Last weekend, I went to Las Vegas in search of some outstanding gourmet burgers.
When I say 'gourmet', I use Chicago's Rosebud (at Rush and Superior) and Kuma's Corner (at Belmont and Francisco) as the 'gold standard'.
I searched on the internet and compiled a list of places in Vegas with high reviews of their burgers that I would try to go to during my 3 day weekend.
I knew there was no way I would make it to all of them, so I was moderately satisfied to have at least gotten to 3 before my trip was over.
The list below is in order of their location on the strip, with the dashed [ - ] entries indicating the East side of the the strip. The restaurants I made it to are big and bold.
- Strip Burger @ Fashion Show Mall
- -Society Cafe @ Encore
- -Daniel Boulud @ Wynn
- -First Food & Bar @ Palazzo
- BLT Burger @ The Mirage
- -Burger Joint @ The Flamingo
- -Le Burger Brasserie @ Paris
- -Cheeseburger at The Oasis @ Planet Hollywood
- Burger Bar @ Mandalay Place
Pictured below - SOCIETY CAFE @ Encore: The Kobe Burger (medium rare) with Cheddar, Bacon, and Roasted Jalapenos, served with fresh cut shoestring fries.
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| finally! a burger with FRESH CUT FRIES! |
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| yes, it really was that big |
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| leaving little evidence behind |
USING KOBE BEEF IN A BURGER...
is a waste of Kobe Beef. Dont get me wrong - Kobe Beef is worth every penny in it's steak form
(although I'm perfectly happy with a decent prime black angus), but since you're grinding up the beef to make a hamburger, you are tenderizing and distributing the meat/fat of whatever cut of beef you are using, it's simply crazy to use Kobe beef in this way. Kobe Beef is engineered to evenly distribute the fat throughout the beef so you don't have to grind it up into a patty. They feed the cows BEER as part of the process, so you know it's gotta be good... in a STEAK! The nail-in-the-coffin for my condemnation of using Kobe in a burger comes from my pleasant experience at Society Cafe where I watched a great victory by the Chicago Blackhawks
. GO HAWKS! If Kobe Beef was truly the end-all-be-all of hamburgers, then it should have blown a Rosebud Burger out of the water. This didn't happen. Maybe it's due to what seemed like a Vegas-wide conspiracy to under-season food in it's restaurants (SALT THE DAMN FRIES, YOU POLITICALLY CORRECT FOOD-NAZIS! - actually, Society Cafe DID salt the fries, but other restaurants in Vegas did not), but I honestly think they could have served just as tasty a burger with non-kobe beef. Kobe beef burgers are simply a case of supply creating artificial demand for something due to it's reputation.Hit the jump for a brief rant about 'Franken-fries' and a Vegas Burger Summary...
