Sinfully Delicious- Smashburger part Deux

As we said in our previous blog post, smashburger is quickly becoming a San Diego favorite. I have heard nothing but great things from everyone about this place ever since our last post went up. In case you missed it, check it out here, it's full of critically acclaimed goodness.

So this will be a pretty quick review since it's a restaurant that we've done before. We'll hit you with the basics of what you need to know, but unfortunately we'll be cutting the spooning session short this time, metaphorically speaking of course. After word got out from our last blog update, smashburger contacted us directly (and you can also: socalbestburger@gmail.com). They invited us to come back a second time and try their... wait for it... SECRET MENU. Now we all know about In-N-Out's secret menu due to my and Dominic's very first public post at this burger blogging craze. And at closer look, the secret menu at In-N-Out is just a glorified customization template. But this smashburger secret menu is one to take the cake... so much so that Buddy Valastro, the Cake Boss of New Jersey, would stop and say, "Oh ya, I know cake, and that burger just took it" (omg... I apologize for that reference, sometimes I even amaze myself). Anyway, the menu has a burger that can only be found in Vegas unless you know about it, a shake to make your taste buds want to hibernate, and an anything but ubiquitous sample of sides.

So with the invitation from smashburger, a BIG thank you to smashburger by the way, came the tempting offer to try this illustrious Sin City Burger, named rightfully for its origin, Las Vegas. Except this time (and this time only) what happened in Vegas, I'm telling everybody!

Here's a description of the burger that we got to try:

Sin City Smashburger – originally crafted with the Vegas ‘city that never sleeps’ lifestyle in mind, it features 100% fresh, never frozen, certified angus beef, placed on an egg bun, then topped with a fried egg, applewood smoked bacon, melted American cheese, grilled onions and haystack onions, and the signature smash sauce.

If the description alone doesn't get to you, then allow this picture to access your drool glands (Just a side note to all of our readers: We will always use personally taken photos of our food to give it authenticity. We want to show you the presentation of the every day meal):

The picture of this burger can't do justice to the taste of it.  It was cooked fantastically, very juicy (almost too juicy to the point of messy, but in a good way). To put it into perspective, this burger is more juicy than the gossip surrounding Kim Kardashian's divorce. This burger was so juicy that if I were to sit here and go into detail about the juiciness and tastiness of this burger, then the more I describe it, the more my words would sound like the makings of a romance novel. On top of the great burgers, smashburger has some tempting sides and shakes. Dominic will get into the shake that we were given to try, but the sides are in wide variety from your basic side of fries, to the signature Smashfries, all the way to the other side of the spectrum where the fried pickles come into play; their sides almost vary as much as the selection of burgers they carry.

Before I let your eyes and ears get wrapped in the linguistic web of Dominic's opinion of the secret menu, smashburger wanted to announce some of the specials that they're currently running:

• November 11-13 - Free fries for all military active duty and veterans (French Fries, Smashfries, or Sweet Potato, no purchase required
• November 14 through New Year's - Holiday Cinnamon Shake, $5 Smashbucks for every $25 gift card purchased
• November 17 - New Location (for our San Diego North County friends): Grand Opening in Vista.

What Dominic has to say:

Going in to smashburger for the second time with the thought of "Sin-City" and "secret menu" on my mind, really had me trying to guess what this next burger experience was going to be like. Was it going to be like the time Justin and I went to Vegas while I was on crutches with a busted foot and got gnarly armpit rashes, got everyone possible to sign my cast, sat at the club watching Justin having a dance-off with a middle aged man on a Wednesday night? Or was this going to be the burger experience of a life time, as if we were with Charlie Sheen in his prime, in Vegas, WINNING, drinking tiger blood, and waking up the next morning on the roof of Planet Hollywood?

Well, it just so happened that this second experience at smashburger will keep me and Justin coming back for more! The items on the secret menu that we tried were the Sin-City Burger and the PB&J Shake...uhhhhh PHENOMENAL! This blows any other secret menu out of the water...don't get me wrong the in-n-out menu is delightful as well, but if the Snyder family (in-n-out founders) could see what smashburger has offered they would really want to step their game up! If any of you burger lovers out there have never tried a burger with a fried egg on it, you are missing out on some SERIOUS nirvana. You need to get to smashburger now and see for yourself what all this hype is about. Also, the PB&J shake? It was love at first sip. The strawberry and nutter butter together made for a real tasty treat! Get in to smashburger and get this combo ASAP.

Justin's Rating of the Sin City smashburger

Meat quality: 4, Creativity/Accessories: 4, Bun: 3, Size: 4, Price: 4, Overall: 19 out of 25
I enjoy the fried egg on the burger, and the juiciness of the meat was fantastic, yet the patty played jump rope with the point of being too messy for me. It was almost to the point where I'd need a napkin for each bite that I took. Also, the ONLY reason that I didn't toss a '5' on the Creativity/Accessories category was because I've seen this done before, it didn't make me think twice before I bit into it thinking that it's a risky move. I've seen the fried egg and onions combo on a burger before. And as for the bun, I see it paired with a fluffy sourdough bun to bring out a tad more flavor. But I'm not going to sell smashburger short... they did their job in making me want to come back. It was a great burger, definitely on the list of my top burgers so far. This will definitely cure any type of Vegas style hangover you may have.

Dominic's Rating of the Sin City smashburger
Meat quality: 4, Creativity/Accessories: 5, Bun: 4, Size: 4, Price: 4, Overall: 21 out of 25

Like I said before, if you haven't had a fried egg on your burger before..this is the one to try. The way thy pieced this burger together deserves a 5 out of 5 on the creativity scale. The egg bun was fluffy and added that little extra flavor every burger deserves. And like always at smashburger, for the size/quality/quantity, the price is great.

Giving to Charity Never Tasted So Good

Not until after Dominic and I checked this next burger barn off our list did we start noticing this, but smashburger is all the talk around the So Cal burgersphere. It's even been quoted as a "smashing good time" (actually quoted by the blog's own contributor, Dominic... while many attribute the quote to Sir Austin Powers). But the restaurant's burger buzz is the new sensation hitting the streets of San Diego, and now we know why...

Before we get started on reviewing the cornerstone menu item from smashburger, the San Diego burger, we have another burger worth talking about:

I have to admit that the reason we even came across smashburger in the first place wasn't due to the talk around town about it being the best burger to be compiled in the history of "bun meets patty", yet it was through an interesting marketing campaign in which they joined forces with AJ in the Morning on Star 94.1 FM, a local radio station morning show in San Diego. AJ hosts an annual Toy Drive every Christmas season called AJ's Kids to benefit the patients of Rady Children's Hospital (more information can be found here). However, this year, he enlisted the support of smashburger to increase his efforts and reduce his time dangling above the Earth in a crane (crazy right? I'm telling you... see the above link). AJ created a burger to be added to the smash menu, specifically to aid his charity's efforts. $1 from every AJ's Kids burger purchased from smashburger will go to support the cause. And it wasn't until I heard the description of the burger that I knew that we HAD to get involved. There's absolutely nothing Dominic and I love more than giving to charity if it involves eating good food. Which reminds me... if anyone creates a burrito to support a charity, make sure I give you my emergency contact number. But nothing too special about this AJ's Kids burger jumped out at us in the beginning; it's your typical burger with Cheddar cheese instead of traditional American, onion, ketchup, mustard, and the trademark smashsauce, but it wasn't until the I heard the final ingredient that jolted me in front of my laptop looking for the nearest smashburger location. For the selling point of the charity burger: fried pickles. You heard me right, FRIED pickles!! (You wouldn't know this, but I almost just typed 'friend prickers'... lol)

Now there might be some skeptics out there as soon as they hear the words fried pickles, but let me tell you... wow-zers. Fried Pickles to this burger is like gravy to mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving... or anything really... gravy is amazing. Side note: I would've preferred Jesus turned water into gravy rather than wine. Church would be more entertaining, that's for sure. And if that were the case, I would be spending my every waking moment working on a way to perfect time travel to go back to Jesus times and have some Last Supper covered in gravy. So if that doesn't give you an idea as to how good this burger is with the fried pickles, then call your local doctor because you must have no sensation left in your taste buds. Overall, it was a fantastic burger, very juicy and the smashsauce was a phenomenal touch but the only recommendation that Dominic and I would make to anyone looking to order AJ's Kids burger, is to get your onions grilled. It puts the burger to the next level of awesome, like awesome's twin but with better bone structure in the jawline.

Check out how you can help AJ's Kids too by clicking here!!

Back to the review of smashburger as a whole:

When the restaurant first popped up in SD, I was under the impression (I think Dominic was too) that smashburger was just another food chain restaurant trying to make its market presence known in San Diego, maybe to take away some of the steam from Five Guys Burgers... btw Five Guys has yet to be invaded by our golden buds of taste, but it's on the to-do list. But once we did hear about it from AJ's morning show, we knew it was something that we had to try. And we are so happy that we did. Although I would describe this restaurant as more of a fast food type of layout, the taste was anything except fast food quality. And this applied to everything we tried on the menu: from AJ's Kids burger, to the San Diego burger, all the way down to the smashfries.

I'm going to let Dominic go into his feelings about the San Diego burger in just a minute, but I wanna kick things off here by saying that this burger absolutely epitomizes what I imagine a bite of San Diego tastes like, except it could use bacon. If you threw Sea World, the Beach, local craft breweries, the monkeys at the zoo, Coronado (both the bridge and Hotel Del), and the Gaslamp Quarter into a burrito, that's what this burger tastes like, but with less salt water ocean taste from the beach. I think that it's the cilantro combined with the pepper jack cheese and avocado that gives the burger its unique taste. So let's end our time and burger conversation on that note. Check out my in depth review of the SD burger below... but in the mean time, catch in with Dominic and see his opinion of smashburger and whether he thinks the burger is just another burger or if he tasted unicorn topped with Santa sprinkles on his take of the burger.

Dominic's take of the smashing burger:

Lets put it this way for all you burger fiends out there… smashburger is to the burger kingdom as Justin Bieber is to every teenage girl’s dreams. As a matter of fact, I do recall my good pal and fellow burger connoisseur Justin was strolling through this fine restaurant singing “baby, baby, baby ohhhhhhh!!!” in excitement to bite into AJ’s Burger and any other burger that got put in front of our faces!

AJ's Burger is probably the coolest charitable donation I have ever made. Why? Because you’re giving to a great charity as well as eating an incredible burger. It took my taste buds on a magical roller coaster ride! As Justin described before, it is a very basic burger, but the fried pickles make this burger taste great. You can really taste the batter that the pickles are dipped in with every bite. I recommend this burger to everyone going to smashburger, not only because it is for a good cause, but because I have yet to try any burger like it in Southern California!

We tried another burger, the San Diego Burger. Whoever came up with this burger creation really knew exactly how to put the “typical” San Diego cuisine in to burger form. Here is what is on this Smashburger: Fresh avocado, fresh cilantro, onions, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, spicy chipotle mayo on a torta roll served with a wedge of lime. I couldn’t have done better myself trying to think of what would represent San Diego between two buns. It was one of the most refreshing burgers I have ever tasted. Refreshing burger? How could a burger possibly be refreshing?? Well, smashburger uses only the freshest ingredients on their menu and on this piece of art it especially showed. It was a perfect amount of grub if you are looking for a satisfied stomach, instead of the comatose a lot of other grease burger joints will give you. Woah woah woah! Don’t get me wrong here… I do enjoy being put in a greasy bacon, beefy, cheesy coma from time to time, but at smashburger, I put them in a different ‘burger bracket’ if you will. I’m very excited to say that we have been invited back to Smashburger to try more delicious burgers and tell all you burger lovers out there more about this great place!

Justin's Rating of the San Diego smashburger

Meat quality: 4, Creativity/Accessories: 4, Bun: 4, Size: 3, Price: 4, Overall: 19 out of 25

Let me start off by saying that my first bite into this burger was definitely one worth remembering, mostly because Dominic kicked me as I sank my teeth into the meat marvel. Aside from my shin bruising, this burger was quite remarkable compared to what I imagined it to be in my head. The meat was juicy, it was topped with all the right ingredients: the mix of cilantro, pepper jack cheese, and small bite of sour cream paired with the onion blended perfectly with the signature smashsauce. It had the right amount of kick, the right amount of tart, and the right amount of savor all swirled into one bite. And each bite following mimicked the leader. All in all great burger, great torta, great price. For $8 and some change including the smashfries (which are standard fries tossed with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary), I'd definitely revisit to try the rest of the menu.


Dominic's Rating of the San Diego smashburger
Meat quality: 4, Creativity/Accessories: 5, Bun: 4, Size: 3, Price: 4, Overall: 20 out of 25

One of the first things we look for in a burger is the quality of the patty, how juicy it is and the flavors, etc. smashburger really knows how to cook a patty right! I give the creativity and accessories a 5 because of the way the burger names really match the burger style perfectly. The buns were great, especially the different styles of buns that they have to offer. For the size, quality, tastiness, with a side of fries and a drink this burgers price is great too!