BURGER DAY: Nick chows down on Houston’s American Burger.
It was a bit of a trial finding a burger last night. The plan was simple: pick up Nick (recent transplant from London), head over to The Apple Pan, an LA burger landmark.
Only, come to find after a 20 minute drive, The Apple Pan is closed on Mondays, a fact brought into stark relief by the homeless guy sleeping in the doorway when we arrived.
No problem. We’ll go to Plan B: Father’s Office, a place more than several people have recommended to me once discovering my quest to find the best LA burger.
Only, Father’s Office is both tiny & crowded, and has what the maitre ‘d calls an “open” seating system. Which basically means everyone stands around and hopes they’re close to a table when it opens up. Otherwise, it’s…heh, it’s bedlam. No rhyme or reason, just stand around, and if you’ve been waiting 40 minutes, and some guy just walks in and happens to walk in right as someone’s leaving, and he’s closer, he gets the table. Or you have to fight over it. Fuck that.
So it was back in the car for us.
Fortunately we are both grade A nerds, so all it meant was more talk about who the great directors of the day are, and if it’s really possible to get tired of talking about Batman. And how dating is a marathon, not a sprint.
So, on to Houston’s.
Only Houston’s is now a salsa club.
Wherein we began laughing hysterically, because this 80 minutes of driving has driven us INSANE.
We ended up at the other Houston’s, over in Century City.
WHERE WE SEE BILL DUKE. Love me some Bill Duke.
Oh, but anyway, burger. The Houston’s burger is quite good. They put some canadian bacon on there, only it was really just a few slices of ham, but that was still quite good. The burger was cooked just the way I liked, and the (they mention this on their menu) freshly ground chuck was indeed tasty. Shoestring fries to go along with it.
I left on the shredded lettuce (which works much better than leaves of lettuce, I say), took off the chopped onions and the tomatoes.
But. Burger was $15. Too expensive for what, in the end was only a solid burger. It didn’t excel, yet cost more than The Counter, where you get to custom design your burger with a variety of increasingly exotic toppings.
Service was excellent, though, as is my lot in life, we got the most homely waitress there.
What, I was both shallow and ravenous.
Grade: B
