A Hamburger Today
My Baby Blues BBQ in West Hollywood
"Considering how overwrought this restaurant's design is, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised that its burger is a highly constructed affair."
Baby Blues BBQ
7953 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90046 (map); 323-656-1277; babyblueswh.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: This robust barbecue joint simulation misses the mark with its overwrought burger
Want Fries with That? No, thanks. Skinny cut, mixed with sweet potato, and bathed in seasoning, they aren't worth the toll. An easy pass
Prices: The Lasker Burger, $11.50
Notes: A super friendly atmosphere certainly argues for the trip
Here in Los Angeles, we've some of the finest examples of just about every cuisine imaginable with some unimaginable exceptions. First, and most tragically, we lack a robust (or even defensible) pizza culture. I've lived here for over a decade and just mentioning it makes me sad, so let's move on. The gastronomic gap that is germane to today's (burger) discussion is serious barbecue. While there are many contenders, I've yet to find that one that brings me back for the brisket. That said, a number of them do a serviceable job with their cue, and—as one might predict—serve a pretty good burger.
It seems fair to expect a tasty burger from a serious barbecue restaurant. The obsessive and meticulous preparation, the felicitous hewing to tradition, and, of course, the love and respect paid to the meat should mean a good burger is a good bet. I understand that, for the dedicated BBQ-ers, hamburgers shouldn't share the same sentence as, say, brisket, let alone the same menu, so perhaps I should amend my original statement: If a serious barbecue spot throws a burger on their menu, it's fair for me to throw some expectations back at it.
Baby Blues BBQ recently opened a third location in West Hollywood and its reputation and my expectation led me there for lunch. The budding restaurant chain itself is little more than a toddler, and with this most recent outpost of Baby Blues being basically a newborn at five weeks, it's fair to expect a few wobbles. That said, when you put a legendary picture of the legendary Johnny Cash on your wall and serve a burger with its own name, you better be ready to grow up fast.
Baby Blues has built a strong following since first opening in Venice, California, a few years back. It has received a fair amount of press and shout outs on the Internet. All this has added up to the kind of success that can seduce restaurateurs into excess. One is great, but two would mean twice the money! (My family is all too familiar with this impulse.) So was born this huge outpost on Santa Monica Boulevard.
The interior of this West Hollywood location would do a regular Hollywood production designer proud. Distressed wood, mismatched chairs, and cluttered walls make the act of suspending disbelief an easy one. Sitting back and taking it all in, I'm struck by how old and weathered this brand new construction manages to look.
The menu is a full of all of the barbecue standards and sides, but I'm looking for a burger. I find it listed under the name The Lasker. It claims to be ten ounces of prime chuck ground with bleu cheese and maple bacon, then topped with lincolnberry mustard. It reads like a mouthful, but not necessarily a tasty one. Those are a lot of different ingredients to balance, but I'm up for the high wire act. I order mine medium rare with a side of fries.
The burger arrives on a plastic plate with a thick slice of tomato and an oddly large leaf of lettuce. There's already enough going on inside my patty so I opt to try this one without the salad. This is a reasonably attractive burger, but the purple lincolnberry mustard is frightfully, um, purple. Fortune favors the bold—I dig in.
My initial impression is that all those different ingredients don't seem readily identifiable. I'd thought there would be a flavor deathmatch in my mouth—bleu cheese vs. bacon, lincolnberry vs. beef—but the result is oddly calm. There is a strong taste of scallion and garlic, but the bleu cheese and bacon aren't really stepping forward. The lincolnberry mustard is sweet and not much else.
The first few bites leave me with the uncanny sensation that I've had this taste before, but it wasn't a burger. Then it hits me: The additional flavors (and very fine grind) have turned my meat into meatloaf. Once I identify the flavor, it's all I can think of. While I enjoy a nice meatloaf preparation from time to time, it seems ill-suited to a burger. Bold? To be sure. Fortunate? Less so.
The bun is passable, but the Kaiser-esque texture seems better suited to the pulled pork or brisket options on the menu. The char is satisfyingly severe and when I spy the enviable grill set up, I see why. But ultimately, that hit of carbon is just a faint reminder of what I'd hoped my burger to be. The burger is cooked as close to properly as these additional ingredients will allow, but it seems lost on this patty. I don't really worry about the temperature to which my meatloaf is cooked.
The mixture of sweet and regular potato, thin cut fries suffer a similar fate, as the complementary possibility of the two tubers is lost under a deluge of seasoned salt. A few bites are all I can handle. Even the cornbread tastes overdone. An addition of creamed corn is meant insure moistness, but in my portion just tastes oily.
It's surprising that a restaurant dedicated to a cooking technique designed to foreground the intrinsic qualities of meat should so thoroughly background it in their burger. Then again, considering how overwrought this restaurant's design is, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised that its burger is a highly constructed affair.
I take a look at the walls in the bar area and enjoy a few nice selections. Broadway Joe and his fur coat, Johnny Cash and his bird. Heck, Johnny cut his teeth playing in the kind of place this is modeled after. The staff is—to the one—friendly and welcoming. I don't usually respond to the theme-park feel of these kinds of restaurants, but Baby Blues seems like a nice place to have a beer. I just wish they had a good burger to go with it.