An amendment, but not a big one

Double Bacon Deluxe With Cheese
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

Okay, okay, okay. Since Red Mill Burgers are touted as "the best burger in Seattle" I had tried it and decidedly shot that down, only to find I ordered the wrong burger. This time, I got the right one, you know, the burger that Oprah has said is something you must consume before you die. Though, honestly, given it's Oprah, that would be like everything (zing!). Sorry Oprah, won't happen again.

So overall, this burger was much better than the last. The area of the burger is much larger, so 2 1/4 lb patties is much more appreciated than just 1. The beef was well cooked and beefy. The fixings were good: slices of bacon, melty cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, all the basic good stuff you want in a burger. Love the Mill Sauce, didn't taste enough of it. I'll keep this short and sweet.

Fries were good, nothing special, onion rings still don't impress me, for all the hype they're.... meh.

Not going to re-grade, but this is probably the burger I'd go for at this place.

Did that really just happen?

The Houston
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

It's really sad that I should say this, but I came in here with rather low expectations, or rather let's say, reservations, and Johnny Rocket's pretty much met all of them. Now, I'm not saying that it's inedible, but really? I suppose it's an experiential thing, but I can't say much when I have adolescent boys asking me if he can shoot spitballs at the teenage girls over in the next booth. We (my friend and I) also spent a nickel on those table-side jukebox thingies to play a song that we could barely make out over the sound of table conversation, adolescent hormones, and the open kitchen.

Now as I said, the burger in and of itself isn't horrible. The meat quality was decent, the bun was a bun, the fixings were a little not fresh, but nothing I haven't seen before. The Houston was supposed to be a "spicy" burger, so they added some pickled jalapenos, not that spicy. The sauce was pretty nice, like a cajun aioli type of deal.

The fries were fries, and the lack of description really means they were that nondescript. The fact that they serve it to you on a plastic plate the size of a stenopad makes you feel like this is a high school cafeteria all over again, only you just paid like $10 for it. Seriously, this makes Denny's look awesome.

Rating of the Burger:
Meat: B-
Bun: B-
Fixings: C-
Condiments: B+
Sides: B-
Price: $7-$10
Overall Rating: C-
Recommended Burger: Eh... if I had to... Bacon Cheddar Double

I think this is where it all came from...

Frikadelle Burger
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

Hamburger... German town called Hamburg? Okay, I don't specifically mean necessarily this particular restaurant, but I do mean burgers and Germany, and if I were more snobbish, I'd go into the whole history of the hamburger, which honestly I could care less about. I'm sure the history of the burger is very meaningful, but the taste of it is what's important to me. So my friends and I went to Bratz in U-District, partially because I knew my friend was craving a German pretzel (which he didn't end up getting) and also partially because it was close. I will admit that it is entirely possible (likely) I spelled it (the burger name) wrong.

The burger was something very simple, the patty had a nice char to it, but wasn't over-cooked, so it still retained that full meaty flavor. The bun was closer to a roll than a bun, which meant that it didn't hold the burger exceptionally well, and the fixings were your typical backyard BBQ variety of iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes. They had this interesting tangy BBQ type sauce (probably the stuff they use on their bratwurst) which was really good, but kind of covered up by the flavor of the char, I would've preferred it stronger.

The fries were a nice seasoned affair, and as I told my friends, I give them props for the fancy basket. Not a bad place to go overall, definitely somewhere I'd go again, maybe not for burgers though.

Rating of the Burger:
Meat: B+
Bun: C
Fixings: B-
Condiments: B-
Sides: B+
Price: $8-$10
Overall Rating: B-
Recommended Burger: Frikadelle Burger

It's an airport, I know

Classic Hamburger with Cheese
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

It kind of sucks that when you walk into an airport hungry you know two things if you don't have food on you. It won't really taste that good and you'll pay twice what you'd normally pay for a non-microwave iteration of whatever you're getting. So I can't say I'm entirely surprised that I didn't really like Oak Street Beach Cafe in the Chicago-Midway airport.

Meat was microwaved piece of meh, bun was a typical sesame seed item, lettuce was old, condiments was a bunch of little Heinz packets, cheese was nicely melted, but suspiciously like a Kraft Single, fries were okay, liked the pickle spear, and I'm done. It's an airport, it's airport food, obviously I'm not recommending anyone go out of their way to Midway for this place.

Rating of the Burger:
Meat: C
Bun: B-
Fixings: C+
Condiments: C
Sides: B
Price: $6.50-$11
Overall Rating: C-
Recommended burger: Classic Hamburger

Entirely unoriginal

Pepper Jack Burger
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

The menu just calls it a cheeseburger, and I know, I know, it's an airport. I was stuck in Chicago-Midway due to a delay in my flight, otherwise, I would never have come to Miller's Pub. Of course that and the fact that I was too lazy to venture down to the food court which I had been to before, but I forgot. That's okay though, because I have to say that the choices weren't entirely great either, so it's okay.

Okay, it's an airport, let's not get our hopes up. I can't really say that the burger patty was super fresh, I'm not entirely convinced that it wasn't microwaved. Overall though, it was beefy, I'm sure it would've been good if it were fresh, but it wasn't. Fixings were run of the mill, cheese was cheese, bun was a typical sesame bun. The burger itself didn't have any condiments, but the table had a cayenne hot sauce and a BBQ sauce named after the restaurant itself. They weren't anything spectacular, to be honest. The hot sauce was watery and the BBQ sauce was a little too sweet.

The fries were fries, no knock on that, no kudos for anything either.

Rating of the Burger:
Meat: C-
Bun: B-
Fixings: B
Condiments: C-
Sides: B
Price: $9.50
Overall Rating: C-
Recommended Burger: N/A

Been there, done that...

Deluxe Burger
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

For as long as I could remember, this place was a pretty shabby teriyaki joint that no one really frequented. I only knew this because I used to do a lot of shopping at the Safeway across the street. Lo and behold, now a fancy new sign is above the door and the interior looks completely revamped (for Safeway too), and here we now have Thunder Burger and Teriyaki. When you walk in, the board menu looks to be something of a knock-off of University Teriyaki and the menu options look to be something of a knock off of Orange King. With nothing better to go off of, I opted to order the deluxe burger combo.

Not really sure what exactly makes this burger deluxe other than its name, but overall it wasn't a bad burger. Meat had a nice full beefy flavor and a nice char to it. The bun is your typical sesame bun, the house sauce your typical sweet Thousand Island/relish based sauce, it was so nondescript that I honestly can't remember much about it, the fixings your typical shredded iceberg, and the cheese your typical sliced cheese. You really can't get much more straightforward than that. That works for it.

The fries were your bulk order frozen fries that were subsequently dropped into a deep fryer. The last five words of the previous sentence alone typically make anything good. Overall, not a bad place to grab a bite when you're in the area and hungry, but it's also pretty plain, so not somewhere you'd go out of your way for.

Rating of the Burger:
Meat: B+
Bun: B-
Fixings: B-
Condiments: C+
Sides: B
Price: $4.50-$8
Overall Rating: C+
Recommended Burger: Teriyaki Burger

You've got to be kidding me...

Mushroom Burger
Originally uploaded by jaceman4

I kind of already had a hunch when I came here that I wouldn't be rating this place very highly. It's not that their food is bad, it's just that you're paying WAY too much for what you're really getting. It's more the price than the quality that really kills Kidd Valley's rating. It's funny, because it has all of these awards (none since 2000), like Evening Magazine best non-franchise burger... which leads me to believe that Evening Magazine knows absolutely nothing about burgers or that Seattle burgers were hurting in 2000, unless the quality of the Kidd Valley burger has dropped drastically, and I mean drastically in the last 10 years, which I suppose is entirely possible.

It's a pretty Burger King-esque affair, the meat was well done, they have this nifty rotating flame broiler thingy in the kitchen (kind of like those rack bagel toaster or pizza baker things). The bun was a typical Franz's sesame bun, the fixings were, well, not the best you can get, but relatively okay if you compare to a fast food joint, to me it's pretty hard to screw up sauteed mushrooms, condiments were, the typical, though on a mushroom burger you don't really expect much, so I couldn't really taste a whole lot.

The sides were good, the fries were very fresh, but also, unsalted, and thereby, tasted like a lot of potato, and that gets old pretty fast. All in all, not a bad place to go if you're in a rush, they do have better sides like garlic fries, sweet potato fries, and fried mushrooms, but they also cost extra.

Rating of the burger:
Meat: B-
Bun: B-
Fixings: C
Condiments: D
Sides: B
Price: $9-$12
Overall Rating: C-
Recommended Burger: Bacon Cheeseburger