[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

My search for a good burger in Philadelphia hasn't gone too well. Admittedly, I've only been to five places—Good Dog, Monk's, Royale Tavern, National Mechanics, and SquareBurger—and while none of them was bad, none was so good as to inspire spasms of delight.

During my last visit to Philadelphia, I made my first trip into Northern Liberties to eat dinner at Standard Tap, highly recommended by many AHT readers. Alas, still no delight spasms, but it was so far the best burger I've had in the city, and if the weather's nice you can take advantage of the pleasant second story patio seating like I did. Innards shot after the jump.

The Standard Burger consists of a 7-ounce grilled patty topped with an overflowing blanket of melted Monterey jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms, mildly charred onions, lettuce, and tomato, with pickles on the side. My medium rare patty was moist, although not juice-oozing, and was well seasoned with a nice smoky flavor. The fairly loose grind gave a nice texture, but a little more char would've been nice. The soft, toasted bun was a bit denser than I preferred, but maybe that was necessary for it to stand up to all the stuff inside it.

Great crispy, salty, skinny fries filled up any space left in my stomach that wasn't already filled with burger, which wasn't much. I kept eating them until I thought my belly was going to explode.

I think I may have expected too much out of this burger, but for $10 it's a good deal. Maybe I'm missing something from my burger experience because I don't drink beer, something Standard Tap has much of.

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