About This Blog...


So just to give you all an idea on what to expect with this blog, I thought I'd write a little introduction:

I love food. My best friend of 20 years Dominic loves food. So we thought we would travel around southern California and find the best hamburger that we could get our hands on and share our experience with you. Since we live in San Diego, we thought we'd start with the southwest region of California and expand from there.

A little background on each of us...

Justin:
Our love of food brought us to this point. We have been struggling to find the perfect burger that we can go to time and time again without disappointment. On the hunt for a burger that will change our lives and we don't even realize it. Let's just say, we want a burger to give us succulent, flavor-filled, freak nasty ketchup dreams at night. We want to wake up in a pile of greasy sweat and crave this burger. In order to make that happen, we figured we have to taste EVERY single burger in southern California.

Dominic:
In the words of Chris O'Brien, "The journey of a thousand pounds begins with a single burger". That step to heffer-dom is not exactly our goal but it is relevant to this burgasm journey me and my best pal J-bone are embarking on. We will find that meaty, succulent piece of deliciousness that gives us the most wet, wild, and bacon-filled dreams that every true man waits for, kind of like his first pubic hair or first nudey magazine... but that's beside the point. Let the quest begin!

We will be rating each of our experiences along this expedition by a combination of 5 factors: Meat Quality, Creativity/Accessories, Bun, Size, and Price. The Meat Quality will be judged by which the thoroughness in which it is cooked and juiciness of the patty. The Creativity/Accessories of each burger will depend on the presentation, style, toppings, condiments, and uniqueness of the burger. The Bun is one of the most important aspects to the taste of a good burger, and it's definitely being acknowledged in our scoring. The Size of the burger, and the Price of the burger dependent on the other 4 factors, basically, making sure that you get your money's worth.

Each category is worth up to 5 points, so the overall maximum score per person is 25 meat markers.

So now that you have each of our ideas about what we expect to find on this voyage, let's see what type of crazy mouth watering adventures we can conjure up...


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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

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.