Fancy Hamburger Logic

Did you see it?  Yesterday on All Over Albany, a local website that is actually run by bona fide journalists, yours truly had a byline.

The post Eating the $25 burger at dp Brasserie kicked off AOA’s Lunch Week and generated a fair bit of commentary.  I knew the post was going to be included in the series, but I had no idea it would run in the pole position.  Greg and Mary are very good to me.

If you haven’t read it yet, you should go and read it now, then come back.  Because some of the commenters raise good points that couldn’t be worked into the original post.  And of course I have a thing or two to say about them.

Ideally these thoughts should be incorporated into the comments section of the original post.  But I tend to use a lot of words to express myself, so instead I will post a link referring AOA’s readers over here for the full rundown.

If that is you, well, hi.

I was under no misconception that this hamburger was made from true Kobe beef.  Rather it was likely American Kobe beef produced from the Wagyu cow.  And there are some who say that Wagyu cows, regardless of their source, aren’t meant to be ground up for a burger.

And they have a point.

What is special about the beef is its marbling.  And that is completely lost when the beef is ground and formed into patties.

But I have a counterpoint.

After taking the prime cuts off a Wagyu cow, then what?  Turn the rest into dog food?  These animals have still been treated well, been fed a stunningly good diet, and are mighty tasty.  Eating a Wagyu hamburger is certainly not the same as eating a Wagyu bone-in rib-eye.  But it is far and away better than eating conventionally raised beef.  For that, I am willing to pay a premium.  Although to be honest, I would choose a local small-production grass-fed burger patty over an American Kobe one any day.

Because these are not conventionally raised cows, I am less concerned with the potential consequences of ordering an American Kobe burger rare.

One commenter said, “Unless they’re grinding the meat themselves on premises, ground beef is not where you want to be rolling the dice.”  And in general I completely agree.  A conventionally produced hamburger could contain the meat and bacteria from a hundred cows.  It could even contain the dreaded pink slime.  I am highly selective about where I choose to eat ground beef and as I prefer to eat it entirely pink with a cool red center.  That is except for places like Five Guys, where they cook the hell out of the things, but they remain unbelievably juicy and delicious.

However when we are talking about smaller production animals I am less concerned with food poisoning.  Yes, it can happen anywhere.  But I’ve seen a feedlot, and it’s appalling.  Given those conditions it is amazing more beef isn’t tainted with E. coli O157:H7.

And while I don’t know this for a fact, I imagine that the American Kobe is segregated from the rest of the slaughter.  Which would make it less likely to have poop in the meat.

Speaking of poop, a few people seem to have gotten hot and bothered by the term “tomato concassé.”  Looking back it may not have been clear from the original post that this is how the restaurant described the burger on their menu.  It was their term, not mine.

That said, I do appreciate the effort the kitchen made on the tomatoes served with the first burger.  Regretfully the bacon in the photo mostly obscured them from view.  But the tomatoes served with the second burger were strikingly plain in comparison.  And nothing should have been plain about this burger.

So is it worth $25?

I guess it depends on how you look at it.  The Standard, a place that looks like a chain restaurant in a mall but isn’t (a chain, it actually is in a mall) sells a Kobe burger for $13.  The beef at The Standard isn’t of the same quality and tasted like it may have been previously frozen.  Despite being cooked properly it was oddly tough and toothsome.

If we use that burger as a baseline, the question is how much are the extra special toppings worth?  At Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, VA you can add foie gras to your burger for $10.  Granted, that comes with truffle oil (but no actual truffles).  And while Ray’s only charges $1.50 for applewood smoked bacon dp Brasserie serves this burger with the stunningly delicious Kurobuta bacon.  There are some diners that charge $3 for a side of bacon.  Plus the dp burger does come with a cute cone of fries.  Regardless how I cut the numbers, they all seem to add up in favor of the price being fair for what is on the plate.

It’s a ridiculous sandwich on many levels.  And I was serious when I said that next time I would take the foie gras off and eat it with the fries for a decadent prelude to my rare bacon truffle Kobe burger.

But that will have to wait.  Because for some sick reason I can’t get this burger out of my mind.