That's the philosophy of Mallie's Sports Grill of Southgate, Mich., and its owner, Steve Mallie. The restaurant recently became the Guinness World Record holder for the largest commerically sold burger.
The aptly named "Absolutely Ridiculous Burger" is approximately 185.6 pounds, 3 feet tall and 26 inches round, Mallie told Slashfood.
It starts with 200 pounds of uncooked, ground beef (an 80/20 blend) and ends with a patty that takes a whopping 16 hours to cook and another eight hours of resting time. The bun takes an additional eight hours. Mallie's uses a large commercial oven for baking but does have a custom-made form to mold the patty.
Out of all the fast food restaurants, Carl's Jr. probably changes -- or at least augments -- its menu the most often. There's always some newish, vaguely titillating, really-bad-for-you item advertised with a giant banner outside.
On this go round through the drive-in, the wind-fluttered photos were pushing the Mint Oreo Shake, Farmer John's Jumbo Chili Dog, Carl's Catch Fish Sandwich, Crisp Burritos and the Kentucky Bourbon Burger.
While we could have made this a multipart series entitled "Lissa Becomes Quite Hefty Indeed," I decided to restrict myself to the latter two choices, the burritos and the bourbon burger.
If I hadn't found myself contemplating how to eat a burger a myriad of times while out and about, I would've thought it was just me. But it isn't.
As a burger-loving community, we seem to have this obsession with huge, towering burgers -- even if they're ridiculously hard to eat, and usually result in each bite not having every delicious and hefty ingredient. I usually try to reign in my burger making for that precise reason. But the thing is, I usually don't think of it until I see the towering inferno of meat in front of me. Can our brains not process the heights of burgers, cheeses, veggies, and condiments?
Heck, I'm trying to watch my diet right now, and it didn't even occur to me to make the above burger thinner until I saw it all done up. It's like the meat gods have implanted a wall in which no rational anti-meat thought can get over until its too late. But at least it's a tasty weakness. A delicious and juicy tasty weakness.
The above burger is delectable ground bison, with a mixture of cheeses, a lightly sauteed tomato, and a ringed slice of caramelized onion.
Carl's Jr. continues its eternal variations upon the cheeseburger with the guacamole bacon burger. One of their more successful efforts (I still recall my disappointment with the brilliant-in-concept Teriyaki burger and I continue to vacillate on the matter of the Western Bacon Burger.), it has appeared on the menu before. Now, however, it's being offered in single, double and six-dollar variations, with the size reflected in the price.
I went for the latter (Hey, if you're gonna indluge in the drive-thru, indulge in the drive-thru). and found it to be a darn sight better than the average fast food burger. The patty was thick and juicy, the guacamole was pleasantly spicy and the bacon was actually of a quality and amount to enhance the burger, rather than detract from it, like most fast-food bacon-on-burgers.
The guacamole bacon burger was named the official burger of last month's 2008 California Avocado Festival and it's a pretty solid choice. It also makes me consider what other high-end flavors I'd like to see on my low-end burgers. The grilled pineapple on the aforementioned Teriyaki burger raised my hopes, the the execution was distressingly bland. Mushroom Swiss burgers have been tried with varying degress of success, although the chili burgers are usually not terribly enticing. Toppings like brie, caramaleized red onions, roasted tomatoes or any lettuce beyond iceberg is probably out of range. Still, it'll give you something to mull over next time you're waiting at the window for your extra ketchup.
Even before the plummeting economy bred the trend toward downscaling, the idea of the burger joint as a gourment restaurant was popular. However, it's hit Las Vegas in a big way, with two casinos introducing their high-end take on the American classic--BLT and LBS. I guess this initial thing is in fashion now too....
The Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser is so big that it looks like it might eat Brad Sciullo. Nonetheless the 21-year-old chef from Uniontown, Pa., took down the 15-pound burger along with 5 pounds of toppings in four hours and 39 minutes. For his efforts the 5-foot-11, 180-pound received $400, three T-shirts, a certificate and what the owner of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub calls "a burger hangover."
Sciullo is the first person to ever successfully eat this outlandishly huge burger within the 5-hour time limit. The colossal cheeseburger was dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish. Four hours and 39 minutes is a glacial pace compared with the people on the International Federation of Competitive Eaters circuit. The IFOCE is all about speed.
I'm guessing that Sciullo might spend a good 4 hours in the bathroom after eating that much ground beef. At least the chef doesn't have to face any burgers when he returns to work. He works at an Italian restaurant called Pasta Lorenzo's in Uniontown.
Check out GD for tons of food-related info...it's amazing how often the topics of environment and food overlap, especially as farmers explore greener methods and more food goes organic.
NYC's Board of Health attempted last year to pass a measure that forced fast food joints to post calorie counts on their menu boards, right where people could see them (and, I guess, be horrified by them and run screaming from the restaurant. Or...something. Not quite sure what the city's goal was).
At any rate, a judge struck down the measure, so now they're back to where they started. But they're not giving up on trying to hoard their mighty caloric knowledge on the citizens of New York! By golly, they will succeed in getting people to acknowledge the 600 calories in that Premium Crispy Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich they're eating! And then the Board of Health officials will sleep soundly at night, feeling virtuous that they have single-handedly handled the "obesity epidemic." Right?
For the record, Burger King and McDonald's already make this information available (it took me half a minute to find how many calories were in that Chicken McWhatever listed above), they just don't advertise it like the marquee outside of Radio City. Currently, if the city's restaurants want to display their food's nutritional info, they are more than welcome to.
And I mean, really, how many people nowadays don't know that fast food is bad for them? I highly doubt that prominently displaying caloric information will make people who have already walked through a eatery's doors gawk at the fat content and walk out of the store in a huff. I mean, if I want a cookie, I'm eating the cookie knowing that it's bad for me (and even secretly reveling in that fact).
If enacted, the regulation will go into effect March 31. So, until then, we can remain uneducated, bumbling masses. Sound good?
Doesn't this guy know that it's Burger King where you can "have it your way?"
A man in South Carolina has sued McDonald's after going into one of the establishments and ordering two hamburgers without cheese. Well, he got cheese on them, and it turns out he's allergic to cheese. He's suing for $10 million.
Now, the guy says he almost died (his medical bills were $700, which McDonald's said they would pay but they were turned down), and he's suing because of the reaction he had to the cheese and because his family "risked their lives" to rush him to the emergency room.
If you're wondering why he didn't see the cheese before he bit into the hamburger is because he ate it in a darkened room.
Before anyone ever heard of Harold, much less Kumar, before the invention of the Crave campaign, before the word Slyder was trademarked I was a teenage White Castle worker. On this last day of National Hamburger Month I'd like to share my memories of working at America's oldest hamburger chain, as well as my thoughts on its present state of affairs.
I started working at White Castle during my senior year in high school. I'd eaten their burgers with my folks as a kid and had enjoyed their "restorative" effects after drinking with my buddies. We used to call the tasty little suckers "White Crapples." When one opened in my neighborhood, I figured what the hell, and applied for a job. After management determined I had a pulse and some level of manual dexterity, however minimal, I was hired.
Back then the uniform was slightly different than it is today. I remember wearing a brown shirt and a baseball cap. All burger cooking was done in clear view. To the left of the register, customers watched their square patties being steam-grilled. I still remember the time a Little League team ordered 100 burgers. Instead of letting the line back up, we opened another station and got to work.
Once after blowing a joint with my co-worker Max, the burgers on my flat top started burning. As I stared into space, he sounded the alarm by screaming, "Bang your head" at me. He averted disaster by ladling onion water onto my griddle. Back then there was no shortage of onion water, since we used dehydrated onions. Small dust clouds would form as we poured dried diced onion into stainless buckets before adding water.
Yes, I know this is the second massive meat-laden burger in a row, but it's nowhere nearly as excessive as yesterday's. Today's Hamburger of the Day is the Ghetto Burger from Ann's Snack Bar in Atlanta, Ga. The Ghetto Burger is to burgers as a Katz's pastrami sandwich is to any other pastrami sandwich, that is to say some who dare call themselves gourmands wind up wrapping half of the thing to take home.
The Ghetto Burger, as you can probably make out is a double cheeseburgerwith bacon. I have ignored the the "salad" on top. But what of that errant pile oozing out of the right side of this megaburger? It's not ground beef, well, at least not ground beef from the patty, it's chili! Did I forget to mention that the whole thing gets a hearty shake of seasoned salt and left a Wall Street Journal reporter swooning?
Today's Burger of the Day comes from Rouge, a highly acclaimed New American bistro in Philadelphia. Cathy over at Gastronomy had the pleasure of splitting one of these with a friend recently. It bears pointing out that this bad was ranked No. 4 on Alan Richman's list of 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die. As you can see from the pic, this hefty specimen is topped with Gruyère, under which lurk some tasty caramelized onions. But what did Cathy think? She describes her first bite as "beefy heaven," and goes on to praise the gargantuan patty's moistness. There are some who say that such an outsized burger stretches the very definition of the word "hamburger" to absurd limits. As for me, I know what the next meal I'm having in Philly is, that is of course after I down a Tony Luke's roast pork Italian.
I love Krispy Kremes, bacon and burgers, too, but I've never tasted the abomination, er, delicacy, pictured here. But only because until today, I didn't know any place nearby to sample this artery-clogging, waist-broadening wonder. After all, I ate a hot, unglazed Krispy Kreme for an article I wrote about the company years ago. I wouldn't recommend it. Talk about heart-stopping.
If I lived anywhere near a certain minor league baseball park or was friends with a certain R&B vocalist, I'd surely have tried one of these things by now. This miracle of modern griddle work is now being served at Google's New York City cafeteria. Now all I need to do is find a good cardiologist and get a job with Google.