HMS Bounty: Whenever the NBA final game was.10
The Foundry: 7.7.10
25 Degrees: 7.12.10
BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I HAVE RETURNED. It’s been…christ, it’s been a LONG time since I posted.
Because…well, because I found the best burger! Nothing’s even come close to The Foundry for me, so even though I’ve been to at least another half dozen spots since finding that burger, I haven’t felt much like writing. Why write about the Not-Best burger?
But. Friends, having heard of my search, started requesting trips to burger spots. Eventually that meant trying new places.
And that led to the creation of the Meat Street Irregulars, a group that meets periodically to try out LA burgers.
We first met, informally, for a burger at the HMS Bounty, a bar on Wilshire, near-ish to downtown.
My ex-girlfriend had hipped me to the spot, said their burger was delicious.
She was wrong. AGAIN. All three of us (Jon, Mike and myself) agreed it was the very definition of a Bar Burger. It sated our hunger, but little else.
Their cake, on the other hand? Delicious. Because we were positive they’d just popped over to the supermarket and bought one of those ready-to-go cakes. Cheap and tasty.
That meeting led to us reconvening at The Foundry, as they wanted to taste what I considered the BEST BURGER IN TOWN.
Unfortunately, the BEST BURGER IN TOWN was overcooked. Fortunately, we invited Jen, and her pretty face made the well done burgers go down much easier. All agreed that even with the burgers coming medium well as opposed to medium rare, the burger was still excellent.
Also, we had a delicious strawberry shortcake, where they roasted the strawberries. Killer.
And, when we complained about the overcooking, they took the dessert off the bill. Classy.
Which led us to 25 Degrees. Now, I’d been there several times, was very VERY underwhelmed. But Jon considered it The Best, and I am nothing if not fair. So we tried it out.
Service was leagues better than I’d experienced in the past. Every other time I’ve been there, I’ve encountered the worst service in the history of the word Service. This time they were friendly and attentive.
The burger itself was decent. Overcooked (which may be some kind of Meat Street Irregulars curse, we’ll see), but still a solid taste. While the rest of the crew had the #1, I made my own burger. No one was less than satisfied, but only Jon and Mike found themselves thoroughly enjoying the burger.
We were all too full from fries and huge buns to consider dessert.
And I’ll say this: eating with a crew is infinitely more fun. We will be going to all the “best” burger places in the next few weeks, even going to a few places a second time (we’re gonna try The Foundry again, at some point, see if they can cook it right on a second try), and eventually we will have a definitive answer to WHAT IS LA’S BEST BURGER??????
And now, the MSI scale:
- The Bounty: 68
- The Foundry: 93
- 25 Degrees: 89
- The Bounty: pass
- The Foundry: 8 out of 10
- 25 Degrees: 6 out of 10
- The Bounty: 0 stars
- The Foundry: 2.5 stars
- 25 Degrees: 4.5 stars
- The Bounty: C
- The Foundry: A-
- 25 Degrees: B
Next week: UMAMI BURGER
