Ben Rates Burgers in Chicago with Elizabeth and Michel

So this weekend, my brother, Ben, came to visit for his graduation present.  Among other things, we hit some of the big sights:

The U-Boat at The Museum of Science and Industry

 Ben is too tall for the submarine bunk

Along with the Transportation Exhibit and the kind of creepy Main Street of Yesterday

 This isn't creepy at all...

Marmalade and Gene's Rooftop (our first time to the rooftop as well)

 Ben's first Marmalade!

My peach French toast!

 At Gene's

 Cheddar sausage and saurkraut

and Koval Distillery (more on that in a later post).

However, there were two meals that deserve particular mention.  The first was an appetizer, rather than a full meal: the fried mac and cheese balls at Fountainhead.

Michel: I would like to note that I do not approve of the needless abbreviation of the word, "macaroni".

Elizabeth:  That's what it was called on the menu.

Michel:  That doesn't make it right.

Elizabeth: Anyway, Fountainhead is doing their own version of Chopped among the assistant chefs, each presenting an appetizer on a specific night with the clientele voting for their favorites.  The top 4 from the first round compete next week in a Final Four tournament to determine the best new appetizer amongst Cleetus's chefs.  (Cleetus is the head chef.)  We tried the fried mac and cheese balls, and they were delicious.

Michel:  They were good.  I would have preferred more actual cheese as opposed to cheese sauce.

Elizabeth:  Agreed.  If they make that change, though, the appetizer is a keeper.  We really had fun filling out our voting card with our feedback.  We now understand the power the judges on Chopped must feel.  Complete, unbridled power. 

The main purpose of this post, however, is to describe the Epic Burger Showdown that occurred at Chef's Burger Bistro.  A shout out to Kelsey for specifically requesting that we visit Chef's Burger Bistro and blog about it so she could live vicariously through us after hearing about a very special burger on NPR.

That burger is the B50: a burger patty that is 50% beef and 50% bacon with a fried egg on top.

Of course we were happy to oblige.

We arrived planning to order the B50 and two other burgers to put the B50 to the taste test.  I ordered the Chicago Magazine award-winning Paris Burger, a 1/3 pound beef burger with onion jam, mushrooms, melted brie, candied tomatoes, and frisee.  Ben chose the BBQ burger, a burger topped with BBQ sauce, cheddar, and, of course, brisket.  Michel went for the B50.

 Super excited for our burgers

The BBQ Burger

Elizabeth: Ben's burger had great flavor with a slightly sweet, slightly spicy BBQ sauce.  Ben reported the brisket as being fine but nothing spectacular.  In fact, he pulled the brisket off after it started to slip out of the bun.  Needless to say, it was quite messy.  I did enjoy my bite, though.

Michel:  As did I.  I'm a big proponent of the practice of adding meat to meat. 

Elizabeth's vote: 6/10--solid BBQ burger
Michel's vote: 7/10


The Paris Burger

Elizabeth:  Delicious!!!  I LOVED the onion jam and mushrooms, and the candied tomato was tasty if interesting.  The burger itself was nice and juicy.  My only complaints were that there was not enough cheese as the brie seemed to have practically melted away, and the frisee was basically weeds, so I pulled that off.

Michel: I really liked it.  It was very good.  Probably my second favorite burger of the three.  I particularly liked the onion jam and mushrooms.

Elizabeth:  Onion jam and mushrooms make everything better.

Elizabeth's vote: 8/10
Michel's vote: 8/10


And now the moment you all, or at least Kelsey, have been waiting for...


The B50

Michel:  Incorporating the bacon into the patty creates a subtler yet still delicious bacon flavor.  Adding a fried egg to the burger gave the whole thing the feel of an especially good breakfast sandwich.  With that in mind, my only suggestion to the good folks at Chef's Burger Bistro would be to add maple somehow to this burger.  That would make it even more of an all-time great.

Elizabeth:  I really liked it, too, though I preferred my burger.  I liked how the bacon flavor melded with the beef flavor rather than being in-your-face bacon-y.  I did not get any egg in my bite, so I can't speak to the merits of this burger as it relates to memories of your favorite breakfast sandwich, but I do agree that maple would be a good addition.  As with onion jam and mushrooms, maple makes everything better.

Michel's vote: 9/10
Elizabeth's vote: 7/10


Michel:  For our next burger rating, we'll go to Rockit Burger Bar to combine both food varieties featured in this post, as Rockit has a burger that instead of a bun features two circles of fried macaroni and cheese.

Elizabeth:  It's the Mac and Cheese Attack! 

Michel:  Macaroni and Cheese Attack-aroni.