Posted on 06/13/2009 10:08:19 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Hamburgers are as All-American as it gets. On summer holidays, Americans celebrate by stoking up their backyard barbecues—hopefully with Grade-A meat from local butchers and supermarkets. But you have to go to a restaurant to get the trendy—and priciest—burgers that have sprung up in dining emporiums across the country. We don’t absolutely guarantee there aren’t other more expensive burgers out there—especially at the lower end of our expense account—but they’re the best and priciest we could locate.
It’s not just a modern phenomenon. Luxury burgers have been around for years In 2001, famed French chef Daniel Bouloud introduced a hamburger stuffed with short ribs, foie gras and truffles at New York’s DB Bistro Moderne that now sells for $32. A few months later, the Olde Homestead Steakhouse debuted a $41 Kobe beef burger; from there, luxury hamburgers became popular in the nation’s high-end eateries.
For many diners, luxury hamburgers can show off a kitchen's imagination. In Beverly Hills, Spago’s burger is a comparatively modest $22, but it’s made with Kobe beef, Vermont farmhouse cheddar and a garlic aioli. Newcomer Taste offers a $21.75 Kobe burger topped with gorgonzola, onion jam, bacon and crimini mushrooms just down the road in West Hollywood. They may not be the most expensive hamburgers in the country, but they're among the best. A brazen burger can be found at Le Burger Brasserie, inside the Paris Las Vegas casino. Their $777 Kobe beef and Maine lobster burger is topped with caramelized onion, brie cheese and prosciutto, all of it accompanied by Dom Perignon champagne.
Not so high-end is Southgate’s Fifth Third Ballpark, home of the Class A West Michigan Whitecaps baseball team. Their $20 Fifth Third burger is a staggering 1.66-pound beef patty topped with lettuce, tomato, salsa, sour cream, chilli and Fritos (yes, Fritos) on an eight-inch sesame seed bun. According to the Whitecaps, it is designed to feed “one to four people.” (And believe it or not, there's even a gold-plated burger, served in New York.
(J. Wellington) Wimpy loves to eat hamburgers, and is usually seen with one (e.g. in “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor,” where he eats burgers almost the entire time) but is usually too cheap to pay for them. A recurring joke is Wimpy’s attempts to con other patrons of the diner into buying him his lunch. Wimpy often tries to outwit fellow patrons with his convoluted logic. His famous line, which was first introduced to the cartoons in the 1934 cartoon We Aim to Please, is “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”.
I love it. This is the motto & standard for obozo & congressional RATS.
Now, THAT’S what I call stacking!
LOL!
I’ll bet the burgers are pretty tasty as well.
Best burger I ever had was at Nebraska Steak House, in NYC’s financial district. First time there, I took a test bite before slathering on the condiments...and it was so delicious all on its own that nothing at all - no salt, pepper, steak sauce, ketchup, etc. - was needed. I’ve had Kobe beef burgers a few times, and can’t see what all the fuss is about - not at all as juicy and flavorful as good American beef.
I’m still waiting for 0’s invite to the WH for some Wagyu!
Can’t beat a Whataburger straight up ( mustard all the way ) with cheese and bacon and jalepeno...
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