That Has to Be a Record

After an evening of new beers and a delicious sandwich at Parish Cafe, obviously Saturday night had to be a burger night at R.F. O'Sullivan. And after an afternoon of drinking mojitos, it was going to be a burger night without its usual accompanying Newcastle. That's probably a good thing, as the last time I had one there, it was a bit past its prime. Just a Sprite for me, thanks.

I broke with the normal tradition of the top notch Blackjack Burger by going with its closest competitor, the JD Burger. I think that makes 2 straight trips without the Blackjack, so I suppose that next time I'll have to get it. I was just in the mood for something with barbecue sauce, and it seemed like the JD was the only one that had it.

Um, I also forgot to take a picture. Well, not really. I remembered after I picked it up, at which point it was too late. Once you get one of these beasts in your hand, putting it down almost always results in disaster. Sorry about that. I know how much you look forward to my awesome photography.

On the plus side, I ordered it with tomato and onion but no lettuce, and it came with tomato and onion but no lettuce! It was also a perfect medium rare. Obviously they have the A-Team working on Saturday night. I would say my only issue was that part of the burger had lots of delicious BBQ sauce, but one section was sauceless. I need my sauce!!

And speaking of Saturday nights, this had to be the emptiest I've ever seen this place on the weekend. I think the only time it was more deserted was that time Bill and I went after I picked him up at the airport, and we arrived at 11am that day. Having a zero wait time on a Saturday night was just weird. I think we were in and out of there in 50 minutes. Good times.

-Jon

It's April's Theme!

This makes 2 consecutive burgers with food hidden inside the burger. Last time it was onions, and this time it was bacon. I frequently find that with a bacon cheeseburger, the bacon is very difficult to keep on top of the burger. Putting it inside the burger seems like the perfect solution.

After a cold day of track and field on Saturday, I turned in early in preparation for a much less cold day of volleyball in Cambridge today. And since Cambridge is right next to Somerville, it offered a nice opportunity to have a delicious cheeseburger for dinner with Alex and Erica. In a testament to the awesomeness of driving in the metro area, the place I was officiating was 2.5 miles from Alex and Erica's apartment, but it still took me about 20 minutes of travel time. At that pace, a guy could run the Boston Marathon before I could travel the same distance by car. Eastern Massachusetts is ridiculous.

In accordance with Erica's wishes, we went to R.F. O'Sullivan's for dinner, and I got something called the Bacon-ATTOR. I don't know why the last part was in all caps, and I definitely don't know why it needed two T's. As shown in the picture below, I got it with tomato and onion. Not shown in the picture is the fact that I actually only received tomato because my onions were on Erica's burger. Also not shown is that they forgot all of Alex's toppings. Clearly they had put in the bench players for the Sunday performance.

The good news is that the Bacon-ATTOR is delicious, especially with American cheese. I can safely put it on the recommended list of burgers, which is starting to get pretty long. Oh well. I would say that it's better to have too many good burgers than not enough.

-Jon

This Might Be Something New

It is possible that the last time I went to R.F. O'Sullivan's fine burger establishment was in 2010. That's a little bit sad.

Fortunately, tonight offered another chance to eat a deliciously huge ball of meat since Alex's friends Adam and Jess were in town and have never been there. Obviously he is a bad host. That sad situation has since been rectified, and I even tried possibly a brand new burger. However, I am starting to think that I have had this burger before. This is quite the conundrum.

Whether it's new or not, I ordered the Out of the Blu Burger, which is both stuffed with blue cheese and has blue cheese on top. It's recommended by the owner (who is a crazy person) to try it with bacon, so I did. I don't want to mess with crazy people. For once, I ordered it with tomato and onion and actually got tomato and onion! Sorry lettuce, you just aren't that great. Check this thing out!

You can ignore those Coronas in the background because Corona is gross and they're obviously not mine. Focus on the ridiculous size of this burger! And those massive "fries," which are just giant potato wedges served at the temperature of molten lava. Still tasty though.

To give you an idea of the cheesiness of the burger, I tried to get a picture with the cheese oozing out. Unfortunately, it just looks like the burger is bleeding white blood. But the burger is cooked properly, so it's got that going for it. Which is nice.

That brings today's list of positive things up to: ate a delicious burger, worked a fun volleyball tournament, drank some beers. And in the negative column: drove way too many miles and might have destroyed the inside of my foot. Unless feet are supposed to be puffy, purple, and 150° to the touch. Stupid feet.

-Jon

In Which I Mix Things Up

Since we didn't do the requisite R.F. O'Sullivan trip on Saturday, our Sunday lunch plans were pretty much set in stone. We couldn't let Erica's friends leave town without having arguably the best burgers in the state. That would just be terrible. The only question was when were we going to go over there. It turns out that 2:00 is a good time if you actually want a seat. I should mark this down for the future.

Since everyone is probably expecting that I will be talking about the Blackjack burger here, the next sentence may come as a bit of a surprise. I ordered the JD Burger instead! I don't want this thing to become too predictable, so I had to mix it up a little. And it was a good choice.

The JD Burger is a very close second to the Blackjack Burger in terms of Massachusetts Burger Greatness. If you don't like spicy stuff and can't handle the pure awesomeness of the Blackjack, you could probably order this burger and walk away fully satisfied. It's got some kick-ass BBQ sauce and cheese along with some standard burger toppings if you want them. Apparently you have to be very specific, because I ordered mine with tomato and onion, but I got this instead.

Call me crazy, but I am almost positive that tomato is not leafy and green. At least I got a bajillion onions, so I wasn't shortchanged there. And the burger was cooked perfectly. Check out all that sweet, sweet burger juice on the plate. That's what you're looking for in a burger. And that sauce was just great. I am surprised that I didn't know how awesome burgers with BBQ sauce were until recently. I guess you really do learn something new everyday.

-Jon

Let's See What I Can Remember

I am back on my bad streak of forgetting to take pictures of my burgers. Good thing I'm not getting paid for this, or else I might get fired from my own blog. That would be ironic.

The first burger of the day was surprisingly not from RF O'Sullivan. That is probably coming tomorrow, so just relax for a little. Change isn't that scary. Well it is for me, but you are more normal.

After my delightful evening at Foxwoods, I was off to Boston for a party. I met up with Alex and company (Erica and her friends Joe and Brenda) during their tour of the Freedom Trail, and we all went to Bell in Hand Tavern for lunch. I decided on the Sam Adams Burger (because anything else would have made me disappointed in myself) and sweet potato fries (because I thought it would be funny to mix things up). It had BBQ sauce, which I certainly hope had Sam Adams as an ingredient, bacon and probably swiss cheese. Or cheddar cheese with holes in it. What is this, Mmmm, Cheese? It was definitely cheese, so let's leave it at that.

What a delightful burger! That BBQ sauce was fantastic, and covered up the flavor of whatever cheese happened to be there. Sadly, this means that there is no easy way to figure out what cheese it actually was. If this thing ever hits the big time, I will have to be slightly more meticulous in my burger documentation. There was also an awesome pickle, which makes me feel worse about the ones I make. Obviously mine still need work. I can't be passing off second-rate pickles on people. The sweet potato fries weren't so good. They were super soggy, which isn't a good quality for fries. I ate them all anyway because I am a champion, and that's what champions do. In your face, crappy fries!!

Post-burger, we wandered around a little more and then eventually caught a taxi back to Alex's because that much walking is unhealthy. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense that the more I walk around, the more likely I am to get hit by a car. We had a few beers, played some Guitar Hero, drank a few more beers and then headed out to the first SWC party that I've attended in a long time. I really don't want to type this, but in the interest of full disclosure I have to say that the theme of the party was Jersey Shore. It's so painful to admit that. I even got my Jersey Shore douche on and rocked a faux-hawk and popped collar. It was a real emotional punch in the crotch. I already have less faith in myself, so you don't need to remind me of this tragedy.

I actually ate another burger at the party, which was one of those surprise burgers that I didn't know was coming. Hooray! Surprise burgers are great!! I went with a burger, which was not one of those pre-frozen abominations, some cheese, tomato, onion and some kind of BBQ sauce that I forgot to identify. It was really good though. I know it definitely had a very elaborate name, but I doubt that knowing that fact would be enough to pick some up at a store. At any rate, the burger ended up being one of the higher quality barbecue burgers I've had in recent memory. Unfortunately, I've been drinking for an extended period of time and my recent memory has been severely compromised. That means that the burger could have been really crappy, and just been better than what I'm used to. That's sad. Oh well; those are the kind of results you get when I eat a lot of burgers in a short period of time while also consuming several alcoholic beverages.

Did I talk about both burgers yet? Hopefully I did, because I am done writing at this point. I hope this post is at least sort of entertaining. Or not. It's all good.

-Jon

Back From France

You may have noticed a conspicuous lack of cheeseburgers being eaten in the past couple weeks. This is due to the fact that I was in France, and the cheeseburgers in France are a sin against nature. France does a lot of things well. Croissants? Check. Wine? Double check. Cheese? Check. Getting eliminated from the World Cup in fairly hilarious manners? Check. But burgers are just not on the list. I learned that lesson the hard way back in 2008, so there was no chance that I would be eating them until my triumphant return to the USA.

Thankfully, even though it's Independence Day, RF O'Sullivan's was open! Blackjack burger, here I come!!

Yeah, that's what burger eating is all about. Blackened burger, blackjack sauce, tomato and raw onions. Burger eating doesn't get better than that in Massachusetts, Food Network be damned. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I have 5 fries there. Yes, five. That actually added up to be more than one potato. These weren't even fries now that I think about it. They were enormous potato wedges with a hint of fried outside. And they were served at the temperature of molten lava. You would think that I would have learned by now that the fries are always served somewhere between molten lava hot and surface of the sun hot, but I just don't. I am pretty sure that you could take them home and heat your house for the weekend.

The burger was as delicious as I remember it. Nice and rare, a little spicy, and the size of my head. Can't beat it.

Alex also had the Blackjack, Kathryn tried the Creamy Blue Cheese Burger (that one looked pretty good AND had bacon, so I may have to try it), Erica had the Black & Blue Burger (been there, done that), Catherine had the JD Burger (highly recommended by Alex, but he can't rank it above the Blackjack) and Martanda had the Honey Bee Burger (never had it, but it's got a funny name). There is also a decent chance that I misspelled Martanda's name. Sorry dude! However, in burger terms, everyone wins!

Also, that Newcastle was a lot better than the one I got last time. Maybe they ordered new ones. Plus it's much bigger than your standard Newcastle, which is nice. I think I might have to go buy some beer today, as France is also not known for their beer production and I've been drinking wine for the last 10 days.

PS - Alex may tell you that I was messed up on Dramamine and decided to sing all the not-so-straight songs that came on the radio on the way home from the airport, like the Cranberries and Bryan Adams and Kelly Clarkson. This is a lie. It was Michael Bolton, not Bryan Adams.

-Jon

That Was a Fun Day

Since we got the tickets way back in November, I have been pretty excited about the Mark Knopfler concert for a much longer time than is probably safe. Finally, the big day arrived, roughly 6 months after Kathryn got the tickets and we got our free copy of Get Lucky.

The concert was over at the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods, so we decided that it would be even more fun if we met up with Scott & Amy and Alex & Erica beforehand. This turned into a barbecue that I was unaware of ahead of time, and that turned into surprise burgers!

Scott came up with some kind of crazy concoction for the meat that started with a bunch of diced up vegetables (mushrooms, green peppers and onions), the huge hunks of burger, and then "Burger Seasoning." I believe this may be the same seasoning that was previously documented at a different cookout hosted by Scott and Amy. Those beasts looked something like this:

I am not sure if you can pick up on the enormity of them from the pictures, but they were massive. Maybe this one will give you a better idea of what was going on.

And yes, I ate 2 of them.

After that, it was time to lock up the pups in pug jail and head over to Foxwoods. Side note - I am not a fan of the new road system around Foxwoods, which causes me to freak out unnecessarily and frequently end up going in the wrong direction. Stupid Foxwoods.

Did you know that the MGM Grand and the normal Foxwoods are not connected to each other by any kind of walkway and are actually quite far apart? I know that now. It is a good thing that we arrived with ample time before the show and are excellent Foxwoods navigators, because we got the shuttle and arrived at the MGM way before concert time. In fact, there was plenty of time for us to wander the slot machines and find out that the one Kathryn likes is apparently very popular.

The show was awesome. Not so much the girl who opened, because she kept using the word beautiful over and over and played music that was a little too country for me. I may be imagining the second part though, as the guy who accompanied her had a cowboy hat on, which means I was going to hear country music no matter what he played. However, the Mark Knopfler part was fantastic. The only negative was that he did not wear a headband or wrist bands or a sports coat with weird pants, but his voice was exactly the same as I remember it from those old CDs. It was kind of weird, but it really crushed my memories of 1980s Dire Straits. I hope that Tom Petty doesn't do the same thing in August.

-Jon

This Is Not a Surprising Revelation

I did a lot of things today. I went to PD. I drew 4 more panels for the Cupcake Saga (which means people need to get off my back for a couple days). I made 3 ridiculous mini-books, one of which would probably get me fired. I officiated a volleyball game. I went candlepin bowling. And all of that means nothing because this is a blog completely dedicated to cheeseburgers, which means all of these stories are not related to our main focus.

All of that was just some distraction stuff because I ate a Blackjack Burger tonight, and it's widely known (by all 4 of my readers) that the Blackjack Burger is the ultimate burger at this point in time. Basically that means that I don't really have anything to say about it, unless you want me to start a new blog exclusively about Blackjack Burgers. Is the world really ready for Mmmm, Blackjack Burgers? You know what, don't even answer. It's not happening. That's just as ridiculous of a suggestion as Mmmm, Burritos. Which I have also already considered today. I am going to pimp the shit out of this Mmmm, [Plural Noun] idea. Maybe one of them will pay off and end my working career.

The short version of this post is that today's Blackjack Burger was excellent, but not as excellent as previous Blackjack Burgers. There was also the opportunity to meet RF himself (he's called Sully by the employees). Except apparently he's a creeper, so maybe it's a good thing that we didn't meet him and end up as lampshades in some guy's creepy apartment.

This is what the Greatest Burger So Far looks like. Notice the sauce, which is made of 95% deliciousness and 5% spiciness. Also, those aren't fries. They are like gigantic potato wedges masquerading as fries. You can see them behind the onion rings that I didn't order but got anyways.

I also drank way more beer than I am currently capable of drinking at the present, so that may explain the rambling in this post. That, or I am trying to keep the post length up. I am not even sure.

-Jon

Much As I Expected

Although last night failed to deliver a burger (because we had gigantic burritos instead), today there was no question about what lunch would be. We bravely adventured the whole 200 yards through rain and puddles to make it over to R.F. O'Sullivan for a delicious meal.

After last night's crazy Carnival party (which involved rocking out pretty hardcore to I'm On a Boat and dominating some fools in Beirut/Pong), we had all intentions of having breakfast but instead decided to just wait until a more appropriate lunch time. Not that I wouldn't eat a burger for breakfast, as evidenced by a previous tale. Catherine showed up sometime around 11 I think and had to wait until Erica's roommate Jess could make it over on the T. She got lost. This cost us valuable eating time, but luckily Guitar Hero was able to hold us over until she got reoriented.

Good thing the Blackjack burger is so amazingly fantastic, because that was the worst Newcastle I have ever had. I think the 08 that I found on the bottle was probably the date it was good until, because I was highly disappointed in that beer. The burger itself was still as great as I remember, so the meal itself was a good time. Except that Jess ruined her burger by ordering it well done. What is wrong with people?

-Jon

That Was a Wet Evening

Never one to turn down a gift, I gladly accepted Chuck's offer of a pair of Red Sox tickets that he couldn't use. Kathryn was also more than willing to take a free game. Unfortunately, the weather was quite threatening as we headed down the Mass Pike, so we had some concerns about how much use we would get out of them.

We decided to forego the bus because if there was a major rain delay, the bus would not be leaving until the game was officially called. Instead, we decided to drive to Somerville first and have a burger with Alex and Erica. At this point, there was not really much rain, but the signs of future rain were apparent.

The four of us headed over to R.F. O'Sullivan, and, surprisingly, were able to immediately get a table. It looks like 5:30 on Saturday is not a busy time. Since I went for the Black & Blue Burger last time (see previous post I believe), it was time to go back to the Blackjack Burger. Good choice. It was equally delicious as previous editions of said burger. Plus this is one of the few places that will give you a rare burger. I know I have said that before, but I think it's important to bring up every time. Maybe other places could learn a thing or two from my eloquent words.

Possibly even more impressive than the burger was the fact that Kathryn finished her entire burger. These things are roughly the size of her normal sized head. And thus about half the size of my oversized melon.

After the burger, we walked down to the T-Station and headed for Fenway. Once we arrived at Kenmore, we were a little concerned because it was already 7:30 and, as it was not raining, we thought we had missed a few innings.

Boy were we wrong. Not only did we not miss anything, but the game didn't start until 9:14. A slightly more than 2-hour delay during which it rained for a total of 7 minutes. Seven minutes!!! At least the grounds crew kept things interesting by continually fooling around with the tarp and making the entire crowd think the game was about to start. Let's put it this way. During a real rain-delay at Fenway, the entire front section of the stadium is empty. During this delay, every person was still in their seats. So ridiculous.

By the time the 5th inning ended, the Sox were up by a ton and it was starting to rain again. We decided (along with about 13,981 other people) that it was time to go and took the T back to Porter Square. Of course, by this point it had stopped raining again, and we decided to walk instead of calling Alex for a ride.

Big mistake.

We made it about halfway before the sky opened up on us. By the time we got to Alex's apartment, it looked like I had just gotten out of the shower.

But the Sox won, and I did get a burger. I am still calling the night a win.

-Jon

It's Been Too Long

I don't even remember when the last time I had an R.F. O'Sullivan burger was. I mean, obviously I could look back and figure it out, but that is not going to happen after the number of "sodas" I have consumed at the present. Basically, it's been far too long.

It's pretty much a mini-RPI reunion here at Alex's apartment, which is much smaller than it should be for this number of people. Also, there is currently a dog on my bed. Well, air-mattress.

But I digress.

We went to R.F. O'Sullivan (and Son) for dinner, because that just has to happen. It's literally around the corner. Not going would be a crime against. . . burgers? I am not sure. A crime against someone anyway. Scott and Amy were my ride, so we arrived, drank some #9s, and headed over to meet Erica at the Church of Burgers. After a long wait (like 26 minutes), we got our table and menus, which were completely unnecessary. All 5 of us got various versions of the Blackjack Burger, which, if you recall, is currently the reigning burger champion. Also, we got more beer (I mean soda), which was probably not needed. At least some of it was Summer Ale.

The burger was as delicious as I remember, which is great since a lot of the time things end up being crappy when you try them again later. Like the movie Mighty Ducks? Remember that movie? Watch it again, and you will be incredibly disappointed.

Alright, I should probably end at this point. If the post doesn't make sense, we will just blame it on the fact that I am in quite a bit of pain after dropping a 60-lb weight on my foot this morning. That or the booze. Take your pick.

Editor's note - It is now the next night, and that dog ended up ruining a good night of sleep for at least 3 people. And I still have very little idea what I was trying to convey when I typed this up the first time. Apologies for that. I will (not) try harder in the future.

-Jon

A First

In what I believe is a first for me, today I ate a burger which was specifically designed to make it on any future top 10 lists that I may put up here.  I feel kind of special.

Since I was invited to a Memorial Day barbecue that was rumoured to have cheeseburgers, I threw out my original plan of not going to a barbecue and replaced it with a plan of definitely attending a barbecue.  This turned out to be a good decision.

Erica's roommate Kelly was determined to not only make the blog (which is obviously going to happen if there is a burger eaten) but to get her burger noticed.  Well, wish granted.  She not only made some homemade patties from ground beef instead of frozen stuff (hey, that is impressive stuff for a barbecue), there were 3 different choices for burgers!  I ended up going for the bacon & blue cheese burger, which had bacon and blue cheese inside the meat!  There were also tomatoes in there.  Apparently that is a popular thing to do out in Eastern Mass.  Who knew?  Additionally, there was bacon to go on top of the burger along with some pepperjack cheese (which may be my new favorite cheese).  And to make it even more awesome, the cheese was melted over the bacon so it couldn't escape.  There were also tomatoes and onions to go under the burger as well.

Looks like I am going to have to try harder from now on at my own house.

-Jon

Homemade Boursin Burgers

It would appear that every year, the Harpoon Brewery celebrates St. Patrick's Day a bit early, and this year that would be on March 6th.  The entry fee is a bit steep ($20), but, hypothetically, if your friend knows one of the beer pourers, you can easily make this fee back, and then some.  Which is exactly what happened, because Alex knew one of the pourers and we ended up drinking about way too much beer for the low, low price of nothing.

The downside to this is that we ended up a bit too drunk a bit too early, but had high hopes of making it back to Somerville before R.F. O'Sullivan closed.  And we nearly did it.  Except we were 2 minutes late.  Two minutes!!!  Faster walking, an earlier train, the shuttle leaving earlier. . . some tiny combination of events would have gotten us those delicious burgers!  Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Except that Alex is a problem solver.  And he had burgers at his apartment.  And some crazy cheese called "boursin."  Maybe it was the extreme intoxication, or maybe it was because we hadn't eaten in like 12 hours, but those burgers were fantastic.  And messy.  I actually made a bib out of paper towels, both because of the messiness and my inability to focus on the task at hand of eating a burger neatly.

The next day, R.F. O'Sullivan will be visited, but for that night, homemade burgers rule!

-Jon

Fourth Time's the Charm

Probably my favorite place that I currently know of for burgers is R.F. O'Sullivan & Son in Somerville, located in one of the more sketchy parts of Somerville. How can you tell the level of sketchiness? There is a Star Market across the street. If you don't know that Star Market is about as sketchy a grocery store as you can find, you have lead a sheltered life. And that's coming from a townie.

R.F. O'Sullivan is the tiniest imaginable restaurant. And that's unfortunate because they have some of the greatest burgers around. These burgers are huge. Like half a pound huge. Each one is approximately one quarter of the space in the restaurant, which is why it was so difficult to acquire one this weekend.

Now, the tale of failure that preceded our burgers is one that is too sad and painful to related, but the short version is that after 3 attempts to get burgers on Sunday evening, we were forced to return to Alex's kitchen and cook our own. Well, Alex cooked them; the rest of us sat on the couch.

But there is a happy ending!! Monday we made a final attempt at giant burger-y goodness and were handsomely rewarded for our efforts. Alex, Erica, Leah and I went just after noon for lunch burgers, and got the 2nd to last available table. And it's a good thing we went then, because about 20 minutes later the place was completely packed and people were waiting in the entrance, just dreaming about the burgers they could not yet eat and tortured by everyone else's burgers as they were carried past. I think I may have seen one man break down in tears.

I went for the Swissroom Burger, with some sauteed onions and a tomato on it. And it was amazing, as it always is. I suspect I could eat one every day and still feel the same excitement until I exploded in a burger filled mess. It's that good. Possibly the Greatest Burger Ever? Only time will tell. . .

-Jon