A Hamburger Today
Organique: A 'Better Burger' That's Not All That Bad
"... a preposterous statement in light of the fact that we live in a universe that has Kobe and USDA Prime beef in it."
Organique
110 E 23rd Street, New York NY 10010 (b/n Lexington and Park Ave S; map); 212-674-2229; organiqueonline.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: All-natural organic burger served on a whole wheat bun. It's far better than it should be but is still hard to recommend, given the price
Want Fries with That? They serve "air-baked" potatoes that they call fries. I didn't dare try them
Price: $7.95
I can think of no concept more abhorrent than that of a "healthy" hamburger. To try to make a burger healthier and leaner is to abrogate what a hamburger is—a highly processed and refined food. It is quite the opposite of the agrarian, organic, back-to-the-land idealism of the contemporary local-food movement. The hamburger, which began to manifest itself in the American culinary zeitgeist during the first half of the last century, is by its very nature a reflection of the post-industrial modern age. It is a physical manifestation of one of the great organizing principles of the last century—commoditization.
I am thus highly skeptical that an organic burger using grass-fed beef and a whole wheat bun could even approach what a hamburger should be, let alone actually be edible. I admit I was expecting the burger at Organique to be laughably inferior. I imagined a dry, leathery hockey puck of a patty and a completely inadequate bun. In defiance of expectations, or indeed perhaps because of them, what I ended up eating was perfectly adequate. And I say that not as a back-handed compliment but in admiration of the way Organique has turned something fundamentally anti-nutritious into something you could at least convince yourself is somewhat nourishing.
The burger at Organique comes from grass-fed Dakota beef, and the menu assures us that it has "has been university-tested and found to be more tender and flavorful than nonorganic beef" (I'm guessing they meant to say "universally"), which is a preposterous statement in light of the fact that we live in a universit—I mean universe—that has Kobe and USDA Prime beef in it.
While the Organique burger may not quite measure up to such high standards, nor even those of regular corn-fed burgers, the sirloin patty is actually quite good. It had a clean beefy flavor that I would not normally associate with grass-feeding, which often tends to give the meat a herbaceous quality. It was far juicier than most grass-fed burgers and was coarsely ground.
Cooked on a grill, it was delivered perfectly rare as ordered, although the hash marks were not as pronounced as I would have liked. Nevertheless, the patty did have a decent crust, providing a pleasing textural contrast to its tender interior. The American cheese was nicely melted, although an additional slice might have provided a better balance of flavors. The bread, whole wheat brioche, was far from ideal, with its coarse texture. But at least the strong flavor of the unprocessed grain masked any sweetness the bun might have had.
The burger comes with organic lettuce, organic tomato, and onions (apparently not organic), but I skipped them as I usually do. Consuming the burger plain provided a surprisingly familiar experience in terms of flavor profile—bold beef and tangy cheese—although the whole wheat added an unwelcome nuttiness. Texturally the bread was far too stiff and cardboardlike, forming a hard shell around the patty. Fortunately the beef managed to assert itself despite this.
Overall the burger was not as bad as it might appear on paper. If it came served on a white bun it might even have been decent, but the whole wheat bread is just wrong for the task. Another problem is that the burger costs more than $8 after tax, which I suppose is the price of environmental responsibility—or perhaps political correctness.