A Hamburger Today- aht.seriouseats.com

Post in Progress: Burger Party Report

Posted by Adam Kuban, June 25, 2006 at 10:57 PM

It's late, I'm tired and still not feeling right after last night's party, and I need to get to bed. I'll finish the wrap-up of the Gothamist-AHT QBQ Beach Burger Bash tomorrow night after I get home from work. Until then, there's plenty of reading at the following sites: Gothamist, Off the Broiler, Sound Bites. If I'm missing your site, e-mail me (adam [at] ahamburgertoday [dot] com) with your link, and I'll add it here. If you Flickr and you have any pix, why don't you tag them with "QBQ BBQ" and we'll link to those, too. And, yes, we know it technically wasn't a "BBQ," but for the sake of expediency and all ... -- The Management

The elements were against us yesterday, but that didn't stop an army of around 200 burgerfans from storming Water Taxi Beach by land and by water.

As advertised, the Gothamist-AHT QBQ Beach Burger Bash featured five different burgers over the course of four hours, with a screening of George Motz's "Hamburger America" thown in as a very special side order. Big thanks to Harry "Hey Chef" Hawk, proprietor of Harry's LIC at Water Taxi Beach; his main griddle man, "King" Juan Carlos; all the staff of Harry's; and Mr. Motz, who worked the griddle along with Harry and Juan Carlos. The staff kept us all in burgers and

First up was the elk burger. The patties for this burger were shipped in from Idaho, frozen. I had a small chunk of a friend's, saving my own four-burger allotment for the following rounds of meaty goodness. The elk burger was interesting -- gamy and dry and a bit tough, due to its leanness and, no doubt, frozen state. Now that I've sampled it, I could probably live without eating an elk burger again.

Next up was the Motz Burger, a hamburger built to Mr. Motz's own specifications and the platform that the following three burgers would be built on. The Motz (pronounced Moatz) is a four-ounce patty of beef ground earlier in the day served with a dollop of Schnäck Sauce (a secret blend of mustard, chipotle, tomato product, and some other stuff; recipe here). The Motz is on the everyday Water Taxi Beach menu and is available there with American cheese and tomato. For some reason they weren't adding cheese or tomato to the burger event version, but it was tasty nonetheless. As Mr. Motz put it, "It's so good you don't need it!" The Motz, like the rest of the fresh-beef burgers, starts as a four-ounce meatball dropped on a very hot griddle. After a couple minutes, the ball is smashed flat then flipped to finish cooking on the other side. Also like the rest of the burgers last night, the Motz was offered rare, medium, and well-done. I had a medium, which was perfectly cooked, wiht a juicy interior and slightly crunchy exterior, thanks to the superhot griddle.

Next up was the Guber Burger, based on the house special at the Wheel Inn Drive In in Sedalia, Missouri. As should be obvs from the photo (left), the Guber Burger is slathered with a heapin' helpin' of peanut butter.

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