Restaurant: Burgette
Location: 111 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90401
Date: July 18, 2024
Cuisine: Burgers
Rating: Pricey!
This opened down the street from work, replacing Stout (a burger bar concept). It’s owned by the same people as Bar Monette next door.
The concept is “French” burgers?
They just have burgers and fries basically. It was good, but it was also about $25 for the burger itself and another $10? for the fries. woah.
Restaurant: Bill’s Burgers
Location: 14742 Oxnard St, Van Nuys, CA 91411. (818) 785-4086
Date: September 9, 2021 (and several times since)
Cuisine: Burger Shack
Rating: Great “hand made” “Big Mac”
This is an unusual stop for me!
Bill’s is a total LA institution. It’s totally a burger shack. Don’t be fooled by the building behind, it’s just that tiny shack in the parking lot.
You can’t really read the menu here, but there are just a couple basic sandwich options.
The owner here, Bill Elwell is 94 or 95! He’s been making every burger here since 1965 — which is slightly longer than I’ve been alive. The place is only open when he feels like coming into work, which is surprisingly often given his advanced years. Hopefully he keeps slinging these for some time yet.
Double cheese burger. I had them leave off the tomatoes — because well I hate tomatoes on sandwiches. It’s a really simple burger, just two thin pure beef paddies, grilled, with chopped lettuce, a bit of onion, American cheese, and some kind of “burger sauce” (ketchup and mayo based). It’s very good. Basically it’s soft and beefy and very similar to the way one remembers a Big Mac. I’ve eaten two every time I go. They take a while to get (15-20 min) even if you are off hours and longer on. So if you are a pig like me, order 2 when you go up.
As a kid (or teenager), Big Macs were probably my favorite burger type, and since this is basically a better version — way better than a current Big Mac — I really enjoyed it. I don’t actually like a thick patty and I really like American cheese on burgers.
It was actually so tasty that I did some experimentation at home making smash burgers (Bill’s isn’t really a smash burger, but not too different either).
This is my homemade smash burger. Really it’s a Oklahoma Style Grilled Onion Smash Burger — USDA Prime Beef seasoned only with Salt & Pepper, smashed on a hot iron pan with thinly sliced Onions, Kraft Singles, house-made Burger Sauce, and a Brioche Bun — one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.
Restaurant: Hank’s Pacific Palisades
Location: 1033 N Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. (310) 427-3077
Date: November 3 & December 26, 2018
Cuisine: Burger joint
Rating: Good burger, but narrow menu and expensive
I’m slowly working through all the places in the new Palisades Village.
Hank’s is right on Swarthmore, just a bit down from where the old Mort’s Deli (much missed) was. They have a nice patio. Hank’s is VERY crowded. Lines at almost all times. Probably Hank’s is the most popular because it’s the most approachable.
The build out is a bit pubby.
The menu. Sadly it’s pretty much all burgers / sandwiches. I’m okay with burgers, but I can’t eat them all that often. There is a lingering Mort’s item in the form of a Reuben.
Buffalo Cauliflower (deconstructed) (12/26/18). This is normally fried and coated with the hot sauce and blue cheese dressing but I was trying to go “low carb” and got it steamed with the sauces on the side. Pretty decent when you drenched it in sauce — although not that much cauliflower for $14.50.
Cheese Burger with bacon, sautéed onions, and American cheese. It was a good burger. Not huge though (although certainly big enough). Heavy like burger’s always are. I wasn’t totally sure if they forgot the bacon which makes me think maybe they did because I should have noticed it. Empty cheese burgers start at $15.50 and don’t include fries!
Burger Bowl with kale Caesar and added bacon and sautéed onions (12/26/18). You can get the burger on a salad instead of a bun — but as I discovered it’s only one patty instead of the two that come on the normal burger (I guess they expect women to order this) and so it ends up a bit “where’s the beef.” Pretty small patty, 1/4 pounder (uncooked). The salad was good but I did have to pile on the stuff so this was $14.50+$2+$2+$1.50 = $20 (before tax and tip). I had ordered cheese but they forgot it. They did bring it later but it was like half a slice of Craft American on plate. They could have put 2 slices on at least. Haha.
Impossible Burger and fries. My wife loves this because as a vegetarian she doesn’t get burgers out often. Fries don’t come with — but are $6.
Onion Rings ($8!!). Good rings. But $8?
Mac & Cheese. Simple and pretty good. But also $8.
The nearby Bay Theater and it’s very short very retro sign.
So far, having tried all the places in the village (even if I haven’t posted all of them as of this posting), Hank’s actually has the best execution. It’s a burger place and the burgers are really good. I’ll have to try a shake too at some point. Problem I have is that it’s pretty much all burgers and I can only eat them every so often. And it’s crowded so it takes a bit of time. I often like burgers fast casual. And prices are quite high. A burger with stuff — and that’s the only way I eat them — will easily bust $20 and that doesn’t include fries. A burger, fries, and a shake would be around $40! Yeah, that’s right!
Still, because the food is good (for what it is), I feel this is the most successful of the rather dull collection of offerings at the village. Blue Ribbon is okay too, but a touch boring. Porta Via is downright badly executed, although I have to try it again now that they’ve been running for awhile.
Restaurant: The Counter
Location: 2901 Ocean Park Boulevard Santa Monica, CA 90405. (310) 399-8383
Date: August 25, 2012
Cuisine: Burgers
Rating: Food Coma!
For some reason LA has a love affair with the burger shack. It really does. We have tons of them, and at every economic level. The Counter is one of those middle/high end attacks on the genre, offering totally custom burgers. Not only do they have a lot of options on the bun but there are relatively updated takes on the traditional “accompaniments”: shakes and fries.
The inside is both modern and harkens back to the 50s.
These are some of the special menus. The full menu is here. It includes the exhaustive burger customization grid.
“Banana Split Shake. Vanilla ice cream with stawberries, banana & caramel, topped with chocolate syrup.”
“Caramel Java Malt Milkshake.” The shake was out of this world. True, it’s not really hard to make a great shake. The secret: good ice cream and lots of it, but this one rocked. I’m still feeling it four hours later.
“The fifty-fifty: sweet potato fries and crispy onion strings.” Fries were good too. These sweet potato ones in particular.
Chipoltle, BBQ, and ranch sauces. The later two were particularly excellent in combination with the fry.
“Kids grilled cheese.”
“2/3 pound beef burger with blue cheese, bacon, and chili on a pretzel bun.” I didn’t order right. The chili on the side thing didn’t totally work for me. And I should have gone for the nice looking caramelized onions and a more goopy cheese.
Overall, this was all very tasty, but I can feel my arteries clogging. I also like Umami’s funkier take on the whole burger concept, but The Counter was good too.
Restaurant: Umamicatessen
Location: 852 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014. 213-413-UMAMI (8626). @umamiburger
Date: April 20, 2012
Cuisine: Gastro Burger
Rating: Top Burgers
UMAMIcatessen is a rather peculiar concept (albeit one that works). Grafting Umami Burger, The Cure (high end deli) and P!GG (pork oriented charcuterie) together under one roof. Not to mention E&O donuts!
The triple menu. Click here for PDF.
Truffle cheese fries. Oh my!
Onion rings and sweet potato fries. These alone would be damn good.
But we have five sauces. Homemade ketchup (this one actually is better than Heinz) and four others. Spicy, mustard, etc. All were great.
Smushed potatoes. Dutch yellow creamers, double fried with some kind of aioli.
The cure bagel. Lox, creme fraiche, onions etc. A very (very) slightly lighter high end version of the classic.
Manly burger. Beer-cheddar cheese, smoked-salt onion strings, bacon lardons. Wow!
Shrimp Burger with Yuzu-Kosho. Wild shrimp patty with japanese spices.
Ahi Tuna Burger. Hand chopped ahi tuna, crushed avocado, gingered pickles, wasabi flake.
The greenbird. Shelton farms turkey, crushed avocado, green cheese, butter lettuce, sprouts, green goddess.
And after a “light” meal like that, donuts!
Carrot cake, rum raisin, cream cheese. Pretty much like what it sounds like, a carrot cake donut!
Tres leches, cajeta, ceylon cinnamon. Yep, tasted like tres leches.
Beignets, chicory, cafe brulot, burnt sugar. The carmel alone was to die for!
The concept here of glomming together a bunch of different high end comfort food joints is kind of interesting. Basically it works as the flavors are unified by fat, plus the execution is good. It’s casual, fun, modern (not in an avant garde way). Basically jammed with flavor, so what’s to complain about?
Restaurant: Tavern [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 11648 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (310) 806-6464
Date: Dec 19, 2010
Cuisine: Market driven Californian
Rating: Not just your typical short order brunch — but better.
The weather is terrible (for LA), 58 and rainy, so brunch. Tavern has a nice glassed in patio.
And cappuccino.
The menu.
My son liked the fish and chips.
Pumpkin waffles.
The Tavern take on the east coast fish breakfast, like we had at the ThanksGavin. They substituted a chevre (fresh goat cheese) for the cream cheese. This worked extremely well, I think I’m going to try it at home.
Turkey burger.
The Tavern eggs benedict: prosciutto, frisse, brioche, Meyer lemon Hollandaise. A very good variant on the classic, only subtlety tweaked.
Carmel salt macaroon.
Check out some other Tavern meals of mine HERE, HERE, or HERE.
