Another Burger Restaurant... Really? This Better Be Good!

BURGER KITCHEN - no website
8048 W. 3rd St. Los Angeles, CA 90048
323.944.0503
8am - 11pm

You'd have to not eat food, be agoraphobic or be so into yourself and your ESPN special broadcast press conference not to notice all the burger spots that have opened in LA over the last couple of years.  It's almost obscene and most of them aren't that good.  Stout was a waste of space in my stomach.  I'm in the minority of Umami being the biggest rip off in the city.  Golden State is tasty.  Lucky Devil's is a sauce covered mess and 25 Degrees spent more time falling apart then being eaten.   Nobody is coming close to challenging burger greats like 26 Beach Cafe (Venice), Father's Office (Culver City, Santa Monica) or Wolfgang's Steakhouse (Beverly Hills).  The two newest burger spots on the scene are Burger Kitchen in the 3rd St/Fairfax area and Juicy Burger on Sunset.  Juicy Burger just opened after months and months of delays and Burger Kitchen has now been open for a few months and has seen up and down reviews but are convinced they've hit oil with their addition of Pat La Frieda Beef.

I went to Burger Kitchen before they sealed the deal with Pat La Frieda.  If you're not familiar Pat La Frieda Beef is beef from Pat La Frieda Wholesale Meat Purveyors an almost 100 year Manhattan, NY family institution.  La Frieda beef is knows for it's quality and flavor and it's in most of the famous and high end restaurants and hotels in New York.  Getting La Frieda beef outside of NY is very difficult.  A place or two in Chicago has it, but the owners of Burger Kitchen managed to become the first to bring it to LA.  Congrats, but first let's learn how to cook onion rings fully, cut jalapenos and give adequate service... Adequate?  Baby steps...horrible to great service can't happen over night.

I met a friend at Burger Kitchen for lunch about 1pm and we were two of four people in the restaurant, which doesn't scream the food is awesome.  Also it leaves little room for poor service, but that's what we got.  We sat at the table and this almost depressed looking waitress walked by us a few times before ever bring us a menu or greeting us.  It wasn't that she was ugly, she was semi good looking, we even bantered back and forth if "we'd fuck her" but neither of us could get past her mopey depressed look to actually say yes.  Finally, the owner approached introducing himself and providing menus.  He seemed nice enough, but obviously not a restaurant professional as he didn't realize that we'd been waiting and that his waitress sucked even with only two tables.  We ordered the Breakfast Burger and a BBQ Jalapeno Burger, Onion Rings and Fries.

They dropped off totally raw onion rings and broken short pieces of french fries.  The chipotle ketchup with the fries was very flavorful and the ranch with the onion rings was good too.  Too bad the onion rings were totally raw.

With raw onion rings in front of us we had lost all hope for the burgers.  The medium well Breakfast Burger came out well done, but surprisingly the meat actually had a nice flavor.  The bun however was too greasy and too air puffed to help absorb the excess juices.  Bigger issues came in the form of the BBQ Jalapeno Burger which in short showed the bush-league status of Burger Kitchen's experience and ownership.  The burger was ordered medium rare and it came out medium well, but hey, they were both medium something.  The jalapenos you'd expect to be in slices so they are spread across the entire burger.  Only makes sense.  That wasn't the case.  They simply cut the stem off, sliced it once the long way in half and laid it on the patty, so when you bite in you got an entire half of jalapeno in one bite.  I shouldn't even have to say it, slice the jalapeno.

I'll finish with this, if the food is so amazing people will come.  If the food is so unbelievable maybe you don't have to slice your jalapenos, but then again you would and if you didn't I wouldn't nitpick it cause the food is soo damn good.  If the burger was mind blowing I could ignore that it was over cooked or the bun was average, but it wasn't.  Maybe it would have been a great burger if all those things were done right.  Maybe if the service was fantastic I wouldn't have left with a sad taste in my mouth and wanted to give them another shot.  But we'll never know cause all evidence points to they don't know what they're doing.

Good Luck Pat La Frieda, I hope Burger Kitchen doesn't tarnish your good name.

-LA Food God
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