Burger Urge on Haight can suck it.

Yea. Had "The Elvis"... description says peanut butter, bananas & bacon. So apparently it is a peanut butter spread with some roasted bananas in it. It was okay (I was expecting something a bit more exotic)... I'll probably stick with a regular burger next time.

If only Michael Bauer could get right to the point like this.

From a biz perspective, the owners were smart to put a burger joint on that corner. It appears to be full of Haight shoppers every time I pass by and fills a more realistic niche than, say, a deteriorating Ben and Jerry's on a street where the weather is overcast or cold more often than not. More appealing than a ghetto McDonald's where you have to deal with obnoxious gutter punks and their dogs, involves less commitment than Magnolia or Pork Store and isn't a weird lost-in-the-70s zombie hippy joint like All You Knead.

But from a consumer perspective, if Joe says they can suck it, then it probably does suck. I wish Umami was more conveniently located.

Modernist Cuisine's take on the ultimate contemporary hamburger...



It took six members of the NY Post staff 2 days to make this monster, and then they didn't care for it much, however the whole point of their project appeared to be to make fun of the concept. They estimated that if the burger were to appear on a restaurant menu, it would have to cost at least $60 to account for the amount of labor, ingredients, and time that went into it. By the way if you want the cookbook it'll set you back a Bemon or so.

I heard that on friday you walked in after going and said
"its alright" not that they could suck it. lols

Wow. Keep that internet personality going bud.

Totally agree with you there since the majority of people on Haight St are straight tourist shoppers.
It was a smart move to open up a burger joint there because there's really nowhere else to get a burger.


Yea, when I say things are alright, it's alright.
Is it alright enough where I'd say go try it for yourself and you might like it?
Maybe, but this alright is more like I'd say don't waste your money because you'd most likely come away disappointed and complaining about how expensive it is.

Oh yea Alex, which place were you talking about that had a good burger that your friend liked?

Please speak english

I have no idea what you are talking about.

FOOD FIGHT!

This thread turn made me curious, so I looked up a bit about Burger Urge. Apparently the former Soul Patch space was bought by the Mogannam family (of Bi-Rite Market) who won approval from the city's Planning Commission by promising a place called "Mama's Kitchen," which they said would feature "American cuisine, serving such items as breakfast omelets and pancakes, soups and salads, burgers and pizzas, smoothies and coffees, and a variety of cold beverages." Clearly, the concept morphed along the way, hah! There's a funny irony here given that Bi-Rite just released a self-congratulatory cookbook that promotes locally-sourced healthy natural foods.

oops... not burger related

I love this thread! I was diagnosed with gout a few years ago, so I haven't eaten red meat (among other things) since then. There are only a couple of times when I really miss it; when my mom does her xmas prime rib dinner, and when I check this thread for updates.

May the French be with you.

^ Looks disgusting but Unkel Steph is going to be in France in a couple weeks and won't be able to resist

It must take a LOT of food coloring to get the Vader bun that black. But then given that the French enjoy macarons in wildly unnatural fluorescent hues, I doubt if many people will object to impossibly noir hamburger buns.

had a couple of burgers while in portland.

brunchbox... had the youcanhascheeseburger which is a regular cheeseburger except it uses texas toast grill cheeses as buns. was good.


little big burger... was great! we went twice. the cheese burger was really good. also had the vegetarian burger, which was good as well.

Yup. I used the Mummy Boy show last night as an excuse to give it a shot. It's the most Fisherman's Wharf place on Haight. Had their "San Francisco" burger which said nothing about SF. I guess they called it that because instead of a bun they used sourdough loaf slices (and honestly, who makes a sourdough LOAF?) but it really had no sourdough flavor, and worse, the burger itself was flavorless. It wasn't seasoned at all (I guess they expect you to use the table salt and pepper, yikes!) but even the supposedly high-quality beef was just sort of ... there. The staff was friendly which would normally be a plus, but they were SO sweet I almost got diabetes. This woman with an enormous grin interrupted me every two minutes with the old "is everything okay?" line, followed by "are you SURE everything's okay?" What, am I looking forlorn here or something? Begone! Garlic fries were better than at the ballpark but truth be told garlic fries are overhyped junk food that anyone can make.

Burger Urge on Haight can suck it.

that black hamburger bun just makes me think that someone left it behind a sofa on a night of drunken madness and it got moldy. I don't think I could bring myself to eat that.

What the French use to give the colorful macarons those hues are completely natural ingredients.

I'm not sure we're thinking of the same ones, but since you say so, exactly what ingredients are you referring to? Off the top of my head, things like tumeric, beet powder, and fresh matcha come to mind as natural ingredients that could be used to get intense colors, but they aren't nearly as vibrant as the macarons I'd referred to in that post, and more importantly, they'd impart flavors that would overtake the pastry part of the cookie. So again, please name the ingredients.

FWIW the (admittedly English-language) recipes I've seen invariably suggest using food coloring to get super-bright colors.

More topically, I can't help but wonder what the Quick franchise uses to make that black bun that black.

When I say "natural" I mean as opposed to artificial ingredients. With that said, some recipes call for dry powders that you would just substitute in place of an equal amount of the almond flour. For example matcha, Dutch-processed cocoa powder, pumpkin powder, black tea powder, purple yam powder, ground pistachios, saffron.....etc. All of these powders will give you a colored hue on the shell. To get a more intense color you can get all-natural liquid food colorings from places like Chocolate Craft:
http://www.chocolatecraftkits.com/shop/ ... nh4jrftrn7

Chocolate Craft was recommended by Pierre Herme if you are outside of France. He uses Sevarome to get his food colorings and also says they are natural: http://www.sevarome.fr/

Very cool! Thank you very much for the tips and links. I haven't yet taken a stab at macarons at home, but will at some point this year.

I was in Paris for a few weeks in December 2010 and of course the ongoing macaron rage was in full swing. I loved that so many were so vibrant, like designer swatches. What really surprised me in the pâtisseries was how few traditional Bûches de Noël we saw. Most were very "modernist," looking more like PVC tubing than fanciful forest logs. Disappointed that Pierre Gagnaire was closed for the season but otherwise it's impossible to be disappointed by food in that city. Thanks again, bookmarking the links...

When I dealt with this I always explained to people that we didnt use any coloring with ours. We didn't but not so much for a real reason but for preference of the owner. Pistachio would get a slight green tint but you have to strain to see it. So a lot of times 6 or our macs would look almost identical and the chocolate ones would look similar as well.

Recently my business partner made pumpkin macs that were amazing and the buttercream ended up with a wonderful pale orange color. Wish you could have let you guys try them and see what you thought.