Hotelburgers.com

This review is borrowed from Mark at www.248am.com.

“I’ve got a thing for hotel burgers. I guess its because burgers are the safest thing on the menu to have when traveling, because no matter what country you’re in, you order a burger and you know exactly what to expect. Now I don’t want to review all the hotel burgers in Kuwait, so I decided to go with the one hotel that has never disappointed with its food, the Sheraton in Kuwait City. I wanted to see if it had the best burger.

The Sheraton only has one burger on the menu and I ordered it medium well. When the burger arrived, I think around 15 minutes later, I was surprised to see that instead of one large burger, the dish was made up of two medium-sized ones. They’re too big to be sliders, but too small to be a regular burger - a strange size, but I didn’t care.

The burger had cheese, tomato, chopped lettuce and what looked like mayonnaise; I added ketchup and took my first bite. The beef tasted really fantastic and was cooked perfectly even though it was pretty thick. The only problem was everything else.

The bread started falling apart halfway through because it was getting really soggy, and that made it very messy to eat. For the second burger, I decided to remove the tomato with hopes of solving that problem, but still, halfway through the bread started getting soggy and falling apart again.

I concluded it must have been from the mayonnaise, but I didn’t have a third burger to try my theory.

The cheese, although there and melted beautifully, was nearly non-existant taste-wise. I think the cheese slices used are too thin, resulting in better melting, but not having enough presence to actually make a difference.

Still, I think the Sheraton burger is the best hotel burger I’ve had. But outside the hotel circle the burger doesn’t shine. I’m going to have to give a 3 out of 5, a very respectable score.”

The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta recently debuted the bar/cafe menu items of five varieties of Kobe beef burgers by chef Arnaud Berthelier, ranging from a $16 classic bacon cheeseburger to a $65 deluxe version, outfitted with foie gras, black truffles and aged Comte cheese.

I’ll take four of the former instead of one of the latter, thank you very much…

I mean, $16 isn’t that bad for a luxury hotel burger, especially a Kobe beef version. Why would anyone order the deluxe?

So this past weekend I drove to Akron for a family gathering, and took up residence at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn for two nights. However, with the hotel’s various funky smells, eating at Beau’s Grill was not very high on my list of things to do…

So rather than order a roomservice burger, I journeyed just a few blocks down Market Street to the semi-famous drive-in known as Swenson’s.

(Actually, I went to Swenson’s twice over the weekend–let’s just say the other food I ate in Akron left something to be desired)

Here I was able to enjoy a sweet and delicious drive-in “hamburg” as they call them, loaded up with everything, including grilled onions.

I also tried the Galley Boy (a double cheeseburger with two special sauces), which I wasn’t as crazy about. Still, I would highly advise checking out Swenson’s versus trying a burger at the smelly Hilton Akron.

Where can you get this beefy morsel of deliciousness?

For a limited time only (through Friday, 10/24), during lunch, at David Burke’s Primehouse at The James Chicago.

The newly launched 40-day dry-aged burger is being rolled out this week, and for this week only, the half-pound burger, regularly $15, costs just five bucks.

Five bucks for an 8-ounce hunk of meat aged for 40 days in the restaurant’s basement-level salt-tiled aging room? As Homer Simpson would say, “Mmmm… burger.”

BTW, as you can see from the photo, the burger is topped with some cooked garlic spinach and fried onions, and sits on a potato bun glazed with some smoked-bacon mayonnaise. Yummy.

While you’re there, pick up some truffled and asiago-dusted fries for another $5.

In light of Orient-Express Hotels’ plans to develop a 150-room luxury hotel that will connect to the company’s iconic 21 Club restaurant in Manhattan, I thought I would share the recipe for the “21″ Burger, which comes from Chef Erik Blauberg:

Ingredients:

Top sirloin and sirloin strip, ground (12 ounces)
Herb-and-spice blend, including rosemary, parsley and thyme (pinch)
Egg (1)
Minced onion (1 tablespoon)
Rendered duck fat (1/2 teaspoon)
Canola oil (1 teaspoon)
Sourdough roll (1)

Directions:

Combine ground beef, herb-and-spice blend, egg, onion and duck fat and form into patty. Brush burger with canola oil before placing on grill. Grill to desired doneness.

“21” serves its burger with sides of oven-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, sautéed green beans and choice of potato (potatoes soufflé or french fries are the most popular).

At Hotel Concorde La Fayette in Paris, Chef Laurent Belijar, who has long been interested in politics, has created two specialty burgers with the U.S. presidential candidates in mind.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama is represented by the Hawaiian-themed “O-Burger,” which celebrates Honolulu, his birthplace. It consists of curried burger loaf with pineapple carpaccio and a mix of coriander-flavored shrimp.

Republican John McCain is represented by the Southwestern-flavored “Elephant Burger,” paying tribute to his party’s symbol and his Southwest heritage. The burger is tomato-flavored and mixed with grilled lamb and guacamole, and is served with tomato salsa and nachos.

Guests and diners at the hotel bar can try the burgers and cast their votes, with the results to be revealed on Election Day.

Burger King plans to open anywhere from six to 20 Whopper Bar restaurants worldwide over the next year and a half, with the first to open in February 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Prices may be higher at the trendy, smaller footprint, smaller menu restaurants, which are designed for space-crunched areas such as airports, casinos or train stations, the paper says.

Which of course begs the question: Are hotels on the list as well?

No details on that yet, but beer may be added to the Whopper Bar menu, the paper reports.

LBS: A Burger Joint, is set to open in 11 days at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.

The new burger spot, according to a press release, “will reinvent the classic American burger joint by offering home-style items prepared in an environmentally-friendly fashion with organic, artisanal ingredients.”

So who’s behind this? Billy Richardson is the owner and creator, and Chef Anthony Meidenbauer, formerly of Wynn Las Vegas, heads up the culinary side.

The chef’s signature? Homemade pickles in a variety of styles, including friend ‘bread n butter’ pickles.

As for the burgers, Premiere Meat Co. will supply the restaurant with 18-21 day dry-aged, all-natural burgers, ground fresh daily.

So Bobby Flay is now 7 weeks into operation of his suburban NYC fast-casual burger joint. Reports tout $60K sales weeks and future growth thanks to a $5 million loan from GE Capital. But will that growth include a hotel location?

No word on that yet, but here’s what is known: Flay’s burgers are 6-ounce certified Angus patties, offered in 10 regional profiles. Among them are burgers named for Dallas, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Miami, Santa Fe, L.A. and Napa Valley. Prices range from $6.50 for a classic cheeseburger to $7.50 for the regional specialties.

The burgers are cooked on a griddle to retain their juiciness, and sides include crinkle cut French fries, hot potato chips with a blue cheese sauce and beer battered onion rings.

Sounds pretty tasty… and for even more good news, BBP offers beer! Homer would be proud.

When ordering a burger, everyone has his/her favorite combination of toppings. But are burger-lovers stumped when it comes to what beverage order with their burgers?

Apparently Morton’s the Steakhouse (which has a new location planned in Miami Beach near the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels) believes so, as the restaurant chain has come out with “the best beverage pairings to balance the flavor components and intensity of the most popular combinations of modifiers” of burgers.

Um, what? Well, whatever, here’s the list:

Blue cheese, bacon, grilled onions and mayonnaise: Heavy tannic wine

All of these modifiers offer their own unique, robust flavors that work in tandem to create a mouthful of excellence. A big, full-bodied wine such as a Marchesi di Barolo, Cannubi Vineyard, Piedmont brings all these flavors together.

Swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce and ketchup: Light wine

A light wine such as a Ponzi Vineyards Pinot Noir, Willamette, offers a refreshing balance to the flavors of rich meat and the acidity of the tomato and ketchup.

Cheddar cheese, raw onion, lettuce and mustard: Spicy wine

This modifier combination requires a wine that offers both a balance to the heat of the raw onion and the acidity of the mustard, but also will not overpower the compilation of the wine. Wines with peppery components and a full-mouth feel tie everything together, enhancing both the burger and the beverage. Try the M. Chapoutier, La Bernardine, Chateauneuf-du-Pape.