Boston Burgers

We took a break from blogging a couple of weeks ago to host Melanie's German cousins, Ines and Kersten, over the weekend (the one before last) and to empty our pockets for Uncle Sam. The visit from Germany was a lot of fun, though relatively quiet: the girls were in transit from NYC to PEI and used the Beantown stopover to sleep late, read books and watch movies. (Sounds like the perfect weekend to me.) We'll blog about that later; first, a brief update on our gustatory and bibitory adventures.

"Adventure" might be stretching it: our fine dining experiences have been limited to sampling a few burger joints. All are better than any national franchise I've tried, but none really competes with homemade. (We cook burgers often enough at home, and I'd say that homemade is tastier than store bought as a general rule.* Burger restaurants are about convenience, not outstanding food. The ingredients are easy to come by and cooking techniques are masterable in minutes. And now that spring has sprung, or is at least making a noble attempt, I'm looking forward to grilling in the summertime!)

Uburger has two stores near my office and the gym, so it gets points for convenience. The burgers are pretty big and cooked well, the ingredients are pretty fresh, and the fries are pretty good. The standard topping variations are available (mushroom & swiss, BBQ, etc.), and for those who go low-carb, there's the surprisingly decent Uburger salad, which is basically a burger minus the bun on a bed of lettuce. I can report only two serious annoyances with Uburger: lettuce and tomato are not automatically included toppings, and both locations are overrun with high school and college students.

Mr. Bartley's in Harvard Square is good. Like most simple restaurants that manage to persist for decades, its draw seems based on reliability and nostalgia -- a plain, tasty burger and plain, tasty fries served in an atmosphere (so the fantasy goes) unchanged from the golden 60s. The burgers and fries are indeed yummy, as are their accompaniments: the lime rickeys and frappes are delicious. The variety of burger permutations is quite large, as well, totaling over twenty. Indeed, the only deviation from the standard nostalgic playbook is the regular updates of names for the burger varieties: while the Michelle Obama may be the modern counterpart of, say, the Jackie-O burger, I can't imagine what The Facebook was once titled.

The restaurant is conveniently located next door to our second or third favorite area bookstore, The Harvard Bookstore (not to be confused with the The Harvard Coop, which is not one of our favorite bookstores, though I do enjoy thumbing through the green and red volumes of their Loeb Classic Library display, not something you can do in your typical corner bookshop.), which has an excellent remainder section, essential for bibliophiles during hard times. If the line's too long at Bartley's -- and it's often stretching out the door towards the corner of the block -- you might as well browse the bookstore as you wait for the rush to pass. Crowd control and order management is highly efficient; the waits for seating and for food are rather short. The only downer is the price: lunch for two can run to $30 or $40, depending on chosen accoutrements.

And then there's Charlie's Kitchen, just around a couple of corners from Mr. Bartley's. Based on one data point, it's not particularly good. The burgers are a step and a half down from Uburger, the fries three. The waitstaff were in desperate need of direction and detox (not to say tattoo removal, but that's a pet peeve of mine), stumbling around addled and aimless, forgetting to actual wait on us. Relatively speaking, lame. And pricey: it cost just as much as Bartley's. Take a pass on this one, unless you're a Harvard faux countercultural pseudohipster (not redundant) with no place else grimy enough to hang out.

* The exception, perhaps. Certainly one of the best things about England.