patty I've ever had. The patty reminded me of something my dad would make on the backyard grill - a giant ball of meat (but not grilled to death)! It's not a thin patty and with the bug bun it's served on it's kind of too big for your mouth, but it is super juicy and salty and just absolutely delicious. The cheese was good too - it was just the right amount and slightly melted.

But here are my gripes: aside from it being so big, the meat soaked the bottom bun up so much with grease that the bun practically fell apart. I had grease running down my hands at every bite. We actually had a debate at the table about hamburger buns and we realized that they are made backwards. The bigger part of the bun should be at the bottom (to capture all the meat juices as you take continuous bite after bite) and the smaller part of the bun should be at the top (just there to give your fingers something to rest on). I swear I need to copyright this bun idea. Also, my other gripe was that it was just too much after awhile. I needed the veggies to balance this burger out.

Overall I would still rate it as good, but it's not my perfect burger. That joint lives at The Breslin and he's made out of lamb. But that's another story...