Kansas City, MO: Blanc Burgers + Bottle's Classic and Au Poivre Burgers

Editors note:  I am honored to present the first guest post ever here on burgatory.com.  Penned by good friend and world-class BBQer, baker, chef and eater, Jim Caccamo, this post is guaranteed to make your mouth water and have you running to a map to figure out exactly where Missouri is (we know it’s there somewhere – in the middle, right?).  Look for Jim’s own blog about Technology & Ethics kicking off later this fall.

419 Westport Rd

Kansas City, MO 64111

Get Directions

(816) 931-6200

Beef In a Pork Town

I’ve spent the past twenty years living in beef towns. Chicago, with its Vienna Beef dogs, and Philadelphia, with its devotion to the Cheese Steak, certainly have their charms. But I grew up in the land of bar-b-que–Kansas City, Missouri. Now, I don’t know much about my new home here on the east coast, but what I do know is that few people from Philly know much about my home town. For most people around here, KC is one of those generic places in the thousand mile “flyover zone” between here and the west coast. If people have a sense of it, they think of it as a cow town.

Of course, it’s not a cow town. When I was growing up, it had a population of more than 2.5 million people. The stockyards had long given way to 4 professional sports teams, ballet, opera, and world class art museums. That, and we ate pork, not beef. Bar-b-que, to be specific. There were some good burger places, no doubt. Winstead’s made thin, melt in your mouth burgers. Town Topic did the perfect all-night-diner burger. But Kansas City was a bar-b-que town, with pork ribs at the top of the luscious hickory-smoked, mopped, and rubbed heap.

Today, the city’s food landscape has changed. Don’t get me wrong, bar-b-que is still king. But the city has undergone a dining-out revolution, and now there is a veritable royal family of great restaurants that serve excellent contemporary American cuisine, local favorites, and foods from around the world.

Into this mix comes Blanc Burgers + Bottles, a burger place in the Westport neighborhood that opened in 2006. Blanc is an independent boutique-burger restaurant that focuses on quality. Their menu is trim, focusing on burgers, fries, and beers. The beer selection is great, with a variety that is balanced between local, national, and international microbrews. They do a few appetizers and some great “adult” milkshakes (see later).

But the focus here is the burger. Their beef burgers are half-pounders made from a custom blend of tenderloin, ribeye and NY strip steak. They are going for the taste jugular. The buns are baked daily at a local bakery. They make their own pickles. They do hand cut fries and sweet potato fries, and local brew Boulevard Pale Ale battered onion rings. To top the fries, they make their own ketchup, whole grain mustard, and chipotle aioli, all of which are vibrant and flavorful. They do offer bison, pork, turkey, mahi mahi, and lentil burgers, but I didn’t try them, so I can’t help you there.

Burger Geek: Whole Food's Releases iPhone App Featuring Burger Recipes

As much as I love iBurger (and the hilarious sounds my daughter makes while playing it) I haven’t found a truly useful burger app for the iPhone (note to self – get off high horse and invent truly useful burger app for iPhone). To the rescue comes a new app from foodie grocery chain Whole Foods featuring a full slate of burger recipes presented in a truly slick interface.

Over 25 burger recipes are featured ranging from the uber-healthy (beef and bulgur burgers) to the truly decadent (stuffed burgers with gorgonzola and smoky bacon).

Nutritional info is provided (and thankfully placed strategically so it is easy to ignore) as are diet keys which help point you to offerings that may/may not fit into your diet (you’ll be happy to know that Sliders are good for those who are “sugar conscious”).

One of the best features (though not burger specific) is called “On Hand” which allows you to type in up to 3 ingredients you have “on hand” and then suggests recipes in the library based on that.  Pretty handy to have when you are scraping the refrigerator bottom before shopping day.

We’ll be testing out the slider recipe soon and probably checking in on the app while out shopping to see what we can create.

Whole Foods annual “Buck A Burger” sale ends tomorrow (July 7th) I think.  We loaded up and cooked off some of their bacon and blue cheese burgers for lunch yesterday (tweet – Rounding out a weird weekend with some Bacon & Blue Cheese burgers from Whole Foods Buck A Burger sale. http://twitpic.com/9eezw10:41 AM Jul 5th from TweetDeck ) – pretty tasty.

ps:  If you are a budding iPhone app designer and are interested in helping create the burgatory iPhone app (and enjoy working for free) drop me a line…we actually do have a neat idea!

Burger Legends: Where’s Herb Now? Burgatory.com’s Interview with Jon Menick (Pt. 2)

Read pt. 1 here

“Bald guys like me don’t get famous, we’re just happy to get work.”

Fresh from the road playing the role of Elwood P. Dowd as part of the touring company for Mary Chase’s Harvey, Jon Menick’s agent arranged an audition for “something.”  The intentional ambiguity of the agent’s statement would portend a lot of the secrecy which surrounded this second part of the campaign.  With so much on the line (money-wise), finding an unknown actor and then keeping his identity a secret until the right time was critical.  Menick’s acting ability and lack of national presence helped him secure the role of Herb, and Menick shared with me some of the planning that went into fleshing out his character.

Home Cookin': The Burger Explosion

More than a little hat tip to the gents over at BBQ Addicts whose invention, the “Bacon Explosion,” was the creative jumping off point for this monstrosity.

No shot of getting this thing in the New York Times, but my concerns (and those of our crew of culinarily curious friends) were in getting this in our bellies.  The idea just seemed like the logical next step and although it took about 3 hours start to finish, it is more than worthwhile trying it out at home for your next get together.  This one is guaranteed to stop people in their tracks.  As always, I will note that I am not a professional chef and though these directions worked for me, they may not work well for you.  This recipe is fairly forgiving so as long as you are certain to cook these beauties all the way through I can see little danger in making a minor misstep (and tons of upside in creating your own variations).

I actually made a Bacon Explosion alongside the Burger Explosion for comparison’s sake.  The recipe for the “Bacon Explosion” which is packed with pork sausage is best picked up at BBQ Addicts, though I will note that I tweaked that recipe a little, swapping out the bbq rub for a home spun mixture of salt, pepper and rosemary.  The rosemary worked out very well.

Burger Explosion (serves 8-10)

1lb 80/20 ground beef

4 slices of white American cheese

9 slices thick cut bacon

3 slices of regular bacon

1 butt of whole grain bread – toasted

1 large egg

2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce

1/3 cup BBQ sauce (any kind will do)

Step 1 – Fry up the 3 slices of regular bacon on a griddle as you would for morning breakfast, when done remove from griddle and pat dry (don’t worry about getting too much grease off, this ain’t health food!)

Step 2 – Take the butt end of the whole grain bread and sop up the rendered bacon fat from the griddle.

Step 3 – Place the bread into a food processor and whir it up for a few seconds to make breadcrumbs (yes, even the breadcrumbs are gonna taste like bacon!).

Step 4 – Put your ground beef, egg, oyster sauce and 3 tablespoons of the bacon-y breadcrumbs into a bowl and mix thoroughly by hand.

Step 5 – Make a 4×5 lattice pattern with the bacon (this may be the most fun part of the recipe)

Bryn Mawr, PA: Hospital Cafeteria Cheeseburger

Bryn Mawr Hospital Cafeteria

130 S Bryn Mawr Ave

Bryn Mawr, PA

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Babies don’t come out in real life as fast as they do on TV, so with a few minutes of time on my hands in between contractions, an epidural and the blessed event I figured I’d post about the cuisine here at Bryn Mawr Hospital.  This being a hospital and all I was a wee bit concerned about the offerings in the cafeteria (would it be nothing but healthy stuff?), but clearly they are catering to a wide audience with their extensive offerings (salad bar ->nachos bar -> deli sandwiches -> pastries).

Was very happy to see (4) burger options on the menu, advertised as fresh from the grille sirloin.  I opted for the cheeseburger (white American), and as you can see from the above it came wrapped a la your typical fast food burger.  A self-serve toppings bar was available with some bright red tomatoes, shredded lettuce, sliced onions, pickles and bacon as options.  I actually skipped over the bacon (just seemed odd in a hospital – bacon will probably bring me back here sometime soon enough) and loaded up with a few tomato slices.

End product was about 1/3 lb (maybe even closer to 1/2 lb) cooked medium + all the way through and was served on a decent quality kaiser roll.  With some ketchup and mustard this baby doctored up to be pretty decent with a very strong beef taste.   No doubt this was a Sysco or similar food service burger, frozen until just recently but prepared well for the lunch time rush.

Wife can’t eat anything but ice chips and freeze pops (and nurse wondered what the smell was in the room in a manner that clearly said “who the heck is eating fast food in here!”) so I couldn’t get another opinion on this but it might be the real deal.  Not sure how many folks would stop by here for a casual lunch, but if this labor continues any longer (nurse mentioned someone in labor for 3 days…) I might convene a meeting of other burger lovers for further sampling.

Thanks for all of the well wishes to date (have been posting some on Twitter though promised wife I would not “live Tweet” the birth).  The world will welcome another burger lover very soon.

UPDATE:  More burgers will have to wait…he’s here!

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Attack Of The Leftovers: The Haroset Burger

Post holiday weekend and we’ve got an impenetrable wall of leftovers in the fridge from Saturday’s Passover Seder and Sunday’s Easter dinner.  Tons of great food prepared by family and friends and lots of late night snacking and experimenting opportunities.

This burger was pretty much inevitable after the first bite of haroset at the Seder.  On the Seder Plate haroset represents the mortar which the slaves used to build the pyramids in Egypt.  The almost too simple recipe of chopped apples, nuts and wine is available everywhere on the web (see here, here and here) and is ideally prepared by your mother/grandmother.  The version we had was just on the happy side of “too sweet” and as used here was the perfect burger topping.

The burger itself was an 80/20 mix of ground chuck and was produced using “The Great Burger” recipe from John Torode’s new book “Beef and other bovine matters.”   The secret to Torode’s recipe (and how these burgers are served at his Smiths of Smithfield restaurant in London) is his use of Chinese oyster sauce instead of salt.  His theory that salt dries out the burger too much and that this side-effect outweighs the benefits of the taste it imparts is an interesting one and I have to say I kind of agree.  We grilled the burgers and I purposely left one patty on to the point of overdoneness and it was still juicy.  More side-by-side tests are necessary, but I’m willing to buy into the logic.  The oyster sauce doesn’t overpower the burger either.  In the end it was much more subtle then the sniff from the bottle might have suggested.

At this point I am not sick of matzo…that will come soon enough though.  Sadly, as anyone who has eaten a Hillel sandwich knows, matzo is not the best sandwich delivery vehicle, but even as it crumbled to bits with the first bite it remained the only logical choice for this burger and the rare bites that did include burger, haroset and matzo were perfect.

Our pantry will be filled with matzo for months (do they sell it in anything but 5 lb. boxes?) so this dish will pop up again in our house very soon…just have to make more haroset but that is easy and is a great use for any leftover wine you might have laying about.

By the way, the perfect beverage for this burger is of course Passover Coke.  The local Genuardi’s supply was waning considerably the other day…load up while you can!

Next up is an Easter burger with cabbage roll topping on a potato roll!  Stay tuned.

Daddy, where do burger blogs come from?

A strange confluence of events this evening as I was getting ready to do some maintenance on the blog.  I took a look down at the website hit counter and noticed that it had crossed the 9,000 mark en route to 10,000 (and maybe more).  I had kind of told myself that when we hit 10,000 I’d feel this experiment was a success.  It got me thinking about how this blog started and then a ping came from the mail program and my Google Alerts set for “burgers” showed a story (1,2) about Beef Burger in Greensboro, NC…which in actuality is how this whole blog started.

While late night websurfing a few years ago I came across a  website dedicated to a burger chain called “Biff Burger.”  This site stunned me in its simplicity and the depth of information it held on this burger chain from the history books and started me thinking how many other stories were out there.  Fast forward a bit and sites like A Hamburger Today and the site/book Hamburger America pretty much fill the niche for this type of info, but I thought there were probably a few stories that could be told and so I set up shop @ burgatory.com to tell them, toss out recipes, report burger news and generally learn how blogging works from the back-end.

Each summer we load up the family truckster and hit the open road searching for hole-in-the-wall burger joints and salt-air beaten clam shacks.  Last summer we pointed the car towards Greensboro, NC to visit “Beef Burger,” one of two remaining locations of the original “Biff Burger” chain.  I’ve been sitting on this post for ages due to lack of inspiration, but the fact that the pictured burger can be yours today and tomorrow for a mere $0.59 is reason to pull it out of the draft folder and send it live to offer my opinion.

Beef Burger

1040 W Lee St
Greensboro, NC 27403
(336) 272-7505

A while back I stumbled upon a website dedicated to a burger chain called “Biff Burger.” After years of driving past one of the last outposts of this chain on the way to college I searched for info in hopes of planning a trip and sadly found out that the restaurant had by then closed. And, with its closure, the Biff Burger chain was down to only two locations (one in St. Petersburg, FL still using the Biff Burger moniker and one in Greensboro, NC now called “Beef Burger.”) Having blown the opportunity to enjoy a burger at a location within reasonable driving distance from home I vowed to get to one of the two remaining restaurants when the opportunity presented itself…and thus the itinerary for this year’s burger vacation was set…we’d make our way to North Carolina.

Located in an industrial section of town, across the railroad tracks from UNC-Greensboro’s campus (and home of the ridiculously great hot dog and ice cream joint Yum Yum), Beef Burger still draws in the crowds.  Polite and orderly, folks line up inside the tiny lobby which no doubt was outdoors at some point (and thus much less claustrophobic) and feast on traditional American roadfood fare.

I ordered the SuperBurger combo with a Cheerwine (yet another reason why the South rocks -from a culinary standpoint) and settled into a formica booth to enjoy the fruits of the laborious drive (Philly to NC via Pittsburgh/West Virginia).  By sheer will alone that burger had to taste good, and it did.

As C. Catherman notes on his tribute site, Beef (ne Biff) Burger’s signature feature, the Roto-Broiler:

…was an ingenious specially designed broiler which gave Biff-Burger the leading edge over many other Drive-Ins during the day in which fast-food hamburgers were common. But the burgers at Biff-Burgers weren’t just your “ordinary” hamburger. The burgers at Biffs had a unique char-broiled taste which were unlike any other. Every original Biff-Burger sign, regardless of design used, indicated “Roto Broiled”. The “roto-broiled” process was indeed Biff-Burgers signature to fame and the reason why so many people enjoyed their burgers!

With the gift of hindsight I must honestly admit that the burger was nothing earth shattering.  It didn’t rise to the top of my own personal list of best tasting burgers, though the thrill of the chase more than made up for that.  The broiler certainly helped provide a unique flavor to the burgers and I can see why Mr. Catherman and hundreds of others are still partial to this cooking method.

The carousel of meat effect was pretty amusing and my daughter and I stared at it for a while before she made her way outside to the coin-op human version on the sidewalk (that is her in the corner of the pic).  The lower level of tis ingenious machine toasted the buns and that was a plus, too!  Brought together in a styrofoam container with a decent side of fries and the aforementioned sugar-shock inducing soda, this was burger escapism at its best.  A real retro experience worth searching out, even hundreds of miles away.

If you want to learn more about Biff Burger/Beef Burger, I implore you to check out C. Catherman’s site.  He truly has a love for the history of the chain, a keen eye for detail and a photographic memory about his experiences at the restaurant.

As we get closer to 10,000 hits (I know – not much for a real website, but heck…my mom would be proud if I took the time to explain to her what a blog was) I will dig out and repost some of the old stuff that I am particularly proud of and finally (I hope) finish a story I have been working on for a few months about the greatest hamburger icon of the 20th Century (seriously)!  Thanks.

Burgatory.com's Behind The Music: Interview with Dean Friedman ("McDonald's Girl")

“If you are what you eat, then I’m a hamburger.” – Dean Friedman

In 1980, on the heels of several hit songs (“Ariel” US Charts #26 in 1977, “Lucky Stars” UK Charts #3 in 1978), Dean Friedman penned an ode to those most crush-worthy of women, the girls who serve you your fast food.

Take yourself back to that simpler time when your folks sent you out of the house for the afternoon with a couple of bucks and you headed straight for a fast food joint.  Hormonal and giggly and poised to eat greasy fast food, shy boys everywhere had to combat one of their greatest fears…talking to a girl who just happens to be the cashier at the Golden Arches.  Friedman’s song,” McDonald’s Girl” transcended the novelty of its title by delivering saccharine sweet vocals over lines any teenage boy could identify with.

I count my money and then I rehearse what I’m gonna say.

“I’d like an order of fries, a quarter pounder with cheese,

I love the light in your eyes.  Will you go out with me please?”

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Like many people, my introduction to “McDonald’s Girl” and ultimately Dean Friedman was via the Canadian rock band The Barenaked Ladies.  Long a staple of their live shows, they recorded it only once for Canadian radio station CFNY, but plenty of versions have circulated as bootlegs…here is one (note it was usually performed as a cover with another cover song tucked inside…bonus points if you know the band/song!)

McDonald’s Girl- Cover version by Barenaked Ladies (audio via youtube)

Friedman’s tune continues to be covered, most notably in 2000 by The Blenders who took the song all the way to #1 on Norway’s pop music charts, but also by a capella groups and bedroom guitarists.

Today, Dean Friedman is a true renaissance man, having carved a nice career for himself in the worlds of music, TV, video-game design and writing.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I caught up with Dean for a truly entertaining chat about “McDonald’s Girl” and, what else, burgers.

Dean shared a great story about working at the historic Palisades Park, manning the grill at the park’s burger stand “Harry’s Hamburgers.”  With a forged birth certificate, the then 13 year old Friedman moved up the amusement park ladder from the Penny Arcade to the famous burger stand where he revealed a little known sales secret.  Before the park opened he and his coworkers would load up the grill with burgers and then close all of the vents, creating a massive cloud of delicious, burger scented smoke which would rush out of the burger stand when they opened the front windows…”smoke would billow out into the park so the first thing people entering would smell was Harry’s Hamburgers.”

Years after his time on the midway, Dean headed off to college in the Bronx at City College, where one of his professors was the legendary David Bromberg.  From the college cafeteria to the Burger King down the block from his apartment, Dean told me that “Burgers were a staple of my diet, they sustained me.”

Friedman’s career gathered traction after college and he began putting in time as a touring musician.  The life of a singer/songwriter on the road far from resembled the legendary antics of the touring rock bands of the time (I forgot to ask if he ever threw a TV in a swimming pool, but I am going to guess he didn’t).  “Life on the road was full of small rewards,” noted Friedman.  “A bacon deluxe cheeseburger post-gig” at a roadside diner between towns was routinely the payoff for a great gig and another day living the dream.

His 3rd album, Rumpled Romeo, was chock full of songs about love and yearning, and “McDonald’s Girl” married those themes together perfectly (with a side of fries).  The genesis for the song came when Friedman was 15 years old.  Living on a kibbutz in Israel for the summer, Friedman mingled with older kids who were doing their stint in the army like all Israeli citizens are required to do and he especially took notice of a particularly beautiful girl, fresh from training wearing a weapon over her shoulder and sporting a “tight fitting polyester uniform.”  That image, and a steady diet of late night burgers were spark enough for Friedman to write “(I Am In Love With The) McDonald’s Girl” with the lines:

I am in love with the McDonald’s Girl

She has the smile of innocence oh so tender and warm.

I am in love with the McDonald’s Girl

She is an angel in a polyester uniform.

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“McDonald’s Girl” was banned by the BBC for its overt mentions of a corporation (and unlike The Kinks “Lola”, which was re-recorded to swap out the words “Coca-Cola” for “Cherry Cola”, removing mention of “McDonald’s” from the song was impossible and thus it never received airplay in Britain where Dean had enjoyed a strong following.)  Unhappy with Friedman’s inability to deliver another radio hit (thanks to the songs censoring) he was dropped by his label.  Looking back on it now, this setback paved the way for Friedman to take his career and life in many different directions, eventually returning to recording an album again in 1998.

These days Friedman routinely plays sold-out tours in the US, UK and Ireland.   Asked about his current burger eating habits, “I can’t remember the last time I ate at McDonald’s, but I have a habit of buying frozen White Castle burgers which are good for desperate late night snacking.

Dean opens for Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks on April 10th at the Sellersville Theater in Sellersville, PA and plays his own show May 17th at The Turning Point in Piermont, NY.

Driving through upstate New York and need a burger, Dean recommends:

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Arnold’s Drive In
1805 E Main St
Mohegan Lake, NY 10547
(914) 528-7777

A take-off on the Happy Days eatery, this Arnold’s features roller skating car-hops and according to Dean “the most delicious burgers.”

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NY Firehouse Grille
50 Welcher Ave
Peekskill, NY 10566
(914) 788-0808

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Thanks to Dean for participating in this story.

File these videos under “guilty pleasures.”  If you are curious why Dean is compared favorably to 70’s/80’s contemporaries like Billy Joel, Paul Simon and Randy Newman go ahead and click.  The first is the original UK hit version and the second video is an interesting remix of the same song 25 years later.

Lucky Stars- Dean Friedman and Denise Marsa (1978)

Lucky Stars- Dean Friedman and Janaey Lee Grace (2003)

Burger Toys: Melissa & Doug Will Turn Your 3 Year Old Into A Burger Snob

Found this in my daughter’s play kitchen the other day…as best I can tell it is a double burger with tomato and egg (with the tomato in between two burger patties…pretty revolutionary!).  If this were available in a restaurant, I would order it!  Can you say “proud poppa”?

A few month’s back my daughter received the Melissa & Doug’s Wooden Sandwich Making Kit, which features a myriad of sandwich making options.  The folks at M&D must be burger fans because one of the “meat” options is clearly a hamburger (it even comes with a seeded burger bun) and most of the toppings work perfectly on burgers (in the real world).  Tomatoes, lettuce and pickles are joined by ham, egg and two different types of cheese to offer hundreds of options for imaginary play.

At 3 years old my daughter has already carved out some fairly sophisticated burger tastes, having been dragged (along with mom) to joints up and down the east coast.  From Shady Glen Dairy to Monk’s, Ted’s Steamed Cheeseburgers to Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, she’s seen and sampled some of the best burgers around, so watching her play with this set and create her own “dream burgers” gives me a bizarre sense of pride.  Thankfully mom is around to ply her with vegan/vegetarian food most of the time to avoid her truly taking after dad.

I can just see the Juno-inspired Hamburger Phone in her room when she is a teenager (if phones even exist by then).

If you have a little burger lover at your house, they might like this book.

Burger Boy by Alan Durant

It is one of our favorites and gets quoted at least once a week…”I’m not a burger, I’m a boy!”

I Ate It (So You Don't Have To!): Arby's All-American RoastBurger

Survey Says: American’s are bored with burgers.

The quick service industry’s forgotten step-child, Arby’s, commissioned a survey and found that American’s are bored with fast food burgers.  They are too greasy (55% agreed), too dry (40%) and the quality of meat is poor (45%).

Enter “RoastBurgers,” the newest sandwich additions to the Arby’s menu.

via QSR Magazine

“Roastburgers offer a tasty new way for burger lovers to satisfy their cravings while avoiding burger boredom,” says Steve Davis, Arby’s Chief Marketing Officer. “

So basically what Arby’s has done is swapped out ho-hum ground beef for the taste sensation that is their trademark roast beef.

The results…well…ummm, how do I say this…not as bad as I thought it would be.

The All-American Roast Burger I had for lunch, and it’s relatives the Bacon & Bleu Cheese and Bacon & Cheddar RoastBurgers, clearly benefit from some super-secret chemistry straight out of the flavor labs of New Jersey, because darnit…the RoastBurger actually tastes like a fast food hamburger.  Again, I am left completely frustrated by how easily my taste buds can be tricked by science, but I guess that is the point with modern day fast food.  The Oxford University Museum of Natural History bails me out a little here noting that the taste buds are easily tricked (in general, not specifically by this sandwich, but someone should definitely take this back into a lab and experiment).

More from an Arby’s Press Release:

All-American Roastburger – Features Arby’s thinly sliced, oven-roasted roast beef with fresh lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, ketchup, mustard, and a secret sauce served on a specialty roll

Here is the skinny on this “burger.”  Easily 1/4 lb of roast beef which because of its shape/folding meant the sandwich stands pretty tall and seems substantial.  Any hint of that special sauce, which someone on these here Interwebs actually compared to IN-N-OUT‘s secret sauce (?), was completely overpowered by the beef flavorings sprinkled on the sandwich (the Arby’s website even features an eerie animation showing the beef fleck coating process).  Ketchup and mustard, the tried and true burger toppings, along with lettuce, tomato (very red – not always the case at fast food joints), raw onion and pickle were all present.   Even the bun was better than your average fast food vessel.  I’d compare it (favorably) to a BK Whopper.

That said, the whole concept just seems wrong to me.  A roast beef sandwich shouldn’t have to aspire to be anything more than a roast beef sandwich and a burger by its nature has no equal in the world of meat-on-bun concoctions.  But of course this is all about marketing and market share and so Arby’s, known as the #2 franchise sandwich chain in the country (behind Subway), has dipped their toes in the ultra-lucrative burger pool in launching this line.  Interestingly, they could potentially steal market share from their sister restaurant, Wendy’s, by offering a burger experience which caters to a more high-end fast food eater.

RoastBurger Pros:

• Close your eyes and it tastes like a pretty darn good fast food burger
• Really red tomato, crispy lettuce and tasty raw onions – all fine toppings which would be well placed on a burger
• Price – Arby’s is offering a free RoastBurger (with the purchase of a drink) via a coupon on their website (exp. 2/9/09)

Cons:

• Mouth-feel: The meat just disappears in your mouth, like cotton candy or those weird Japanese shrimp chips.
• The whole “better living through chemistry” vibe you get when seeing the flavor flecks and tasting the overpowering beefiness of this sandwich.

Stats:

420 calories

170 calories from fat

18g of fat

6g of saturated fat

1g of trans fat (oddly present here…Arby’s was the first chain to introduce trans-fat free fries)

40mg of cholesterol

1390mg sodium

46g carbs

2g fiber

15% of your recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C (!)

Bonus feature:  Recipe to make your own Jamocha Shakes…previously the only reason anyone went to Arby’s.